Under Secretary Charles Allen delivered these remarks in Washington, DC

Under Secretary Allen. Mr. Murray, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to speak to you this morning on the maritime threat to the global supply chain. Maritime security is a topic important not only to the Department of Homeland Security, but to everyone in this room, and indeed in this country. Our purpose today is to find ways to work together to improve our ability to warn of threats to the United States. Our common purpose is to keep the nation safe. Thomas Jefferson recognized this great calling when he noted that for all Americans “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” Today we follow in his footsteps confronting the 21st century threats to our security— threats that I view as very serious. The world in certain ways has grown darker. As an individual who has labored long in the crosscurrents and eddies of the muddy waters of intelligence and spent a considerable portion of that time working warning issues, I am acutely aware of both the importance and the challenges for threat warning and threat assessment. My own experience with the topic of maritime security began with the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro by four members of the Palestinian Liberation Front. At that time, our focus was on the impact that event had on Israeli-Palestinian relations. We failed to perceive this act as the precursor of what has become a significant threat to our maritime-based supply chain. And we must remember that the terrorists who were captured at Sigonella, Italy, did not originally intend to hijack the Achille Lauro.

You know better than I the importance of the maritime component of our global supply chain. The National Strategy for Maritime Security captures this best:

“In today's economy, the oceans have increased importance, allowing all countries to participate in the global marketplace. More than 80 percent of the world's trade travels by water and forges a global maritime link. About half the world's trade by value and 90 percent of the general cargo, are transported in containers. Shipping is the heart of the global economy …”

According to a United Nations assessment, container traffic will grow from 192 million TEU (twenty foot equivalent units) in 2005 to 492 million TEU in 2015. This is an average increase of 9.5 percent per year. Container shipments into U.S. ports are massive. In 2006, more than 31 million containers entered ports in New York and New Jersey, and almost 14 million arrived in Savannah and Seattle. Even in my home state of North Carolina, nearly a million containers entered the port of Wilmington. This activity is clearly the engine that drives not only our economy, but the global economy as well. Disruption of this complex, sophisticated, efficient system would wreak havoc on our nation and deeply affect the global economy. To borrow from a recent book by Steve Flynn, we are on 'The Edge of Disaster.'

Two of the scenarios that Flynn presents are worth mentioning briefly to highlight the significance of supply chain disruptions. He describes potential terrorist attacks on shipping; the first involves liquid natural gas (LNG) deliveries to Boston Harbor and the second is sinking a large ship to block the channel to the port of Los Angeles. Both of these scenarios draw attention to the impact to the supply chain that terrorist attacks could potentially achieve. In each case, it is not just the immediate impact on the loss of LNG in New England, or the blockage of the shipping channel in Los Angeles. It is the broader impact of the loss of electric power and other secondary effects in Boston, and the impact of gasoline supplies on the auto dependent economy of southern California that truly demonstrate the impact of such attacks on the entire supply chain. Economic losses from these events could result in billions of dollars per day. Given the complex nature of justin-time deliveries from global suppliers and low inventories to reduce costs, the potential economic disruptions could be massive.

My primary concern is the threats that could affect maritime security and have an impact on the homeland. Of most concern, in terms of consequence, is the introduction of a weapon of mass destruction into the homeland through our ports and harbors. While we currently assess that al Qa'ida lacks a WMD capability, it is equally clear that they intend to obtain this capability and would not hesitate to employ such a device should they obtain one. Since terrorists lack a missile delivery capability for such weapons, our concern is their use of the supply chain to deliver a device directly and employ it in a major city. Such an attack has been justified by radical cleric Shayk al-Fahd in the following chilling terms: “…if those engaged in jihad establish that the evil of the infidels can be repelled only by attacking them at night with weapons of mass destruction, they may be used even if they annihilate the infidels.”

As you are well aware, the Department and its components have implemented a number of initiatives to better secure the supply chain, including DHS, CBP and ICE inspectors working with their counterparts in foreign ports to screen containers and to identify high-risk shipments, which are then subjected to nonintrusive inspection using large scale X-rays and radiation detectors. Our partnership with those of you in the private sector is critical to the success of these efforts, which have been most comprehensively addressed in the Strategy to Enhance Global Supply Chain Security (July 2007). These efforts seek to balance carefully the needs of security with the need to maintain global commerce and increased confidence in both the safety and timely arrival of goods and people.

It is not just the potential for WMD that is a threat to the maritime security, however. As I mentioned earlier, my focus on this problem began in 1985 with the Achille Lauro hijacking. Since then, a variety of terrorism events have demonstrated the potential for seaborne attacks to impact various aspects of the maritime supply chain. In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, there were a series of ferry hijackings designed to highlight terrorist causes or to undermine the tourist economy. These included the Chechen seizure of a Turkish ferry on the Black Sea and al-Gama al Islamiyaa targeting of Nile River passenger boats. In 2004, the Abu Sayaf Group bombed the Philippine “Superferry 14,” killing 116—the most deadly attack to date.

Terrorists have also used maritime attacks to achieve economic effects. The 2002 bombing by a small boat with 220-440 lbs of TNT of the M/V Limberg off the coast of Mulkalla, Yemen resulted in one crewman killed and 50,000 tons of oil being spilled in surrounding waters. In April 2004, suicide attacks by al Qa'ida operatives closed two offshore oil terminals for two days and cost $40 million in repairs.

Fortunately, all these attacks occurred far from our shores and were not catastrophic. But they provide examples of what terrorist organizations can achieve with very modest capabilities. Over the 20 plus years that I have been working on terrorism issues, these types of attacks have spread from the eastern Mediterranean to the Arabian Gulf and Red Sea to the Philippine Sea. I remember painfully the attack on the USS Cole on 12 October 2000. This raises my concern regarding the possibility that one day, maritime attacks will reach our shores. And not just by foreign-based operatives. Of increasing concern to me and the Department are homegrown extremists.

To date, we have been very fortunate that the homegrown extremists we have apprehended, the Fort Dix conspirators and the John F. Kennedy airport plotters, have lacked expertise and demonstrated poor operational security. Consequently they were identified and arrested before they could launch their attacks. We are not likely to benefit from this carelessness forever.

In this regard, I highlight the importance of the Transportation Worker Identification Credential and REAL ID programs in providing secure identification for those with access to our ports facilities, whether that access is via ship, rail, or road. Being able to separate those with legitimate business from those who do not is a key step in providing useful suspicious incident reporting that could reflect preattack surveillance, planning, or rehearsals.

For example, following the bombing of the USS Cole, we in the intelligence community and the FBI reconstructed the planning and preparation by Abdul al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the al Qa'ida mastermind of the attacks. Two factors stand out for our discussion today:

1. 1. Target surveillance gleaned the critical information that the refueling window for U.S. warships was four hours, the time available to conduct the attack.

2. 2. A rehearsal vastly improves the chances of success. On their first attempt on the USS The Sullivans, the attack vessel was overloaded with explosives and sank after leaving the dock.

The types of activities that could reflect preattack surveillance, planning, or actual rehearsals are the essentials of warning intelligence. It is my hope that in your deliberations later today you develop an understanding of the importance of this information and the reliance that we place on our state, local, and private sector partners to provide support in this important area.

While my remarks have thus far focused on foreign and homegrown Islamic terrorists, I would be remiss in not identifying other potential actors that may have impacts on maritime security. These include drug and alien smugglers who subvert vulnerabilities in the supply chain to move drugs and humans illegally. They are a scourge on our society and the efforts we have under way to secure the supply chain will limit their ability to exploit the system illegally.

Since the founding of our Republic, smugglers have used legitimate shipping activity to import contraband. Today, technically savvy and highly organized transnational criminal groups have replaced the vagabond pirates of Jefferson's time and reflect the globalization of our world. Their activities support or engage in drugs, alien smuggling, and contraband such as illegal arms. They also include financial crimes and money laundering, which brings me to the final threat issue I want to raise with you.

Since the founding of our Republic, smugglers have used legitimate shipping activity to import contraband.

Just as criminals have moved into the cyber world to conduct financial criminal activity, the threat of cyber attack is an emerging threat to the maritime security. As the DHS Strategy to Enhance Global Supply Chain Security notes, the supply chain is not just goods, it is also information about those goods. As you know better than I, ships and port facilities are highly automated. The range of actors who could develop the skills to hack into these systems is growing. Not only foreign terrorist groups, but also domestic extremists like the Animal Liberation Front or various anarchist groups that reject globalization, are potential sources for extremists with hacking skills to focus their efforts on the automated systems supporting maritime commerce. This is also a key area in which a disgruntled insider could use high-tech skills and access to impact the flow of goods through misrouting. These actions could have significant real impacts not just on the movement of material but also on production centers dependent on the timely arrival of this material to use for assembly or for final sale.

The common thread that ties together DHS' efforts to address this maritime security issues is effective information collection, analysis, and sharing. Reliable, real-time information and intelligence allows us to identify and characterize threats, target our security measures, and achieve unity of effort in our response. Secretary Chertoff said it best on 14 July 2005 when he stated that “intelligence is at the heart of everything DHS does.”

Intelligence is not only about spies and satellites. It is about the thousands and thousands of routine, everyday observations and activities. Surveillance, interactions—each of which in isolation is not a particularly meaningful piece of information—but when fused together, gives us a sense of the patterns and flows that are the core of what intelligence analysis is all about.

Lest we lose sight of the threats to our country from dangerous people and dangerous goods, think of the enforcement activities the Department carries out every day:

• * Customs and Border Protection apprehends an average of 2,400 people crossing illegally into the United States. Some are individuals of special interest to the United States and our job is to ensure they are interviewed. We harvest the intelligence information they possess.

• * Immigration and Customs Enforcement seizes more than $700,000, makes 150 administrative arrests and 61 criminal arrests, removes some 760 aliens and participates in an average of 20 drug seizures.

• * The Transportation Security Administration intercepts nearly 18,000 prohibited items at checkpoints, including almost 3,000 knives and 200 other dangerous items.

• * The U.S. Coast Guard interdicts an average of 17 illegal migrants at-sea, and seizes an average of 1,000 pounds of illegal drugs worth $12.9 million.

• * The U.S. Secret Service seizes an average of more than $145,000 in counterfeit currency and more than $50,000 in illegal profits, and conducts nearly 20 arrests.

These encounters generate a treasure trove of data that we are just now learning how to report, collate, and share. This means that DHS is a collector, producer, and consumer of intelligence, which makes my work that much more challenging.

To understand these threats sharing of information is vital. Let me briefly sketch out my vision and what we have accomplished with our state and local partners. Each level of government has unique and valid missions and responsibilities regarding Homeland Security Intelligence. We work at varying levels of classification and have different sources. Analysts have different skill sets and priorities. At times it seems that surmounting these challenges to create an information environment that flows from the federal to the state and local officials and from state and local officials back to the federal level seems almost impossible to achieve. But if we can sustain our vision and overcome the obstacles, the qualitative and quantitative benefits of improved information sharing across our organizations can become an extraordinarily valuable tool in our efforts to provide homeland security.

If I may I'd like to read to you what the President said at the DHS 5th anniversary event in Washington last March:

“The Department of Homeland Security is working to strengthen cooperation with state and local governments—so we can prevent terrorist attacks, and respond effectively if we have to. Before 9/11, the federal government sent threat information to authorities—local authorities by fax machine. Today, we've established 21st century lines of communication that allow us to share classified threat information rapidly and securely. We've helped state and local officials establish intelligence fusion centers in 46 states. These centers allow federal officials to provide intelligence to our state and local partners, and allow locally generated information to get to officials here in Washington who need it.”

To expand on our current capabilities, I envision a network of state, local and federal intelligence and law enforcement professionals working together—supported by appropriate tools—to achieve a common goal: protection of the nation.

Working together—leveraging Federal as well as State and Local networks; moving relevant information and intelligence quickly; enabling rapid analytic and operational judgments—that is what this National Fusion Center Network is all about.

