Dennis C. Blair

All officers of the Intelligence Community, and especially its most senior officer, must conduct themselves in a manner that earns and retains the public trust. The American people are uncomfortable with government activities that do not take place in the open, subject to public scrutiny and review. ”

High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa'ida organization that was attacking this country. ”

Before 9/11 there were weak procedures, willingness, and mechanisms for communicating among agencies for foreign intelligence and the FBI with its focus on law enforcement. The domestic-vs.-foreign barrier has been solved by the reforms after 9/11 that established the DNI. ”

Nothing is more important to national security and the making and conduct of good policy than timely, accurate, and relevant intelligence. Nothing is more critical to accurate and relevant intelligence than independent analysis. ”

My experience is the White House is not a very good place to coordinate intelligence, much less to integrate it. ”

The use of large-scale military force in volatile regions of underdeveloped countries is difficult to do right, has major unintended consequences and rarely turns out to be quick, effective, controlled and short lived. ”

I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past, but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given. ”

I think you can go back in history and look at what the effect in Asia and the world was of a divided, fractured China from, you know, the opium wars through the Chinese civil war, and I don't think it was pretty for Asia or the world. ”

I know it sounds Pollyannish and 'Kumbaya'-like, but I find that the more that you expose Americans to the diversity of what's going on in China and vice versa, the more people find that there is this broad middle path. And so I'm a strong advocate of intense visits and dialogue back and forth. ”

As is often the case when things are complicated, extreme views have superficial appeal. On the one extreme, some see China as an inevitable enemy that must be contained; on the other hand, there are those who see China as a slowly developing democracy that can be embraced. ”