The first week in intelligence school, you learn there are only two conditions in life. There is policy success, or there is intel failure. There is no other condition in life.

The history of the intelligence community is replete with violations of the trust of the American people.

The Russians are bent on establishing both a presence in the Western Hemisphere, and they're looking for opportunities to expand military cooperation: sell equipment, air bases, as well as intelligence gathering facilities.

Failure is success if we learn from it.

The country of Iraq is somewhat of an artificial creation going back to colonial days. And so you have the Kurds and then the Sunnis in the north predominantly and Shias in the south.

If ISIL were to substantially increase the priority it places on attacking the West rather than fighting to maintain and expand territorial control, then the group's access to radicalized Westerners who have fought in Syria and Iraq would provide a pool of operatives who potentially have access to the United States and other Western countries.