Our ability to move, analyze and act on information is our greatest strength. We must use the network and the information in that network, to push our defensive perimeter outward.

That's what the National Fusion Center Network will do for us.

Intelligence officers armed with the appropriate tools help to push the edges of the National Intelligence Community out to the states, and bring the power of that community to bear on the problems of the states. In addition, information once only available in cities and states can be used to protect the nation as a whole.

This is all very new and different for the Intelligence Community. We are working hard to educate ourselves to your information needs, as well as increase our ability to provide you information.

And we all must do this while paying the utmost respect to the civil liberties and privacy of our citizens.

Let me speak to what we have accomplished;

• * We now have 25 officers deployed to fusion centers with a goal of 10 more by the end of the year. We have expanded the SECRET-level Homeland Security Data Network to 23 sites and will double that number by the end of the year. From a staffing and IT perspective, we have made significant gains.

• * Equally important, this improved connectivity is resulting in expanding intelligence production. So far this year nine intelligence assessments have been produced with the fusion centers, DHS and other partners. One of particular note, four fusion centers collaborated on a product— The Barcelona Terror Plot (by Los Angeles JRIC, Sacramento RTTAC, Maryland MCAC, and Ohio SAIC)—based on the support and experience they had with DHS.

• * This is not a one way street with information and products flowing to the state and local customers. DHS' Office and Analysis has initiated the delivery of unique state- and local-origin information for use by the national Intelligence Community. More than 140 Homeland Intelligence Reports have been written this year using this nontraditional source of information. Last year this reporting stream accounted for 1.5 percent of our reporting; so far this year it accounts for 8.0 percent of our reporting. In two cases, IC analysts used local information to write articles for the President's Daily Brief. Without the presence of a DHS officer in the state fusion center, this information would not have been available. This is the essence of the effort to share intelligence and information vertically and horizontally.

• * In anther case, a state police agency provided encounter information garnered during a traffic stop to a fusion center. The fusion center, recognizing the value of the data, made it available to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE reviewed the information, an I&A intelligence officer did some more research, and ICE was able to affect an arrest in another state.

• * We built web pages for each fusion center on HSDN to enable information sharing. Now anyone with SIPRNET access can have access to products written in the states.

• * We have added more users to the unclassified Homeland Security State and Local Community of Interest—the HS-SLIC. We now have 45 states, the District of Columbia and seven federal agencies collaborating in that network.

• * In information sharing, we also are leading—under the management of the National Counterterrorism Center—the Interagency Threat Assessment and Coordination Group (ITACG), which ensures that “federally coordinated” information relating to threats are rapidly and effectively disseminated to the fusion centers.

• * Working with our partners across the community, we are implementing a Suspicious Activities Report system to capture valuable information from the eyes and ears on the ground maintained by local law enforcement.

• * We have developed a plan to provide mobile intelligence training teams on site at the fusion centers. We will kick off this training next month. The Offices of Privacy and Civil Right and Civil Liberties have developed a deployable training module as well.

Now let me address some of the continuing challenges:

• * For all of us at any level of government, obtaining funding for our information-sharing needs remains an issue both in terms of equipment and in terms of personnel we can train to become experienced intelligence analysts.

• * Second, training, processes and policies need to be strengthened at all levels to ensure that we extract maximum advantage from our information-sharing program

• * Third, recognizing the reality of different priorities and different levels of expertise and analytical focus are required to understand how we can practically improve our information-sharing efforts.

Finally, I would add a slightly different challenge. The need to experiment; to see what works.

It is not just data that DHS and its components collect, process and disseminate that is important. The Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) initiative led by Rear Adm. Kelly through the Global Maritime and Air Intelligence Integration effort represents a critical component in our cooperative efforts to gain the Marine Domain Awareness that supports improved maritime security.

In January 2008, the USCG Intelligence Coordination Center, in coordination with the Domestic Port Security Evaluation and my Critical Infrastructure Threat Assessment Division, became the first agencies to apply the USCG Maritime Security Risk Analysis Model (MSRAM) approach to a strategic, maritime terrorism threat assessment for the Homeland. The National Maritime Terrorism Threat Assess-ment—an unclassified product suitable for homeland security enterprise use—was a pragmatic application of risk intelligence to support operational planning and national policy decisions involving port security grants and related legislation.

The primary dissemination venues for the National Maritime Terrorism Threat Assessment and other “sensitive but unclassified” threat information products to members of the Maritime Security Committees include the MSRAM Program Coordinator for each USCG Sector and several sensitive but unclassified Internet-enabled Web site portals, such as HOMEPORT, Law Enforcement Online (LEO), INTELINK SBU/Intellipedia, and the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN). Since January 2008, DHS subcomponents have disseminated more than two dozen HOMEPORT, LEO, and HSIN threat-related products disseminated nationally to Maritime Security Committees. Moreover, each of these documents has been posted to Intellipedia—an ODNI INTELINK-based collaborative environment where analysts, law enforcement, governmental, private sector, and academic experts in diverse locations can work together in a near-simultaneous fashion on common threat assessment projects. In concert with the USCG and other federal agencies, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) interacts with industry via the International Council of Cruise Lines (ICCL) Security Director's quarterly meeting. ONI also produces the Worldwide Threat to Shipping Message (WWTTS) that is disseminated via NGA NOTAMS and the World Wide Web. The former meeting identifies threats to cruise lines globally, while the latter message highlights global threats to mariners from maritime crime and piracy.

But a lot depends on you. As owners and operators of our maritime resources, you are closest to the action and will have the first indications and insights that can provide us both potential warning and an ability to respond to prevent an attack. I appreciate your support and efforts to help us cooperatively develop improved processes to generate more effective information sharing and threat warning in the maritime domain.

In closing, I am reminded of the words of Edmund Burke: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” I commend you for “doing something about it ” both in your attention today and in the work you do every day. Defeating the threats I have described is critical to protect the global maritime supply chain, which is the lifeblood of our economy and critical to the security of our homeland. It is only with your help that we can improve our ability to provide the warning essential to achieve this task. Thank you for your time and attention.

Under Secretary Charles Allen delivered these remarks in Miami, FL

Under Secretary Allen. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you to the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA) International and SOUTHCOM for sponsoring this important “South 2008” conference. Thank you, as well, for the opportunity to participate in your discussions about two of the most important issues affecting homeland security—drugs and terrorism.

As a nation, when we think about drugs and terrorism, we often think of the highly visible global struggle against radical extremism and the opium fields of Afghanistan. Yet a reported 90 percent of the cocaine entering the United States originates in the southern region of the Western Hemisphere—from Colombia— and more is being produced in Peru and Bolivia.

We also tend to think of this region as nuclear free, devoid of large conventional forces and an area from which no terrorist attacks have been launched against the United States; in other words, a relative peaceful and low priority region in the context of defense. Yet many of the threats to the homeland (drug trafficking, gangs, money laundering and all categories of migrant smuggling) enter the United States through our southern land and maritime borders after originating from or transiting the region.

The Department of State lists the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the former United Self-Defense Forces (AUC) in Colombia as terrorists but their agendas are internally focused. Over the years, they have all attacked their civilian populations, become involved in drug trafficking and kidnapped hundreds of innocents.

Although the FARC has suffered setbacks, it remains a lethal organization that continues its terrorist behavior with the support of a few countries in the region. The FARC is also believed to be aggressively supplying cocaine to Mexican drug cartels for onward shipment to the United States.

Mexico's strategic location on our southwest border demands notice as we discuss the drug-terror connection. At the Department of Homeland Security, we focus on the possibility that terrorist groups might seek to smuggle operatives or weapons of mass destruction across the U.S.-Mexican border—even though those scenarios may have a low probability. Given the Mexican cartels' control of their country's northern smuggling corridors, it is feasible, although unlikely, that international terrorist organizations would seek the support of drug traffickers. We consider cooperation between Mexican drug trafficking organizations and international terrorists, witting or otherwise, as a “high impact, low probability” scenario.

The cartels' overriding priority is to profit from their illicit drug trade. Provoking a strong reaction from the United States as the result of terrorist acts launched from Mexico would bring unprecedented pressure from both the U.S. and Mexican governments, with an even greater impact on drug proceeds than the traffickers already suffer. A cartel under severe pressure from rivals, or the Mexican government, might become desperate enough to cooperate with terrorists in a bid to recover lost revenues. But again, we have not seen this—and it would be an extreme and desperate act if it were to occur.

Smaller, independent trafficking organizations, rogue operators or an independent terrorist operation are also potential but unlikely scenarios. It is doubtful that terrorists would relinquish full control of the commodities, or individuals, being moved across the border to a smuggling organization that may lack security or an ideological commitment. Furthermore, independent terrorists operations would, almost certainly, come to the attention of the cartels, who would attempt to block any terrorist efforts or highlight those efforts to Mexican authorities.

Although the relationship between drug trafficking and Islamic extremism in Latin America is somewhat attenuated, we have reason to believe that Islamic terrorist networks are active throughout the region. Members of these networks are primarily involved in fundraising and logistical support to their parent organizations such as Hizballah and Hamas. There are concentrations of Islamic extremists in several areas but perhaps in no greater concentration than in the Tri-Border Region or Triple Frontier comprised of Paraguay's Ciudad del Este, Puerto Iguaçu in Argentina and Brazil's Foz do Iguaçu. The concentrated population and relative open border have enticed terrorists to this area since the 1980s.

By the 1990s, the United States considered the area to be one of the main terrorism-financing centers in Latin America and in the mid '90s (1995), Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, an al Qa'ida planner now in custody for masterminding the 9/11 attacks, was in Brazil. According to open sources, by the turn of the century there were nearly 50 Hizballah operatives in the Tri-Border area, allegedly including the regional Hizballah fund raiser Ali Khalil Mehir. Mehir, a Lebanese national, fled before he could be prosecuted for commercial activity to finance terrorist groups. Adnan Al Shukrijumah, a reported al Qa'ida operative for whom the FBI has [a] “be on the lookout” order, was in Panama in 2001 and believed to be “casing” the Panama Canal. Abdelhakim Gouram, another alleged al Qa'ida member linked to the extremist group the “Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group” (GICM), frequently visits Brazil for competition as a martial arts fighter and has been accused of planning terrorist attacks on the Philips Tower in Brussels.

Two additional family members—Ali Muhammad Kazan Faropuik Omairi and his son Khalid Omairi—were accused of narco-trafficking, money laundering and terrorism financing. Brazilian authorities arrested Farouk Omairi for procuring fraudulent documents associated with Hizballah in the Tri-Border area. The arrest followed Treasury's designation of Omairi as a Hizballah regional coordinator responsible for providing logistical and financial support to the terrorist group.

Consistent with the Treasury Department, the Department of State's International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) (2006/07) reported that tens of millions of dollars are laundered and earmarked to fund terrorist activity in the region each year. Over time, al Qa'ida, Hamas, Hizballah and Gama'at al Islamiya members have been identified in the region. Although somewhat diminished, financial and recruiting operations are believed to be ongoing and the presence of members belonging to these organizations leaves open the possibility that they will facilitate attacks against the United States given the right circumstances.

Successfully protecting and defending the Homeland requires us to recognize that the threat is evolving and that globalization has diminished the traditional role of the nation-states.

Much as they attempt to do in the United States, criminal supporters and terrorists sympathizers have channeled drug and other illicit proceeds to extremist coffers in the Middle East through banks, hawala dealers, exchange houses, currency changers, and charitable donations. They also offer Islamic terrorists potential safe haven in the Western Hemisphere and access to fraudulent document networks that are of particular concern to DHS.

The threat of ties between criminal and drug smuggling networks and Islamic terrorism may be less pressing than in the Near East, but the threats in this hemisphere are genuine, insidious, and not always limited to recruiting and finance. Islamic terrorists have attacked civilian targets in Latin America, most notably when Hizballah destroyed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the Argentine-Israeli mutual friendship building, also in Buenos Aires, two years later. According to our southern neighbors, Latin America-based criminal networks provided logistical support for these attacks. Simply put, a latent risk exists in this fertile environment.

