James Woolsey
James Woolsey
Robert James Woolsey Jr.is a national security and energy specialist and former Director of Central Intelligence who headed the Central Intelligence Agency from February 5, 1993 until January 10, 1995. A lawyer by training and trade, he held a variety of government positions in the 1970s and 1980s, including as Under Secretary of the Navy from 1977 to 1979, and was involved in treaty negotiations with the Soviet Union for five years in the 1980s. His career also included time...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPublic Servant
Date of Birth21 September 1941
CountryUnited States of America
If you own a chemical plant and leak a little benzene, you're in big trouble because everyone knows how carcinogenic it is. But coming out of a tailpipe? The government never does anything about that.
As we move toward a new Middle East, ... over the years and, I think, over the decades to come ... we will make a lot of people very nervous.
A single well-designed attack could send oil to well over $100 a barrel and devastate the world's economy. Oil dependence today creates serious and pressing dangers for the U.S. and other oil-importing nations.
France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them. If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them.
The world -- and not just the United States -- has a problem with depending on the Middle East, and not just the Saudis, for such a large oil share, which creates a problem because of the instability in the area.
As we move toward a new Middle East, over the years and, I think, over the decades to come, we will make a lot of people very nervous.
It's as if we were fighting with dragon for some 45 years and slew the dragon and then found ourselves in a jungle full of a number of poisonous snakes.
had to do with coordination of intelligence in the United States.
One of the generals, I think, said yesterday that over 90 percent of the attacks that occurred in the country, including those outside the Sunni triangle, are coming from within that Sunni triangle. It's there that I think they really have to win the war.
They are looking hard for technology to get leverage with their conventional forces and to move more quickly than they have been able to in the past into the world of computers, electronics and so on.
You can't expect the insurance industry to do something out of the goodness of its heart. But you might be able to combine incentives ... and regulation in a way that still lets the market work.
For anyone who believes that this is purely a commercial undertaking, unrelated to a national strategy of domination of energy markets and of the western Pacific, I would suggest that that view is extraordinarily naive.
This is an issue for people's pocketbooks as well as the economy and national security.
Well, just as the Supreme Court follows the election returns, you can bet that the bureaucracy does as well.