The Best General Starkey Quotes

[looking at the images of the virus outbreak]
Gen. Starkey: Look at that. It killed 'em in a hurry down there. Telemetry reports suggest that even the ones that managed to get their respirators on died within 12 minutes after exposure. The rest were gone in less than five. Do you believe that?
Maj. Jalbert: Do I have a choice?
Gen. Starkey: No. Apparently none of us do. This 'Project Blue', it's nothing but a souped up version of the flu. Herbert Denninger of the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, the Pentagon's bright boy of the week, says that once we find Campion, we'll only know if it's going to jump to the outside. He says the virus will probably mutate as it passes from person to person, but that's not gonna help the people who catch it.
Maj. Jalbert: Sir, I have information that...
Gen. Starkey: [interrupting] It'll just take 'em longer to die, that's all. Most people that get infected with this thing are gonna think they have the plain old non-lethal flu... right up to the very end, and that's the biggest break we've had so far. Now it's loose out there all because a gate malfunctioned and some idiot, glorified TV repairman grabbed his family and ran for the hills. What I'd like to do more than anything else is get that coward and...
Maj. Jalbert: Sir, we found him. We located Campion. He crash-landed late last night at a gas station on the outskirts of a one-stoplight town in east Texas.
Gen. Starkey: He made it halfway across the country in only 12 hours? How the hell did he do that?
Maj. Jalbert: I don't know. But right now, we have a shot at containing this.
Gen. Starkey: Is he alive or dead?
Maj. Jalbert: He's dead.
Gen. Starkey: Oh my God. Denninger says that this stuff has a communicability level of 99.4%! You know what that means? Any chance we had at containing by the book went out the window when Campion stopped to buy gas or his first take-out hamburger!
Maj. Jalbert: We can't think that way, General.
Gen. Starkey: Well... you're right, I guess not. What about the rest of his family? His wife and baby daughter?
Maj. Jalbert: They're dead, sir. Contact with townspeople was minimal.
Gen. Starkey: That doesn't matter. We've got to shut that town down, lock it up, dig a moat around it.
Maj. Jalbert: That operation is already on the launching pad, sir.
Gen. Starkey: Good. What kind of cover did you come up with?
Maj. Jalbert: Anthrax. A new strain.
Gen. Starkey: [laughs] Yeah, it's very new! It's real good at its job.
Maj. Jalbert: It's bad General, but it could be worse.
Gen. Starkey: [scoffs] Yeah? How so?

Gen. Starkey: I don't know how many times I have to say this but this so-called "superflu" does... not... exist!
Reporter: [voice] Then what is it? Why are people talking about it?
Gen. Starkey: I don't know why people are talking about it. I don't know where the rumors are coming from. It must be from somebody's imagination. I don't know why I'm up here answering questions I don't have the answer to. There is NO superflu virus!

Maj. Jalbert: We have a rather large problem in Wyoming, sir.
Gen. Starkey: What large problem is that?
Maj. Jalbert: A TV news team got out of the small town of Pine Bluff with some potentially damaging videotape, sir.
Gen. Starkey: Flu victims? Body dumps?
Maj. Jalbert: A little of both... and our ops I'm told.
Gen. Starkey: Well... we can't have that. Showing that footage would not be in the national interests of this country!
Maj. Jalbert: No, sir. It's not.
Gen. Starkey: Do we know where this news team is right now?
Maj. Jalbert: Yes, sir.
Gen. Starkey: Then do what it takes. Get that videotape and destroy it. Do whatever you have to do.