More than five years ago, the Department of Homeland Security was created with the specific task of preventing another terrorist attack on our country. All of DHS' components share this critical mission. As I mentioned earlier, as DHS intelligence analysts monitor the activities of international terrorists, they remain alert to even the remote possibility that Latin American drug trafficking organizations, which have successfully penetrated our borders and have extensive logistics networks, might support terrorist activities. Guarding against terrorists entering the United States by using fraudulent documents or alien smugglers is one of the most important missions of the Department. In cooperation with Mexico and many other countries in the Western Hemisphere, Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations have led to the arrest of numerous alien smugglers who facilitate the illicit entry of undocumented aliens from special interest countries.

The full resources of the intelligence and law enforcement communities are focused on collecting and analyzing all-source intelligence. Thousands of dedicated men and women devote their considerable skills to tracking the intentions and capabilities of terrorist organizations.

Successfully protecting and defending the Homeland requires us to recognize that the threat is evolving and that globalization has diminished the traditional role of the nation-states. Non-state actors have emerged. They are expanding and deepening their operations. They are crossing international boundaries, with relative ease, where security is lax. In the future, law enforcement alone may not be enough.

Protecting and defending the homeland requires interagency and intelligence community cooperation and coordination. Federal, state, local and tribal governments all have a key role to play. We must also recognize that this hemisphere is not as secure as it appears. It is an environment that terrorists will exploit and an area from which future attacks may be launched. Our ability to respond will rely on vigilance, effective coordination, timely communication and interagency and international cooperation as never before.

I congratulate AFCEA and SOUTH-COM on their sponsorship of this conference, which brings together experts from many disciplines to consider the issue of a potential drug-terror connection, one of the most critical issues confronting the United States.

Thank you again for the opportunity to participate today. I look forward to your questions.

President George W. Bush delivered these remarks in Quantico, Virginia

Introductory Remarks omitted

President Bush Members of the FBI Academy staff, distinguished guests, family and friends, and most importantly, members of the graduating class: Thanks for having me.

I am so pleased to be back to the FBI Academy, and to share with you this special day. When you walk across the stage, you will receive your badge and your credentials. You'll become special agents of the FBI. You will take your place on the front lines on the war on terror. I thank you for stepping forward to serve your country during this important time. And on behalf of all Americans, I congratulate the Class of 08-14.

This academy has prepared you for the privileges and responsibilities of carrying the badge. Over the past 20 weeks, you have passed rigorous academic and physical requirements. You have spent hours practicing your aim on the firing range, combing the streets of Hogan's Alley, and navigating the Academy's “gerbil tubes.” As part of your training, you were all forced to endure the sting of pepper spray—which you learned wasn't half as bad as the cafeteria food.

To reach this day of accomplishment, you have all depended on the wisdom and advice of your instructors. They took a diverse group that includes combat veterans, police officers, firefighters, lawyers, language experts, and computer specialists. And they turned you into an impressive class of FBI special agents. Your instructors are proud of your accomplish-ments—and I know you are grateful for their leadership.

To reach this day of accomplishment, you depended on the support of your loved ones. While you were away training for this academy, some of them were really sweating out the training for you. And Rick mentioned a lot of you were packing bags. I'm thankful you didn't mention Crawford, Texas. And so are you.

But the point is, America owes your families a great debt. And we thank you for standing by your side—thank them for standing by your side during this moment of training and the service you'll be rendering to our country. We welcome the families here today.

Members of this class join the FBI during a momentous time in our nation's history. Earlier this summer the FBI celebrated its 100th anniversary. Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend the official ceremony. So I asked the Attorney General to speak in my place. To be honest, I was somewhat concerned that he might not live up to my high standards of oratory. He told me I had nothing to worry about.

The Bureau has come a long way since its founding. Over the past century, the FBI has grown from a small team of 34 investigators to a powerful force of more than 30,000 agents and analysts and support professionals serving around the world. The FBI has pushed the boundaries of forensic science—from mastering the art of fingerprints to pioneering the use of DNA evidence. The FBI has inspired generations of children to dream of joining the force. Sounds like I inspired one or two myself.

In every era, the FBI has risen to meet new challenges. When mobsters brought crime and chaos to America's cities during the 1920s and '30s, the G-Men of the FBI brought them to justice. When America entered the Second World War, the FBI stopped Axis agents from carrying out attacks on our homeland. During the Cold War, the FBI worked long hours to protect America from Soviet spies. In all this work, the FBI has gained an incredible record of achievement and has earned the admiration of the entire world. America honors all the fine men and women who have served in the ranks before you.

As you go forth from this Academy, you're going to write a new chapter in the FBI's storied history. In the years ahead, your assignments will be as diverse as the FBI's mission—from dismantling organized criminal networks, to pulling the plug on online predators, to making white-collar criminals pay for defrauding hardworking Americans. And just as your predecessors adapted to meet the challenges of the past century, there's no doubt in my mind you'll respond with courage to confront the emerging dangers of this new century.

Those dangers became clear on September the 11th, 2001. On that day, 19 terrorists brought death and destruction to our shores. We became a nation at war against violent extremists. And we must not rest until that war is won.

More than seven years have passed without another attack on our soil. And this is not an accident. Since 9/11, we have gone on the offense against the terrorists abroad—so we do not have to face them here at home. We stand with young democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq and beyond as they seek to replace the hateful ideology of the extremists with a hopeful alternative of liberty.

Here at home, we've transformed our national security institutions and have given our intelligence and law enforcement professionals the tools and the resources they need to do their job, and that is to protect the American people. We formed a new Department of Homeland Security. We created a new Director for National Intelligence. We established a program at the Central Intelligence Agency to interrogate key terrorist leaders captured in the war on terror. We worked with Congress to pass legislation that allows our intelligence professionals to quickly and effectively monitor terrorist communications while protecting the civil liberties of our citizens. If al Qaeda is making a phone call into the United States, we need to know why and to whom they're calling in order to protect the American citizens.

The FBI has played a vital role in doing the most important job that government has, and that is to secure the American people from harm. Since 9/11, the Bureau has worked with our partners around the world to disrupt planned terrorist attacks. Most Americans will never know the full stories of how these attacks were stopped and how many lives were saved. But we know this: The men and women of the FBI are working tirelessly to keep our nation safe—and they have the thanks of the American people.

The FBI's leadership in the war on terror has required a dramatic change of mission. Before 9/11, terrorism was viewed primarily as a criminal matter. The FBI focused more on indicting terrorists after an attack than on stopping the attack in the first place. For example, after the terrorists targeted the World Trade Center in 1993, FBI agents succeeded in tracking down several of the killers. They obtained indictments against them and they put them behind bars. And that was good work. But eight years later al Qaeda returned to finish the job.

Immediately after 9/11, the FBI made preventing terrorism its top priority. The FBI you join today is focused on collecting and analyzing intelligence—so we can figure out what the terrorists are planning before it is too late. Over the past seven years, we have more than doubled the number of intelligence analysts and translators on the force. We've enacted the Patriot Act to ensure FBI analysts and investigators have the information they need to protect our nation. We created the FBI's new National Security Branch— bringing together divisions responsible for counterterrorism and intelligence and counterespionage.

The FBI you join today is working more closely with partners at all levels of government. At the local level, we've increased the number of FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces from 35 to more than 100. These task forces bring together federal and local law enforcement agents. They have helped break up terror cells in places like Portland, Oregon; Buffalo, New York; and northern Virginia.

At the national level, we created the National Counterterrorism Center, where the FBI is working side by side with the CIA, the Homeland Security Department, and other federal agencies to track terrorist threats and prevent new attacks. We created the Terrorism Screening Center to consolidate watch lists from different agencies into one master list.

At the international level, we've deployed the FBI to foreign countries to help track down the terrorists. Since September the 11th, the FBI has opened 16 new offices overseas. Two of them are in Kabul and Baghdad—where hundreds of FBI agents are serving alongside our brave men and women in uniform.

The FBI can be proud of all these accomplishments. These changes were difficult, and they were necessary. We've transformed an agency founded a century ago to meet the challenges of the 21st century. And thanks to the vision and determination of the FBI, America is safer today than we were on September the 11th, 2001.

In the midst of this rapid change, we can be confident that one thing will never change—and that is the character and courage of those who carry the badge. We see this character and courage in the story of an agent named Leonard Hatton. A bomb specialist for the FBI, Lenny had investigated terrorist attacks around the world. So when he saw smoke rising from the World Trade Center on September the 11th, 2001, he immediately understood the danger. With complete disregard for his own life, he ran to the scene to help others escape. And when the towers came crashing down, Lenny died beneath them. Earlier that same morning, Lenny had told his wife, “Just another regular day at work.” Well, for a man like Lenny Hatton—who always put others before himself—it was another day at work. We must always honor the memory of this good and faithful servant—and we vow that those who have given their lives in the war on terror shall never have died in vain.

As new special agents, your charge to keep is to carry out this mission. I ask you to defend the values of fidelity, bravery, and integrity that you have learned here at this Academy. I ask you to carry out your duty to protect the lives and liberties of the American people. If you follow these principles, your careers will take you far, this agency will uphold its solemn responsibility, and America's security will be in good hands.

I want to thank you for sharing your graduation with me. I'm inspired by your examples of service. I wish you all the best in the future. May God bless you.

Agreement with European Union on Cargo Screening Standards for Commercial Passenger Aircraft

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced an agreement today with the European Union Directorate General for Energy and Transport on air cargo screening standards for passenger carrying aircraft. The agreement was reached in advance of a February 2009 deadline to screen 50 percent of air cargo on passenger carrying aircraft.

“By synchronizing the way that air cargo is secured on both sides of the Atlantic, we're taking another potential vulnerability off the table for terrorists,” said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. “I commend our European Union partners on their commitment to this landmark agreement.”

The agreement will establish screening consistencies that are aligned with the requirements outlined in the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007, and will lead to the development of compatible practices and benchmarks that minimize regulatory differences. It also includes a pledge to continue to share classified technical information in order to develop common technical standards, create equivalent overall levels of security, and explore new methods and procedures to secure the air cargo supply chain.

President George W. Bush delivered these remarks in Fort Campbell, KY

President Bush. Thank you. Please be seated—unless, of course, you don't have a seat. I am honored to be here at Fort Campbell. I'm honored to be with the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne— the Night Stalkers of the 160th—the Green Berets of the 5th Special Forces Group—all members of the Fort Campbell community. You are part of the finest military in the world. I have one word for you: Hooah!

I also bring greetings—I also bring greetings from another man named Bush—America's only skydiving President. He said, pass on these two words: Air Assault!

In recent weeks, this post has been the scene of heartwarming family reunions. Many of you recently finished deployments to Iraq. You performed with courage and distinction on the front lines of the war on terror. You have returned on success. On behalf of a grateful nation, I'm proud to welcome home the “Bastogne” Brigade, the “Strike” Brigade, the “Rakkasan” Brigade— Job well done.

I want to thank General Townsend for his service. I'm proud to be with his wife, Melissa. I thank General Schloesser's wife, Patty. I appreciate Maria McConville. I want to thank Theresa Vail. These women represent the military families who have sacrificed just like our military has. On behalf of an incredibly grateful nation, I extend our heartfelt thanks and our respect to the military families here on Fort Campbell.

I thank Governor Beshear, who is with us, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. I want to thank the two Congress folks that represent this important base—Congressman Ed Whitfield from Kentucky, Congressman Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee. I also want to thank Congressman Zach Wamp from Tennessee, as well, for joining us.

I appreciate all the local and state officials who are here today. I particularly want to point out one person—Staff Sergeant John [sic] Forbess. I had the honor of meeting John [sic] at the base of Air Force One. He was severely wounded in a helicopter crash in Iraq in 2003. Yet, despite his wounds, he volunteers in the Fisher House.

I'm proud of those of you who not only serve our nation by wearing a fabulous uniform, but serve our nation by feeding the hungry, and providing home—houses for the homeless, for loving your neighbor just like you like to be yourself—just like Sergeant Forbess has done.

