Politics Or Ideology Must Not Get In

I'm The First Secretary Of Defense That's Had To Deal With Sequestration. I've Prepared Two Budgets That Deal With Sequestration. And You Bring The Chiefs Together, The Leadership Of This Enterprise Together, To Work Through, How Do We Then Take These Cuts? Where Do We Apply Those Cuts? Readiness Is The First Thing That Suffers.

This Current Government In Iraq Has Never Fulfilled The Commitments It Made To Form A Unity Government With The Kurds, The Sunnis And The Shia. We Have Worked Hard With Them Within The Confines Of Our Ability To Do That But We Can't Dictate To Them.

If We Have To Continue To Live Under Sequestration, It Will Have A Maximum Impact On Our Ability To Fulfill The President's Strategic Guidance. We Can't Do It All. It's As Simple As That, With The Limitations Of The Budget As Severe As They Are. These Deep, Abrupt Cuts Have Forced Us To Make Decisions That Are Not In The Interest Of America.

Bogging Down Large Armies In Historically Complex, Dangerous Areas Ends In Disaster.

I Don't Think It's A Matter Of Going Back And Having A Review Of Our Process. Our Process Is About As Thorough As There Can Be. Is It Imperfect? Yes. Is There Risk? Yes, But We Start With The Fact That We Have An American That's Being Held Hostage And That American's Life Is In Danger And That's Where We Start. And Then We Proceed From There.