Gina Haspel Quotes

Gina Haspel

Profession : Public Servant

Birth : October 1, 1956

In carrying out every aspect of our work, CIA officers are guided by a professional ethos that is the sum of our abiding principles, core values, and highest aspirations. These include service, integrity, excellence, courage, teamwork, and stewardship. Sacrifice, too, is an inescapable part of our mission.

Gina Haspel

My childhood overseas instilled in me an appreciation for foreign languages and cultures, but also a deep understanding of the vital role of American leadership in confronting aggression abroad.

Gina Haspel

Intelligence services all over the world, in order to retain their competitive edge, have to adapt or they won't survive.

Gina Haspel

CIA has learned some tough lessons, especially when asked to tackle missions that fall outside our expertise.

Gina Haspel

We want our men and women to be closely attuned to the cultures in which they operate and to speak the local language.

Gina Haspel

Hostile states' use of proxies in war zones to inflict damage on U.S. interests and troops is a constant, longstanding concern.

Gina Haspel

As I look back on my first year as Director, I am more in awe of the men and women at CIA than ever before.

Gina Haspel

I would not allow CIA to undertake activity that is immoral, even if it is technically legal.

Gina Haspel

When developing intelligence assessments, initial tactical reports often require additional collection and validation.

Gina Haspel

We try and be as open as we can, and to protect the secrets that we must protect.

Gina Haspel

Within the Intelligence Community, CIA is the keeper of the human intelligence mission. Technical forms of collection are vital, but a good human source is unique and can deliver decisive intelligence on our adversaries' secrets - even their intent.

Gina Haspel

Because of what happened on 9/11, a lot of our resources, our money and our people were dedicated to the terrorism fight.

Gina Haspel

If we cannot share aspects of our secret work with the public, we should do so with their elected representatives. For CIA oversight is a vital link to the open society we defend. It's a defining feature of the U.S. intelligence community and one of the many things that distinguishes us from the hostile services we face in the field.

Gina Haspel

I think it is important to recall the context of those challenging times immediately following 9/11. For me, I had just returned to Washington from an overseas posting and I reported for duty on the morning of 9/11. I knew in my gut when I saw the video of the first plane hitting the tower in Manhattan that it was bin Laden.

Gina Haspel

A lot has changed since I first arrived at CIA, but our mission remains as relevant and important as ever. And this is what makes our officers excited to come to work each morning, including me.

Gina Haspel

We must learn from the past, but we cannot dwell in the past.

Gina Haspel

My moral compass is strong.

Gina Haspel

As both a career intelligence officer and as an American citizen, I am a strong believer in the importance of oversight. Simply put, experience has taught us that CIA cannot be effective without the people's trust, and we cannot hope to earn that trust without the accountability that comes with Congressional oversight.

Gina Haspel

I was born in Kentucky and, while my family has deep roots there, I was an Air Force brat, and we followed my father to postings all over the world.

Gina Haspel

I excelled in finding and acquiring secret information that I obtained in brush passes, dead drops, or in meetings in dusty alleys of third world capitals.

Gina Haspel