I want to thank very much those who made this event happen. I mean, it's not easy to host the President. Thanks for coming out.

You know, we're getting ready to celebrate Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to it. The day before my first Thanksgiving as your President, guess where I was.

President Bush. Right here at Fort Campbell. For those of you who weren't here, I can only say that watching a bunch of Screaming Eagles tear into turkey is quite a sight.

That Thanksgiving came shortly after the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history. The war in Afghanistan had just begun—the “Rakkasans” were the first conventional brigade to join the battle. That November day, I said, “Once again, you have a Rendezvous With Destiny.” And today, there is no doubt that you have upheld this motto—you have done your duty, and you have defended the United States of America.

Over the past seven years, folks from this base have done exactly what they were trained to do. The Screaming Eagles, the Night Stalkers, the Fifth Special Forces Group have gone on the offense in the war against these killers and thugs. You have taken the battle of the terrorists overseas so we do not have to face them here in the United States. You have helped counter the hateful ideology of tyranny and terror with a more hopeful vision of justice and liberty. You're part of the great ideological struggle of our time. With the soldiers of Fort Campbell out front, the forces of freedom and liberty will prevail.

The war on terror, the war against people who would do us harm again, is being waged on two main fronts—Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan, we removed an oppressive regime that harbored the terrorists who planned the attacks that killed 3,000 folks on September the 11th, 2001. Because of our men and women in uniform, more than 25 million Afghans are free. Afghanistan is a democracy, an ally in the war on terror. And as a result of your courage, the American people are safer.

In the recent weeks, the members of the “Thunder” Brigade have begun deploying to Afghanistan for a new mission. You will replace the “Wings of Destiny” Brigade—and join a powerful coalition of forces, including the “Currahees,” members of the “Life Liners.” You'll join Major General Schloesser and his Division Headquarters. Together, you will help the people of Afghanistan defend their young democracy. Together, you will ensure that a noble goal is achieved—that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for those who want to plot and kill American citizens.

The other main front in the war on terror is Iraq. In that country, we removed a dictator who murdered his own people, paid the families of suicide bombers, who threatened America's security. As the regime crumbled, the dictator's sons tried to run and hide. They could not hide from the United States military. They met their fate in Mosul at the hands of the Screaming Eagles.

Because we acted, the dictator, his sons, and their regime are no more. More than 25 million Iraqis are free. And a young democracy has taken root where a tyrant once ruled. Removing Saddam Hussein was the right decision then—and it is the right decision today.

With Saddam gone from power, our mission turned to helping the Iraqi people defend their freedom against violent extremists, including al Qaeda. In 2006, our efforts were faltering. So I reviewed our strategy and changed course. Instead of retreating, I ordered more troops into Iraq. And to lead the surge, I chose a former commanding general of the 101st Air-borne—the man formerly known as Eagle Six, General David Petraeus.

Our troops conducted this surge with resolve and with valor—and nobody knows the impact better than the Screaming Eagles. When the “Bastogne” Brigade deployed to Salah al-Din last year, the province was still struggling to recover from the bombing of the famous Golden Mosque. But you partnered with the Iraqis to restore security. Schools and businesses are now open. The Golden Mosque is being rebuilt. Throughout the province, hope is returning; the terrorists are being driven out. The Iraqi people have the Screaming Eagles to thank.

Across Iraq, the surge has produced similar results. Since the surge began, violence and sectarian killings have fallen dramatically. Iraqi security forces have taken responsibility for 13 out of Iraq's 18 provinces. Slowly but steadily, economic and political progress is taking place. Iraqis are working together for a more hopeful future.

As conditions on the ground continue to improve, we will further reduce American combat forces in Iraq—it's a strategy I call “return on success.” So far, we've brought home a Marine Expeditionary Unit, two Marine battalions, six Army brigades without replacement—including the Rakkasans. And by the end of January, we'll have brought home more than 4,000 additional troops.

As conditions on the ground continue to improve, we're also making progress toward completing a strategic framework agreement and a security agreement with the Iraqi government. These landmark agreements will pave the way for a future of economic and diplomatic and military cooperation between our two countries. Iraqi lawmakers in Baghdad are now debating these agreements through the democratic process. It's a good sign that Iraq has become a strong and vigorous democracy—and it's a testament to the success of our men and women in uniform. The war in Iraq is not over. But we're drawing closer to the day when our troops can come home. And when they come home, they will come home in victory.

The work you have done and are going to do is historical work. You see, the consequences of success in Iraq will resonate far beyond that country's borders, and will resonate when your children and grandchildren begin to study the history of peace. Success will frustrate Iran's ambitions to dominate the region. Success will show millions across the Middle East that a future of liberty and democracy is possible. Success will deny al Qaida a safe haven for launching new attacks. Success in Iraq will mean that the American people are more secure at home.

In Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond, our men and women in uniform have done everything we have asked of them and more. You've earned the thanks of every American.

You know, this is going to be my last Thanksgiving as President. Sometimes I am asked what I will miss most about the job. Well, above all, I'm going to miss spending time with men and women who have volunteered to serve the United States of America, the fine men and women who wear the uniform. We are blessed to have defenders of such character and courage. I'm grateful to the families who serve by your side. And I will always be thankful for the honor of having served as the Commander-in-Chief.

So Laura and I wish you and your families a safe and happy Thanksgiving. We join you in praying for our troops spending the holiday far from home. We pray for those who've been wounded in battle, and for all who love and care for them. We hold in our thoughts and prayers the brave men and women who have given their lives, and the families who mourn for them. We ask the Almighty to watch over everyone who puts on the uniform, and has volunteered to serve this great land.

It's an honor to be with you today. May God bless you, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.

Terrorist Attack in Mumbai, India

President Bush offers his condolences to the Indian people and the families of the innocent civilians killed and injured in the attacks in Mumbai, India. The United States condemns this terrorist attack and we will continue to stand with the people of India in this time of tragedy.

This afternoon, the White House National Security Council convened officials from counterterrorism and intelligence agencies as well as the State and Defense Departments. The U.S. government continues to monitor the situation, including the safety and security of our citizens, and stands ready to assist and support the Indian government.

President Bush has been updated regularly.

President George W. Bush delivered these remarks in Washington, DC

President Bush. On behalf of all Americans, Laura and I extend our condolences to those suffering from the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. We mourn those who lost their lives, including American citizens. We pray that the injured will recover. We pledge the full support of the United States as India investigates these attacks, brings the guilty to justice, and sustained its democratic way of life.

My administration has been monitoring the situation in India closely since the attacks on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, I spoke to Prime Minister Singh from Camp David. I sent our heartfelt condolences to the Prime Minister. This morning, I held a videoconference with Secretary Rice, our Ambassador to India, our Consul General in Mumbai, and other national security officials. We reviewed the latest developments, and we are working to ensure that American citizens in India are safe. Throughout the process, we have kept President-Elect Obama informed.

The killers who struck this week are brutal and violent, but terror will not have the final word. People of India are resilient. People of India are strong. They have built a vibrant, multiethnic democracy that can withstand this trial. Their financial capital of Mumbai will continue to be the center of commerce and prosperity.

The leaders of India can know that nations around the world support them in the face of this assault on human dignity. And as the people of the world's largest democracy recover from these attacks, they can count on the world's oldest democracy to stand by their side.

Thank you very much. May God bless the people of India.

Secretary Michael Chertoff delivered these remarks in Washington, DC

Secretary Chertoff. I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving and I hope you're all looking forward to a Happy Holiday Season later this year.

Now, from my standpoint, as I look forward to the next year, of course a new Administration is taking office. One thing that means for me is that I will not have to live through another hurricane season. I'm used to spending the last four years over the summer, particularly in August when everybody else is kind of kicking back and thinking about how to best enjoy the summer holidays, I'm used to carefully watching the weather reports to see if a cyclone is forming somewhere in the Atlantic and the Caribbean which looks like it's going to spoil my holiday and, of course, this past year, as is not uncommon, I spent much of my time during the summer down in the Gulf dealing with the anticipation of the hurricane and the aftermath of the hurricane.

But before I get into the meat of my speech, I want to make a couple of remarks on some related but distinct topics. First, I want to encourage all of you who are not already working at the Department of Homeland Security, and I know some of you are, to consider the department as a potential future career choice.

If you are motivated to help other people, if you're motivated to defend the country, we have a very wide range of options, whether it's working for Transportation Security, Customs and Border Protection, Science and Technology. I think if you look at what we do, almost any interest, whether it's an analytic interest or an operational interest, can find a place at the Department of Homeland Security and a very meaningful mission, and as you listen to my remarks today, I think you'll find perhaps some glimpse of what it is that we do.

Second, I'd like to take the opportunity to, before I get into the core of this speech, just look back a little bit and reflect on the last eight years and the presidency that is about to come to an end on January 20th. I've been privileged to serve this president for six out of the past eight years, first for two years as head of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice where we dealt with 9/11 on September 11th and during the months afterwards, and then during my four years as Secretary of Homeland Security. The only period in the last eight years I didn't serve in the Administration was my two years as a federal judge.

I also have to say that the president, whether you agree or disagree with every decision he made, has done so with the interests of the country at heart…

I have to say that looking back on these eight years, as Director Davis said, it is quite remarkable that we haven't been attacked. Now, I always touch wood, this is not really wood, it's laminate but maybe that's wood, because we're not totally at the end yet, but I think we've gone far enough to say that, looking back on the record, it speaks volumes.

Now, when I say we haven't been attacked, I should amend that. We haven't been successfully attacked. We have been attacked. There have been efforts made to attack this country, whether it was the Shoe Bomber in December of 2001 or the August 2006 airline plot directed at airline flights from Britain to the United States or some of the other plots that you read about in the newspaper that are currently the subject of various trials, but the fact is none of these have been successful, and I don't think that's an accident. I think it is a direct result of policies that this president put into force and that this Administration implemented, whether it was reorganizing the intelligence community to taking action against the enemy overseas in the caves in Afghanistan and the laboratories in Afghanistan where they were planning their work, whether it was enacting the Patriot Act or putting into effect a system for detecting conversations among terrorists.

All of these things made a big difference in minimizing and reducing the risk of a successful attack. Had we not done these things, had we shrugged our shoulders and said, boy, that was a really bad attack on September 11th, let's empanel a grand jury and indict a few people, I'm pretty confident there would have been attacks successfully again and again and again, and I think, as we contemplate the last eight years and there's certainly been a lot of criticism about things in hindsight that people would have done differently, I do think that you have to reflect on a surpassing achievement of this president which is keeping the country safe.

I also have to say that the president, whether you agree or disagree with every decision he made, has done so with the interests of the country at heart and in a manner that upholds what I think is the honor and dignity of the office.

But let me now turn to the core of what I want to talk about which is how we manage the kinds of crises at the Department of Homeland Security that emerge or that might emerge from time to time. Of course, a most common crisis we've had over the last eight years has been a natural disaster because we haven't had a successful terrorist attack since September 11th, and this past year, as I indicated, was another year of substantial natural disaster activity, whether it was the wildfires in the Fall of 2007 in California, an unprecedented flooding in the Midwest along parts of the Mississippi River in Iowa and other places, tornadoes in the Midwest, and, of course, Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Ike. All of these posed enormous challenges to the local populations and to the Federal Government.

In each of these cases over the last year, the point of the spear and the federal response supporting local and state government was the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, and I believe in each of these cases, it's generally acknowledged FEMA acquitted itself very well. That's, however, not merely a tribute to a lot of the rebuilding work that's been done with FEMA but it had a lot to do with partnership, partnership with state and local authorities with whom we have planned and worked over the past few years, partnership with our own law enforcement personnel, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, Air Marshals from TSA and Screening Officers from TSA, all of whom have come to work to support FEMA in doing the job of providing a federal voice and a federal capability when people in states and localities are in distress.

