Sunday Sound: Heard on 'This Week'

WASHINGTON, D.C. APRIL, 29, 2012— -- Below are some of the notable comments made Sunday on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

John Brennan

1) BRENNAN: We are vigilant throughout the course of the year, but on a day that marks the one year anniversary of bin Laden being brought to justice, we are especially vigilant. At this time we don't see any active plot that is underway, but we are maintaining our guard. We are following every lead. There always are reports about Al Qaida trying to penetrate our defenses. But at this point, our counterterrorism professionals are doing their job, both here in the United States we well as abroad.

2) BRENNAN: Aviation has been a target -- has been a traditional target of Al Qaida. They continue to do that. 9/11 obviously they used aircraft as weapons. So we need to maintain our vigilance, clearly overseas at these last points of departure and making sure that we're doing everything that we can to work with our -- our partners internationally to -- to protect the traveling public.

3) BRENNAN: Their capability has been degraded significantly. We have taken off the battlefield the founding leader as well as other leading operatives. We have degraded their infrastructure. Their capability to train. Their capability to deploy operatives. So their capability has been degraded. Our defenses have increased. But that doesn't mean we can rest. And we're not going to rest until Al Qaida the organization is destroyed and is eliminated from areas in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Africa and other areas. We're determined to do that.

4) STEPHANOPOULOS: Can you say one year out how much difference killing bin Laden made?

BRENNAN: I think it made a tremendous difference. It's taken away the founding leader of that organization who was symbolic -- a symbol of Al Qaida's sort of murderous agenda worldwide. And so, that has had I think a profound impact on the organization. And Mr. Zawahiri, who is his successor, is somebody who doesn't have the same sort of institutional support. He doesn't have the same charisma.

5) BRENNAN: Well, what I said was that over a period of time before my public remarks that we had no information about a single civilian, a noncombatant being killed. Unfortunately, in war, there are casualties, including among the civilian population. We've done everything possible in Afghanistan and other areas to reduce any risk to that civilian population. Unfortunately, Al Qaida burrows within these areas, you know, safe havens as well as areas where there are civilians, but we've been very, very judicious in working with our partners to try to be surgical in terms of addressing those terrorist threats. And the president has told us, we want to make sure that we protect the American people. And unfortunately, sometimes you have to take life to save lives, and that's what we've been able to do to prevent these individual terrorists from carrying out their murderous attacks.

"America's Economic Recovery: Is It Built to Last?" Panel

Panelists included: Carly Fiorina (former CEO of Hewlett-Packard and co-chair of Mitt Romney's California campaign), Jennifer Granholm (former Michigan governor and host of Current TV's "The War Room"), Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist), Eric Schmidt (executive chairman and former CEO of Google), David Walker (former Comptroller General and Founder and CEO of the Comeback America Initiative), and George Will (ABC News commentator and Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist).