Michael Scheuer Quotes & Sayings

“It's not a choice between war and peace. It's a choice between war and endless war. It's not appeasement. I think it's better even to call it American self-interest.”

“Until we respect bin Laden, we are going to die in numbers that are probably unnecessary.”

“We are tangled in a very significant Islamic insurgency in Iraq.”

“Bin Laden does reprehensible activities, and we should surely take care of that by killing him as soon as we can. But he's not an irrational man. He's a very worthy enemy. He's an enemy to worry about.”

“One of the great intellectual failures of the American intelligence community, and especially the counterterrorism community, is to assume if someone hasn't attacked us, it's because he can't or because we've defeated him.”

“Most dramatically, and perhaps least noticed, is the violence inside Saudi Arabia itself.”

“'The war in Iraq - if Osama was a Christian - it's the Christmas present he never would have expected.”

“Without the connotation good or bad, bin Laden's a great man in the sense that he's influenced the course of history.”

“I think Mr. Clarke had a tendency to interfere too much with the activities of the CIA, and our leadership at the senior level let him interfere too much. So criticism from him I kind of wear as a badge of honor.”

“I'm much better informed than Mr. Clarke ever was about the nature of the intelligence that was available again Osama bin Laden and which was consistently denigrated by himself and Mr. Tenet.”