Just to give you some examples, Customs and Border Protection provided security for the transit of life-sustaining goods in many of these disasters and also provided aerial assets that allowed us to survey the damage. TSA supported 20 FEMA commodity distribution locations in the area of Harris County, which is where Houston is, in Texas, putting 366 employees into the field, doing not their normal day job but supporting FEMA by providing hands and boots to distribute food to people in need. Our Coast Guard performed myriad land, maritime and air search and rescue missions.

Now, why am I bringing this up? Because, as we go into the transition, I do see there are some who call for the removal of FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security, and I think I want to take this issue on directly because it has arisen, it arose before the department was formed, it's arisen, I think, throughout the department's existence, and it has now, of course, a subject of some discussion again.

I begin by observing, of course, that FEMA is—that DHS is a young organization. It's a little over five years old and even in this five years, there's been a lot of reorganization. But the core of the argument made about FEMA is that somehow FEMA's involved with consequence management, dealing with the response, and DHS, in other respects, is dealing with preventing or protecting against a response, and that if these are different functions, that therefore they ought to be under different roofs, and I really beg to differ with that. I think that is a profound misunderstanding of how one plans and prepares and executes in the face of a possible emergency and an actual emergency because the truth is emergencies don't come neatly packaged in stovepipes and if there's any lesson we've learned in dealing with terrorism or dealing with any other crisis, it is that stove-piping is the enemy of efficient and effective response.

Let me be more specific. The fact that FEMA and other components of DHS have had an opportunity during times of rest to plan, train and exercise together and to build capabilities that are capable of crossing jurisdictional lines has allowed us to have the kind of capabilities to support an emergency that would not be the case if we were in different departments.

Simply put, what we do is when we get our communications equipment on our aircraft, we train our operators whose day job is perhaps patrolling the border or dealing with maritime incidents with the Coast Guard, we train them to support a response if the need for response comes upon us. You could not do that if we were located in different departments. So the ability to plan, train and exercise together is a function of our ability to be integrated together.

A second reason why FEMA fits well in the department is because, once we have an event and it's necessary to quickly call upon other agencies, the quickest way to do that not by reaching to another department of government and having a mission assignment and requiring the other department to then come in and lend assistance, but it's to have the ability of the Secretary to immediately order assistance to be rendered in all of the elements and capabilities of the entire Department of Homeland Security. This is not merely my opinion. Two people in a position to know because they've watched the department since its formation and because they were responsible for its creation in significant part have also endorsed this view.

Citing FEMA's successful response this year to a number of disasters, the current U.S Senate Homeland Security Chairman, Senator Joe Lieberman, and the Ranking Member, Senator Susan Collins, had this to say in a joint letter they published in yesterday's New York Times, actually today's New York Times: Supporting FEMA's Continued Participation as Part of DHS. “Lives are saved when skills, resources and missions are united, not disbursed.”

This, by the way, is a lesson we've learned in national security. When the Department of Defense was first created, you know, the Navy didn't want to be in it, the Marine Corps didn't want to be in it, the Army didn't want to be in it. Everybody viewed it as a diminution of their traditional prerogative as a stand-alone department, and they resisted the full integration of the department all the way into the late 1970s, when the consequence of failure to integrate was, of course, a disastrous result in Desert 1, the failed effort to rescue the hostages during the Carter Administration, and it was as a direct result of that that the Goldwater-Nichols Act in the next decade cemented a quality of jointness that brought all the elements of power together, and what we're learning now, by the way, is increasingly that in our foreign activities, our national security activities, we need greater integration between the warfighter and the rebuilder than we've had before, and I would argue that, just as we're learning that lesson overseas, we should not be unlearning it here at home.

Finally, I observe this. Many of those who argue that FEMA ought to be pulled out of the department do so because their vision is that, where FEMA is about natural disasters and hurricanes and not terrorism and that's what the rest of DHS is about. But need I remind you that one of the critical elements, if there were a serious terrorist attack, would be the need to have an effective response and a response not to a weather event but a response perhaps to a dirty bomb or multiple improvised explosive devices or a biological weapon, and in order to have that capability, FEMA needs to continue to be a consumer of intelligence and expertise that the entire department brings to the issue of combating terrorism.

But let me stand back even from the narrower issue of FEMA's participation in the department and look more generally at the role of the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security as the incident manager when there's an incident that cuts across agency lines and has national implications.

When DHS was created and shortly after it was created, the president issued a Homeland Security Directive known as HSPD-5 which put the Secretary in the position of the operational incident manager in the case of a terrorist attack or natural disaster of significant consequence. The purpose of doing this was to recognize that while the White House guides policy, the operational planning, training and execution needs to be in a department and the conception was that the Department of Homeland Security wouldn't control the other departments but that there would be someone who would be saddled with a central responsibility to make sure all of the components of the operators were being synchronized and working well together.

This is, of course, a reflection of what they call the Incident Management System which has been adopted in many states as their way of dealing with incidents at the state level. It's a recognition of the fact that again crisis management and consequence management are part of a spectrum, that when you're dealing with a potential terrorist attack, for example, you are simultaneously looking at how you prevent further attacks, how do you protect against the attacks that are underway, and how do you respond and mitigate the attacks that have occurred. If you don't bring all these elements together, what you have is a disconnected response and it's that kind of disconnection that causes the kinds of problems that are often complained about when there's a terrorist attack and a failure to effectively respond.

That is really, in my mind, one of the core missions of the Department of Homeland Security. What happens when you don't have someone to coordinate the incident across the entire spectrum of prevention, protection and response? Well, I would argue that that's what we saw in Mumbai, India. Again, this is not my opinion. This is what was reflected in the Wall Street Journal a couple days ago when they wrote about a lack of communication between the fire responders and the emergency responders, the police and the military dealing in the hours and then days after that initial assault in Mumbai.

The failure to coordinate all of those elements led to delay and uncoordination and resulted in criticism directed against the government by the citizens of India itself. This is not again my opinion. I'm not commenting. I wasn't there. This is what the papers are reporting the citizens of India have indicated. What you come to recognize is without the kind of incident management and coordination that we are building at DHS, joint planning, joint execution, cutting across the lines of the different operators, without that kind of capability, it's easier to have a disconnected response than to have a coordinated and properly connected response.

Now let me give you some examples of what happens when we do do it the right way, when we do have properly coordinated response on an operational basis. In July 2006, you may recall that there were questions about the safety of Americans living in Lebanon during the war between Hezbollah and Israel. Working in a coordinated way with CBP and TSA and the State Department, using this incident management construct, DHS was able to facilitate the repatriation of Americans who had to leave Lebanon literally under the stress of fire fights in order to make sure they were not engulfed in the struggle between Hezbollah and Israel.

A month later, in August 2006, when the U.K. aviation plot directed at flights from Britain to the U.S. was revealed, we were able to coordinate TSA, again the State Department, Defense, and Customs and Border Protection, in a concerted response so that we could, within less than eight hours, completely transform the way we dealt with flights and airline security to prevent any element of that airline plot from coming to fruition.

And to use a different example, in June 2007, we had two successive emergencies that were resolved through incident management. One was a scare that turned out to be unfounded that we might have foot and mouth disease that had entered the country through swine. For those of you who don't know, that is a potentially calamitous livestock disease. DHS and its components worked with the Department of Agriculture, Health and Human Services, the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center to immediately assess whether this was a terrorist incident, to develop a common situational picture of what was going on, and to swiftly determine that the matter was not a threat. Had it been a threat, we would have then put into effect certain protocols at the border and certain medical protocols which would have mitigated the damage.

A day after we resolved that problem, we had the London and Glasgow terrorist attacks, culminating in the effort to blow up the airport in Glasgow, and we were again able to coordinate a response with Customs and Border Protection the Transportation Security Administration, and other elements of national power. That is the essence of incident management the ability to wield a lot of different organizations and bring them together to work in a coordinated way, and I think that is the harvesting of the seeds that were planted when this department was first founded.

So, in conclusion, always welcome words to those who are listening to a speaker, as we look ahead to the challenges of the future, I believe that we have built a firm foundation in incident management and in integration with the department, a foundation that was, I believe, part of the original conception by those who framed this department.

Now, it's not a fully-built and polished structure. We've laid out the basic architecture and I believe and I'm confident my successors will continue to strengthen and elaborate on this structure in a way that will ultimately result in making this country safer. No disaster is ever going to be painless and easy. That's why they call it a disaster and not a picnic. But we can make it less difficult, less costly, and, most important, less deadly if we are able to respond quickly, effectively, and in a coordinated way, in the manner that I think we've become able to do over the last several years, and so I wish my successors well as they continue to carry out the most important mission you can have as a public servant, which is protecting the citizens of this country against any kind of harm, whether it be manmade or natural.

Thank you very much.

Q. I'm Josh. I have a question about what responsibility the Department of Homeland Security has with respect to cyber threats.

Secretary Chertoff. That's a great question. Earlier this year, the president unveiled a National Cyber Security Strategy and it was a recognition that many of the cyber assets that are under attack are in private hands. A significant number are in the military domain and others are in the civilian government domain.

Essentially under this strategy, again there's a coordination function. We work with DoD and elements of the intelligence community. First, the Department of Defense protects its assets. We are currently in the process of developing a series of protections for our federal civilian government assets, including reducing the number of access points to the Internet and deploying real-time intrusion detection capability, and then we are also tasked with approaching the private sector about how it is that we can help enable them to protect themselves, and in order to do this, we will be able to call upon all the elements of the federal government, including the intelligence community.

So again, this is an area where it is not solely within our domain. It's a shared obligation but one in which we work very closely with the Department of Defense and the intelligence agencies so we can bring all of our capabilities together but everybody plays the position in the field that is appropriate for their authorities.

Q. Do you recommend the next Administration continue the UASI Grant Program as the primary means of getting federal Homeland Security dollars to states?

Secretary Chertoff. Well, it's not the primary means but it is a primary means. I do recommend that it be continued. For those who don't know, it's the Urban Area Security Initiative. It focuses on urban areas which are particularly high-risk for terrorist attacks. It has been largely risk-based. It's one of the few grant programs I'm aware of in the federal government where it really is risk-based. It's not based on, you know, particular political figures, you know, handing out benefits to their district.

I want to, by the way, take the opportunity to compliment the appropriators who deal with our appropriations because they've been quite responsible and dedicated in making sure they protected our ability to be risk-based and they've done themselves a lot of credit and I think the country a lot of good in being disciplined that way.

Q. I know it's not really within the department's jurisdiction, I guess, but I was wondering if there's any specific kind of soft power initiatives you believe that we can start—begin to incorporate as part of changing the attitudes and improving our homeland security.

Secretary Chertoff. Well, let me tell you what we do already, first within the department and then generally.

I've done a lot of—I spend a lot of time trying to do outreach to people in the Muslim community and I know that other agencies of the government are trying to do that as well. One of the greatest ways we can do outreach, of course, is by providing foreign assistance and aid around the world. You know, the president has put a lot of effort into the Anti-AIDS Initiative in Africa, the Malaria Initiative. You know, I can't prove to you there's an immediate return on investment in doing that, but I believe, and I think there's some polling data to support this, that when you provide that kind of assistance, you build goodwill.

I'm a believer in what I would call all of the above, hard power and soft power. Soft power means you influence by leading by example, by showing how you are willing to help people and helping them build good institutions which I think is important. Hard power is obviously sometimes boots and guns.

I think it's a mistake to use only hard power. I also think, though, that only soft power is not going to do the trick because there are some people that you need to make it clear, to whom we need to make it clear that force will be met by greater and decisive force, and so I think all the tools in the toolbox ought to be deployed.

Q. In light of recent issues with imports as far as the milk, formula milk and things like that, do you see the department kind of taking more initiative in what kind of efforts you see as far as protecting consumers?

Secretary Chertoff. Well, we actually were part of the task force the president set up some time ago involving the issue of imports which, of course, came up right after that pet food issue with the melamine.

Now, we're not the scientists. We take direction from the FDA and other agencies about what it is we ought to be excluding, but we are the operators. We will in fact inspect and exclude food or other products that are hazardous to the United States, once the appropriate scientists have determined that that's true.

I think this is an increasing area of concern in a global environment. How do we make sure that the products that we consume are not adulterated or dangerous in some way? In the end, of course, the best way to deal with this is at the source, not to hope that we catch it at the port of entry but to hope that we can effect the source where the contamination occurs, and I think that's part of what Secretary Levitz tried to do at HHS, which is to push the companies to take responsibility and make sure when they're buying things in other parts of the world, they're checking to make sure the product is safe and wholesome.

Q. I have a question. You discussed integrating different elements of Homeland Security apparatus within the country. Do you feel that the creation of DHS has helped integrate or to help cooperation with other governments in tackling these problems and do you believe there was a problem before the creation before DHS that this has addressed?

Secretary Chertoff. Well, I can certainly say it's helped. Most governments actually have what is generally in most countries called a Minister of the Interior which is unlike our Secretary of the Interior which in other countries is called usually the Secretary of the Environment. But the Minister of the Interior or Home Secretary in most countries is my counterpart and the relationship we have built in terms of border security, exchange of travel information and trade information and other kinds of intelligence has been, I think, a real success story certainly during my tenure.

We have signed a number of agreements with our foreign counterparts that have dramatically increased the amount of information we exchange, that coordinate our security efforts, whether it's aircraft or maritime, the maritime domain, and in that sense, we have—by bringing together all the elements that deal with travel and trade security, airline security, border security, we have been a coordinated point of contact for many countries where we didn't have a counterpart previously, and I think that's been very helpful.

Q. Yes, sir. I'm in the private sector, in the oil and gas sector. Thirteen MTSA facilities and six ports and we've had the pleasure of working with the Coast Guard over the past number of years and we really think that they've been a model for the public and private sector trust and partnership, and I was just wondering what you see as the growing role of the Coast Guard on the prevention and preparation for a terrorist attack.

Secretary Chertoff. Well, obviously the Coast Guard plays a huge role in the maritime domain in terms of prevention and protection.

It might be interesting, though, to—for people to understand that the Coast Guard has actually become a very important part of the DNA of the whole department. It's not an accident that many of the senior leaders in other parts of the department are retired Coast Guard admirals because the Coast Guard does have a terrific record of being able to integrate law enforcement, military and civilian functions in a total package. So not only is the Coast Guard playing a critical role in port security, working in very close contact with Customs and Border Protection, but they're actually a major enabler in terms of our integrated planning and operational activity at the department as a whole.

Q. I read this morning in the papers that you're—

Secretary Chertoff. Always a dangerous lead-up to a question.

Q. Your views on soft power, the necessity of soft power in the Department of Homeland Security have come about in the last six months or have been shaped in the last six months, and I'm curious what—what sort of shaped those thoughts.

Secretary Chertoff. I think it's more than in the last six months, as we've emerged out of the period of really focusing very intently on building our operational capabilities and doing the immediate focus on protecting the country in the shorter term, I've had an opportunity to reflect a little bit and I'm not so sure I'd exactly say I realized it in the last six months as I decided in the last six months I would begin to articulate a somewhat broader and more long-term vision of what we might do in order to prevail in this struggle against what I think is an extreme ideology or a number of extreme ideologies and so although we've been doing a lot of outreach, which is an element of soft power, for a couple of years now, I think my desire to articulate it as a specific goal really came about as part of my effort in the last six months to kind of lay out in a series of speeches and, frankly, articles my vision of what Homeland Security is like five and 10 years out.

Q. Hi. My name is Stephanie Grosser. I was wondering if you felt the workplace enforcement has been an effective way of dealing with the undocumented population and also if you think that undocumented workers with civil violations was a real threat to the country and therefore demand the kinds of resources.

Secretary Chertoff. Well, I don't think undocumented workers are a security threat. I do think that the law of the United States needs to be enforced and I think if you don't enforce the law, even in less serious crimes, it tends to lead actually to more serious crimes.

I'm on the record and I continue to believe that there should be comprehensive immigration reform which includes a way of regularizing getting a fine, some kind of punishment for people here illegally, and then regularizing their status. That, however, is not the law. The president worked very hard to get that done in 2007 and it didn't get done.

On the specific issue of worksite enforcement, it's beyond doubt that by enforcing the law against employers, that's a major way to prevent illegal work. If you don't do that, then the employers are beckoning people to come in illegally while you're trying to stop them at the border. So it's like driving a car with one foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake. You're not going anywhere.

So once you decide you're going to enforce against the employers, you have to ask yourself this question. Okay. If we go in to an employer and we say we're going to arrest you because we know 80 percent of your employees are illegal and you let every illegal employee just walk out the door and walk away, aren't you essentially sending the message that you're tolerating illegality? You're basically allowing people who you know to be here illegally to simply walk out without deporting them? And that would be tantamount to going in and, you know, if you were, for example, to arrest people involved in some other kind of criminal offense, you might want to get the kingpin, but you wouldn't allow everybody else who did something wrong to just walk out the door and disappear because that would essentially be creating a tacit amnesty which I think sends a very bad message.

Then, of course, once you decide you're going to stop those people and if they're illegal, you're going to get them deported, the next question I get asked is, well, why don't you just—why do you have to arrest them? Why don't you just release them and they'll operate on the honor system and they'll leave by themselves? Well, the problem is the honor system has failed 80 percent of the time. Eighty percent of the people released and told they should appear don't appear.

So in the end, you're faced with the fact that if you're going to enforce the law and you become aware that you're dealing with a large pool of people who are here illegally, you can't really turn a blind eye to it and I think that's why it is that we do enforcement that goes from the very top to the very bottom, and in almost every case, unless we have an identity theft, what we're really doing with people who are here illegally is we're deporting them.

I have to say it does have a positive effect in terms of reducing the number of people who are not only here illegally but, more important, it reduces the draw because when people weigh whether they want to take the risk of crossing the border illegally, the feeling that they may be caught and sent away is a deterrent effect. It also has the deterrent effect on the employers and remember this. You're not reading about cases where we go in and five percent of the employees are illegal or 10 percent are illegal or we're randomly going into businesses and just checking to see. You're typically seeing cases where 60-70-80 percent are illegal. Well, that tells you this is not an accident. It's a business model and you have businesses that have made a calculated decision to hire illegals.

Finally, I would have to say if you look at maybe the most notorious recent case or famous recent case, which is the Kosher meat processor, it turned out that what was revealed through that series of raids was not just illegal workers but exploitation of workers, labor violations, health violations, and that's again not an accident. You know, those who build a business on illegal workers tend to also try to get away with other things as well.

So it's not the most pleasant thing in the world, but when people violate the law, we have an obligation, unless the law is adjusted, to enforce it, and I think if we don't do that, the American people will rightfully say why should we trust the government with any kind of reform when all that's going to happen is they're going to close their eyes and they're not going to enforce the law and we're going to continue to have the same problem over and over and over again like the movie

Q. Can you speak a little bit about the department's efforts to regulate the chemical sector and its importance to do so?

Secretary Chertoff. Yes, that's a great question. One of the big concerns early on is the use of not just the chemical weapon, like a weapon that you build with chemicals and you attack, but using chemical plants in locations that are populated as essentially a weapon in place.

So there's been a lot of discussion about this over the last several years and the approach we took, which I think is correct, is to identify all the chemical plants that use hazardous chemicals and tier them by risk, by how dangerous they are and where they're located, and then on the higher-risk ones, to set down a series of performance requirements, not micro managing and saying you have to have nine guards at this gate and you have to have a fence that's 13 and a half feet high, but saying here's the capability that you need to be able to have, resisting a certain kind of attack for a certain period of time, and then allowing the plants to devise or design the plan to meet those metrics. They then get tested or audited, but it gives them the flexibility to decide what is the best way to achieve the performance requirement that we are imposing.

I think that's a great example of combining the private sector and the public sector. We don't micro manage the private sector but we do lay down requirements and we give them the opportunity to meet those requirements as they best see fit.

Q. First of all, I just wanted to thank you for coming to speak. I know it's late and you probably want to get home, but my question is simple. How has the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security helped mitigate the drug trade, particularly the cartels bringing the substances across the southern border?

Secretary Chertoff. Well, part of what we do at the border, of course, is not just keeping out human smuggling but keeping out drug smuggling and actually there's moving across the southern border and more of them moved to bringing drugs in other ways or sending the drugs to Europe, at least in part because we've made it harder to cross the border.

You know, one of the—when I get arguments about why are you building a fence and stuff like that on the southern border, one of the things I point out is we're not just keeping out people who are coming in to work illegally or keeping out people who are smuggling drugs or other contraband into the country and the integration of the Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection has given us an ability to address the importation of drugs across all of our borders, land, sea and air, which is an important element in making sure we're working to reduce the supply that comes in.

Q. Hi. Thanks. I'm wondering how do you—how serious do you perceive the threat of Iran's increasing presence in Latin America? Thanks.

Secretary Chertoff. Well, we do know that Mr. Chavez has invited the Iranians into Venezuela and increasingly has created stronger ties with Iran. We know going back about 10 years ago, based on an indictment in, I believe it was, Argentina, that Hezbollah actually carried out terrorist attacks in South America. We know that there's been fundraising for Hezbollah which is a terrorist organization in South America.

So the concern obviously is bringing in a country that is certainly hostile to the U.S. into the hemisphere, that increases the risk of fundraising, it increases the risk of potentially facilitation of terrorist attacks, and it creates a network or an alliance of countries that are—have in common a hostility to America. So it is a troubling development in much the same way I think, you know, maybe less troubling but also certainly worth watching, is the increasing presence of Russian forces in the hemisphere which, to my mind, is a bit of an effort to kind of shove back at us because of some unhappiness with the expansion of NATO into areas of Eastern Europe that were formerly viewed as in the province of the old Soviet Union.

Q. Mr. Secretary, I've been to several conferences and heard about a robust planning capability at the Headquarters level and it's called the INPT. I'm wondering if you can comment on the team and what advice you might give your successor on how to build on that team.

Secretary Chertoff. This—until this department was formed, interagency planning on the civilian side was not a very well-executed responsibility. The military spent a lot of time over many years developing a joint planning capability. The civilian side did not really have that and when I came onboard and we looked at the plans that we had, they tended to be very vague and not really all that well thought out and to be honest with you, the evidence of that—I think I gave a speech saying that in July of 2005 and then, unfortunately, it was proven to be the case in August with Hurricane Katrina.

The only way to deal with that problem is to build a planning capability that brings interagency people together to build interagency plans and then to support them with department plans and the INPT, Integrated Planning Team, is designed to do that and it is in the process of planning and refining a set of plans on the interagency basis for dealing with the most dangerous reasonably likely scenarios where there would be a catastrophic problem, whether it be a dirty bomb or a pandemic flu or a huge like earthquake, and this is—you know, I tell you, planning is really hard. It's time-consuming. It requires a lot of people from different agencies to play together and that's not always easy, and it takes a lot of testing and refining, and it's not the most glamorous work because it doesn't result in immediate things you can—you know, you have a press conference to show, but it is the critical foundation of effective managing of any incident and so it's taken us awhile to build this capability.

It is really critical, for my successor's sake, that she continue building this because, you know, when you're in—the emergency happens and you turn and you want to open the drawer and pull the plans out, there better be plans there and, you know, I at least had the benefit of, after several years of experience, I've listed through a lot of different kinds of things, but as new people come on, having a good plan is a critical element in getting them up to speed as quickly as possible.

Q. I guess I had a question about leadership and making difficult decisions, and as you talked about a lot about government and making difficult decisions, so maybe you could just pick an area as an example and again these are types of decisions where no matter which way you decide people are going to disagree with you. So as a leader, how do you deal with that, and one particular example is activities under the Patriot Act where people portrayed this as a trade-off between security and privacy, and they're very difficult questions? Do you have sort of guiding principles that you used to apply in those situations and how do you think about that?

Secretary Chertoff. Well, that's a very perceptive question because you're right, the essence of leadership is you're going to make difficult decisions and by definition that means some people are going to be unhappy. Very few decisions are so obvious and easy that you get unanimous acclaim.

The Patriot Act, I actually think is actually not a particularly hard circumstance. A lot of people don't really understand what it says and it's basically a question of information-sharing and adjusting the ability to collect intelligence in terrorism so that it's commensurate with what we could already do with respect to drugs and other kinds of crimes.

I'll pick another example. Requiring, you know, secure documentation to cross a border. The people in the border areas are unhappy about that. They're afraid it's going to discourage impulse travel because people will need to carry a document with them, like a passport or passcard, but we know in the long run, if you don't secure the border, we could have another Ahkmed Rasan or another terrorist come across the border pretending to be somebody else and there could be a huge catastrophic loss of life in the U.S. So in many ways, the essence of leadership is to me looking at the long-term interests of the country and the interests that benefit the greatest good and being prepared to make a decision in the long-term interests that benefits the greatest good, even if, in the short term, the people who are on the other side of it are going to be the most outraged because typically a small number of people who lose the decision are very motivated to complain and often it's based on a very short-term interest and it's hard to say because the people who are benefiting in the long term may not see the benefit, they may not see it in your term of office, they may never see it, maybe we'll be lucky, maybe no one will ever try to commit a terrorist act, but if you don't plan for the long term and the greatest good, you take an awful risk.

I would say that one of the lessons I've learned, maybe “the” lesson I learned in the last eight years is we've had three major catastrophic events, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the financial meltdown. In each case, the real nub of the problem was leaders made decisions looking only at the short term and sacrificing the long term. What do I mean? Prior to 9/11, although there was a lot of discussion about the need to have more security, we didn't have the political will as a country to put security measures in place that would have prevented 9/11. I don't blame this on either party. I don't blame it on the presidents. The country wasn't there. If one of the presidents had said let's have TSA search everybody prior to 9/11, they would have been laughed off the stage. That's an example of short term versus long term.

Katrina. Here's a little-known but remarkable story. The reason that became a major catastrophic flood was not the hurricane itself, it was the collapse of a canal wall in the 17th Street Canal. That wall collapsed because when the lake receded from the initial wind thrust, it went down to the south part of the lake and it became channeled into that narrow canal and that put hydraulic pressure on the wall and caused the collapse. So there's an obvious question. Why didn't you build a barrier at the mouth of the canal you could drop so you could prevent the surge and that's what we've done now. In Gustav, it actually dropped and it worked perfectly well.

So I asked the question, why didn't that get done before 2005? Did no one think about it? Oh, people thought about it. There was a proposal to build just such a barrier several years before. But local residents didn't want it because it was going to be unsightly and it was going to spoil their view of the lake and no one had the political will to overrule them and that to me is a classical lesson of short term over long term.

Finally, look at the financial crisis. This is one of the few crises that's not in my domain but again you have to ask yourself whether the failure to impose capital requirements and other regulation to protect against the low-probability/high-consequence event was a failure as well of our financial institutions and again that's not looking at the long term, it's looking at the short term.

So I would argue the essence of leadership is to be willing to look to a long-term solution, even if there's a short-term cost.

The last thing I would say as an example of this is, you know, when the president came onboard, he tried very hard to get people to look at entitlements, the ballooning Social Security Medicare, which, you know, we all get older and particularly when you guys get older, the number of people who are working who can pay into that fund is going to be much less than is necessary to support that fund if we don't do something about it.

You know, Congress didn't want to step up and deal with it because that's 15 years from now. That's 20 years from now. That's a long-term problem. There are many, many short-term requirements that people would prefer to pay attention to. So that to me is—if you—after this speech, if you come away with nothing other than this, it is we've got to stop letting short-term benefits outweigh long-term, much more significant costs. We've got to align our interests so that we look across the time horizon and think about what's going to happen 10, 20 and 30 years from now.

President George W. Bush delivered these remarks at West Point, New York

President Bush. Thank you. Please be seated. Thank you, General, for your warm welcome. Thank you for inviting me here to West Point. I now know why you're so happy I'm here—all classes were cancelled.

I had the honor of sitting next to the General and Judy during the game over the weekend. I am disappointed I could not bring the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy with me. However, you just get the Commander-in-Chief.

This is my last visit to a military academy as President, so I thought I would exercise a certain prerogative of office one last time: I hereby absolve all cadets who are on restriction for minor conduct offenses. As always, I always—I leave it to General Hagenbeck to determine what “minor” means.

I really am proud to be with you today. I appreciate General Mike Linnington, and his wife Brenda for meeting me. It turns out Brenda was a—is a 1981 West Point graduate.

I appreciate being here with General Pat Finnegan and Joan. Today on Air Force One, Congressman John Shimkus, 1980 West Point graduate, and Congressman Geoff Davis, 1981 West Point graduate, flew down with me. It's my honor to let them fly on the “big bird.”

There are many honors that come with the presidency, but none higher than serving as Commander-in-Chief in the greatest Armed Forces on Earth. Every one of you is a volunteer. You came to this academy in a time of war, knowing all the risks that come with military service. I want to thank you for making the noble and selfless decision to serve our country. And I will always be grateful to the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States military.

As West Point cadets, you're part of a generation that has witnessed extraordinary change in the world. Two decades ago, the Cold War was nearing its end, and the Soviet Union was about to collapse. You were just beginning your lives.

About the same time, another threat was quietly gathering. In hidden corners of the world, violent religious extremists were plotting ways to advance their radical aims and their grim ideology. We saw the results in a series of horrifying blows— the truck bombing of the World Trade Center, the attack of Khobar Towers, the bombing of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the strike on the USS Cole.

For many years, America treated these attacks as isolated incidents—and responded with limited measures. And then came September the 11th, 2001. In the space of a single morning we realized that we were facing a worldwide movement of fanatics pledged to our destruction. We saw that conditions of repression and despair on the other side of the world could bring suffering and death to our own streets.

As a result, America reshaped our approach to national security. Here at home, we hardened our defenses and created the Department of Homeland Security. We gave our national security professionals vital new tools like the Patriot Act and the ability to monitor terrorist communications. We reorganized our intelligence community to better meet the needs of war against these terrorists, including increasing the number of intelligence officers. We deployed aggressive financial measures to freeze their assets and to cut off their money. We launched diplomatic initiatives to pressure our adversaries and attract new partners to our cause.

We also made dramatic changes to both our military strategy and our—the military itself. We resolved that we would not wait to be attacked again, and so we went on the offense against the terrorists overseas so we never had to face them here at home. We recognized that we needed strong partners at our side, so we helped strengthen the counterterrorism capabilities of our allies. We understood, as I said here at West Point in 2002, “if we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long“—so we made clear that hostile regimes sponsoring terror or pursuing weapons of mass destruction would be held to account.

We concluded that we are engaged in an ideological struggle, so we launched an effort to discredit the hateful vision of the extremists and advance the hopeful alternative of freedom. We saw the urgency of staying a step ahead of our enemies, so we transformed our military both to prevail on the battlefields of today and to meet the threats of tomorrow.

These changes will have a direct impact on your military careers. This morning, I'm going to give you a report on where we stand in each of these areas, and the challenges that lie ahead.

First, within weeks of September the 11th, our Armed Forces began taking the fight to the terrorists around the world— and we have not stopped. From the Horn of Africa to the islands of Southeast Asia to wherever these thugs hide, we and our allies applied the full range of military and intelligence assets to keep unrelenting pressure on al Qaeda and its affiliates. We have severely weakened the terrorists. We've disrupted plots to attack our homeland. We have captured or killed hundreds of al Qaeda leaders and operatives in more than two dozen countries—including the man who mastermind the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The terrorists continue to pose serious challenges, as the world saw in the terrible attack in Mumbai last month. Al Qaeda's top two leaders remain at large. Yet they are facing pressure so intense that the only way they can stay alive is to stay underground. The day will come, the day will come when they receive the justice they deserve.

Second, we've helped key partners and allies strengthen their capabilities in the fight against the terrorists. We've increased intelligence-sharing with friends and allies around the world. We've provided training and support to counterterrorism partners like the Philippines, and Indonesia, and Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. These partners have made enormous contributions in the war on terror. For example, Indonesia has crippled the terrorist group JI. Saudi Arabia has killed or captured hundreds of al Qaeda terrorists. And in Europe, security services have broken up terrorist cells in Germany, in Denmark, in Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

One of the most important challenges we will face, and you will face, in the years ahead is helping our partners assert control over ungoverned spaces. This problem is most pronounced in Pakistan, where areas along the Afghanistan border are home to Taliban and to al Qaeda fighters. The Pakistani government and people understand the threat, because they have been victims of terror themselves. They're working to enforce the law and fight terror in the border areas. And our government is providing strong support for these efforts. And at the same time, we have made it clear to Pakistan—and to all our partners—that we will do what is necessary to protect American troops and the American people.

Third, we have made clear that governments that sponsor terror are as guilty as the terrorists—and will be held to account. After 9/11, we applied the doctrine to Afghanistan. We removed the Taliban from power. We shut down training camps where al Qaeda planned the attacks on our country. We liberated more than 25 million Afghans. Now America and our 25 NATO allies and 17 partner nations are standing with the Afghan people as they defend their free society. The enemy is determined, the terrain is harsh, and the battle is difficult. But our coalition will stay in this fight. We will not let the Taliban or al Qaeda return to power. And Afghanistan will never again be a safe haven for terrorists.

We also took a hard look at the danger posed by Iraq—a country that combined support for terror, the development and the use of weapons of mass destruction, violence against its own people, aggression against its neighbors, hostility to the United States, and systematic violation of United Nations resolutions. After seeing the destruction of September the 11th, we concluded that America could not afford to allow a regime with such a threatening and violent record to remain in the heart of the Middle East. So we offered Saddam Hussein a final chance to peacefully resolve the issue. And when he refused, we acted with a coalition of nations to protect our people—and liberated 25 million Iraqis.

The battle in Iraq has been longer and more difficult than expected. Foreign terrorists, former regime elements, and Iraqi insurgents—often with outside support— combined to drive up violence, and bring the country to the verge of chaos. So we adopted a new strategy, and rather than retreating, sent more troops into Baghdad in Iraq. And when the surge met its objective, we began to bring our troops home under a policy of return on success. Last week, Iraq approved two agreements that formalize diplomatic and economic and security ties with America—and set a framework for the drawdown of American forces as the fight in Iraq nears a successful end.

Fourth, America recognized the only way to defeat the terrorists in the long run is to present an alternative to their hateful ideology. So when we overthrew the dictators in Afghanistan and Iraq, we refused to take the easy option and instill friendly strongmen in their place. Instead, we're doing the tough work of helping democratic societies emerge as examples for people all across the Middle East. We're pressing nations around the world— including our friends—to trust their people with greater freedom of speech, and worship, and assembly. We're advancing a broader vision of reform that includes economic prosperity, and quality health care and education, and vibrant civil societies, and women's rights.

The results of these efforts are unfolding slowly and unevenly, but there are encouraging signs. From Iraq and Afghanistan to Lebanon and Pakistan, voters defied the terrorists to cast their ballots in free elections. In places like Iraq's Anbar province, people have seen what life under the Taliban looks like—and they decided they want no part it—actually, it was life under al Qaeda looks like.

You know, mothers don't want to raise their child in a neighborhood where thugs run and where thugs brutalize people. People want to live in peace. People want to live in freedom. Muslims from Jordan and Turkey to India and Indonesia have seen their brothers and sisters massacred, and recoiled from the terrorists. And even within the jihadist ranks, religious scholars have begun to criticize al Qaeda and its brutal tactics. In these ideological rejections, we see the beginning of al Qaeda's ultimate demise—because in the long run, the ideology of hatred and fear cannot possibly compete with the power of hope and freedom.

Finally, we are transforming our military for a new kind of war that we're fighting now, and for wars of tomorrow. This transformation was a top priority for the enterprising leader who served as my first Secretary of Defense—Donald Rumsfeld. Today, because of his leadership and the leadership of Secretary Bob Gates, we have made our military better trained, better equipped, and better prepared to meet the threats facing America today, and tomorrow, and long in the future.

As part of our transformation effort, we are arming our troops with intelligence, and weapons, and training, and support they need to face an enemy that wages asymmetric battle. See, this enemy hides among the civilian population, and they use terror tactics like roadside bombs to attack our forces, to demoralize local population, and to try to shake the will of the American people.

To defeat this enemy, we have equipped our troops with real-time battlefield intelligence capabilities that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. In Iraq and Afghanistan, troops in the field have used advanced technologies like Global Positioning Systems to direct air strikes that take out the enemy while sparing innocent life. We've expanded America's arsenal of unmanned aerial vehicles from fewer than 170 when I took office to more than 6,000 today. We're arming Predator drones. We're using them to stay on the hunt against the terrorists who would do us harm.

We've expanded America's special operations forces. With more forces— more of these forces on the battlefield, we can respond more quickly to actionable intelligence on the terrorists who are in hiding. Over the past eight years, we have more than doubled funding for special operators. We created the first-ever special operations command within the Marines. We have given the Special Operations Command the lead role in the global war against the terrorists.

In addition to these upgrades in our counterterrorism capabilities, we have placed a new focus on counterinsurgency. The Army has published a new counterinsurgency manual written by a distinguished graduate of this academy: General David Petraeus. The central objectives of this counterinsurgency strategy are to secure the population, and gain support of the people, and train local forces to take the responsibility on their own.

One of the reasons we're meeting these objectives in Iraq is the ability to rapidly deploy brigade combat teams. These teams can join the battle on short notice as organized and cohesive units. With these teams in the fight, our Army is better able to carry out its counterinsurgency objectives—and better equipped to defeat the enemies we'll face as the 21st century unfolds.

Our counterinsurgency strategy also stresses the importance of following up security gains with real benefits in people's daily lives. To better meet that objective, we created Provincial Reconstruction Teams, or PRTs. These teams pair with military personnel civilian experts in areas like economics, and agriculture, and law enforcement, and education. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, these teams are helping local communities create jobs, and deliver basic services, and keep the terrorists from coming back. PRTs bring diplomats, aid workers, and other experts from across the government into the fight—and we must expand them in the years to come.

To better institutionalize all the changes we've made in recent years, we have transformed the education and training our troops receive. We're taking the lessons we've learned in Afghanistan and Iraq, and teaching them at military academies and training centers across our country. For example, every branch of the military now receives the counterinsurgency training that was once reserved for special operations forces. Here at West Point, you've created a new Combating Terrorism Center that allows you to gain insights from the battles of today and apply them as you lead our military into the future.

In addition to making these changes to help our troops prevail in the war on terror, we've been transforming our military since early 2001 to confront other challenges that may emerge in the decades ahead. For example, we have begun the most sweeping transformation of America's global force posture since the end of World War II. We're shifting troops from Cold War garrisons in Europe and Asia so they can surge more rapidly to troubled spots around the world. We've established new military commands to meet challenges unique to Africa and to support our homeland.

One of the most serious dangers facing our people is the threat of a rogue regime armed with ballistic missiles.

We've invested more than a half a trillion dollars in research and development, so we can build even more advanced capabilities to protect America from the dangers of a new century. We're making our forces more joint and interoperable, so they can cooperate seamlessly across different services and with foreign partners. And to confront an emerging threat to our economy, our defense systems, and individual citizens, the federal government is cooperating closely with the private sector to improve security in cyberspace.

One of the most serious dangers facing our people is the threat of a rogue regime armed with ballistic missiles. In 2001, I announced withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. I did so because it constrained our ability to develop the technologies needed to defend ourselves against the threat of blackmail by rogue states. With these constraints removed, we have developed and deployed new defenses capable of protecting American cities from ballistic missile attack.

This system can now defend America against limited missile attacks from Northeast Asia. Concluded agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic to establish missile defense sites on their territories to help protect against ballistic missile attacks from the Middle East. Because we acted, America now has an initial capability to protect our people from a ballistic missile attack.

As we built new defenses against a missile attack, we also worked with Russia to make historic reductions in offensive nuclear weapons. When these reductions are complete, the total U.S. nuclear stockpile will be at its lowest level since the Eisenhower administration. These reductions are part of a new approach to strategic deterrence that relies on both nuclear and conventional strike forces, as well as strong defenses. We're investing in new technologies that will ensure the long-term safety and security and reliability and effectiveness of our nuclear deterrent. This approach sends a clear message to the world: We'll reduce our reliance on nuclear weapons while keeping America's strategic deterrent unchallenged.

With all the actions we've taken these past eight years, we've laid a solid foundation on which future Presidents and future military leaders can build. America's military—America's military today is stronger, more agile, and better prepared to confront threats to our people than it was eight years ago. In the years ahead, our nation must continue developing the capabilities to take the fight to our enemies across the world. We must stay on the offensive. We must be determined and we must be relentless to do our duty to protect the American people from harm.

We must stand by the friends and allies who are making tough decisions and taking risks to defeat the terrorists. We must keep up the pressure on regimes that sponsor terror and pursue weapons of mass destruction. We must continue to support dissidents and reformers who are speaking out against extremism and in favor of liberty. We must continue transforming our Armed Forces so that the next generation inherits a military that is capable of keeping the American people safe and advancing the cause of peace. And above all, we must always ensure that our troops have the funds and resources they need to do their jobs, and that their families receive the full support they deserve.

I have great confidence in the future, because I have confidence in you all. Ultimately, the security of our nation depends on the courage of those who wear the uniform. I see that courage in all of you. I thank you for your patriotism. I thank you for your devotion to duty. May God bless you in all your endeavors. May God bless your families. And may God continue to bless the United States of America.

Text of a Letter from the President To The Speaker Of The House Of Representatives And The President Pro Tempore Of The Senate

Dear Madam Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

I am providing this supplemental consolidated report, prepared by my Administration and consistent with the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148), as part of my efforts to keep the Congress informed about deployments of U.S. combat-equipped Armed Forces around the world. This supplemental report covers operations in support of the war on terror and in Kosovo.

THE WAR ON TERROR

Since September 24, 2001, I have reported, consistent with Public Law 107-40 and the War Powers Resolution, on the combat operations in Afghanistan against al-Qaida terrorists and their Taliban supporters, which began on October 7, 2001, and the deployment of various combat-equipped and combat-support forces to a number of locations in the Central, Pacific, European, Southern, and Africa Command areas of operation in support of those operations and of other operations in our war on terror.

I will direct additional measures as necessary in the exercise of the right of the United States to self-defense and to protect U.S. citizens and interests. Such measures may include short-notice deployments of special operations and other forces for sensitive operations in various locations throughout the world. It is not possible to know at this time the precise scope or the duration of the deployment of U.S. Armed Forces necessary to counter the terrorist threat to the United States.

United States Armed Forces, with the assistance of numerous coalition partners, continue to conduct the U.S. campaign to pursue al-Qaida terrorists and to eliminate support to al-Qaida. These operations have been successful in seriously degrading al-Qaida's training capabilities. United States Armed Forces, with the assistance of numerous coalition partners, ended the Taliban regime and are actively pursuing and engaging remnant al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. The total number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan is approximately 31,000, of which approximately 13,000 are assigned to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. The U.N. Security Council authorized ISAF in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1386 of December 20, 2001, and has reaffirmed its authorization since that time, most recently for a 12-month period from October 13, 2008, in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1833 of September 22, 2008. The mission of ISAF under NATO command is to assist the Government of Afghanistan in creating a safe and secure environment that allows for continued reconstruction and the exercise and extension of Afghan authority. Currently, more than 40 nations contribute to ISAF, including all 26 NATO Allies.

The United States continues to detain several hundred al-Qaida and Taliban fighters who are believed to pose a continuing threat to the United States and its interests. The combat-equipped and combat-support forces deployed to Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the U.S. Southern Command area of operations since January 2002 continue to conduct secure detention operations for the enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay.

The U.N. Security Council authorized a Multinational Force (MNF) in Iraq under unified command in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1511 of October 16, 2003, and reaffirmed its authorization in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546 of June 8, 2004, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1637 of November 8, 2005, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1723 of November 28, 2006, and U.N. Security Council Resolution 1790 of December 18, 2007, set to expire on December 31, 2008. Under Resolutions 1546, 1637, 1723, and 1790, the mission of the MNF is to contribute to security and stability in Iraq. These contributions have included, but have not been limited to, assisting in building the capability of the Iraqi security forces, supporting the development of Iraq's political institutions, improving local governance, enhancing ministerial capacity, and providing critical humanitarian and reconstruction assistance to the Iraqis. The U.S. contribution to the MNF fluctuates over time depending on the conditions in theater as determined by the commanders on the ground; the current U.S. contribution to the MNF is approximately 152,035 U.S. military personnel.

In furtherance of our efforts against terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the United States, its friends and allies, and our forces abroad, the United States continues to work with friends and allies in areas around the globe. These efforts include the deployment of U.S. combat-equipped and combat-support forces to assist in enhancing the counterterrorism capabilities of our friends and allies. United States combat-equipped and combat-support forces continue to be located in the Horn of Africa region.

In addition, the United States continues to conduct maritime interception operations on the high seas in the areas of responsibility of all of the geographic combatant commanders. These maritime operations have the responsibility to stop the movement, arming, or financing of international terrorists.

NATO-LED KOSOVO FORCE (KFOR)

As noted in previous reports regarding U.S. contributions in support of peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo, the U.N. Security Council authorized Member States to establish KFOR in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 of June 10, 1999.

The original mission of KFOR was to monitor, to verify, and, when necessary, to enforce compliance with the Military Technical Agreement between NATO and Serbia (formerly the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), while maintaining a safe and secure environment. Today, KFOR deters renewed hostilities and, with local authorities and international police, contributes to the maintenance of a safe and secure environment that facilitates the work of the United Nations Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), the European Union (EU)-led International Civilian Office, and the evolving EU Rule of Law Mission (EULEX).

Currently, 25 NATO nations contribute to KFOR. Eight non-NATO countries also participate by providing military and other support personnel to KFOR. The U.S. contribution to KFOR is about 1,500 U.S. military personnel, or approximately 9 percent of KFOR's total strength of approximately 15,500 personnel.

The U.S. participating forces in KFOR have been assigned to the eastern region of Kosovo but also have operated in other areas of the country based on mission requirements. For U.S. KFOR forces, as for KFOR generally, helping to maintain a safe and secure environment remains the principal military task. The KFOR operates under NATO command and control and rules of engagement. The KFOR currently coordinates with and supports UNMIK within means and capabilities and has provided similar assurances of cooperation to EULEX. The KFOR provides a security presence in towns, villages, and the country-side; and organizes checkpoints and patrols in key areas to provide security, to protect all elements of the population living in Kosovo, and to help instill a feeling of confidence in all ethnic communities throughout Kosovo.

NATO continues periodically to conduct a formal review of KFOR's mission. These reviews provide a basis for assessing current force levels, future requirements, force structure, force reductions, and the eventual withdrawal of KFOR. NATO adopted the Joint Operations Area plan to regionalize and rationalize its force structure in the Balkans.

The UNMIK international police and Kosovo Police Service (KPS) have primary responsibility for public safety and policing throughout Kosovo. The UNMIK international police and KPS also have assumed responsibility for guarding some patrimonial sites and operating border crossings. The KFOR supports these police forces when requested and augments security in particularly sensitive areas or in response to particular threats as events on the ground dictate.

I have directed the participation of U.S. Armed Forces in all of these operations pursuant to my constitutional authority to conduct the foreign relations of the United States and as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive. Officials of my Administration and I communicate regularly with the leadership and other Members of Congress with regard to these deployments, and we will continue to do so.

President George W. Bush delivered these remarks at Carlisle, PA

President Bush. Thank you very much. Please be seated. Thank you for the warm welcome. I'm sorry I'm late. But I am honored to be back at the Army War College. A few weeks ago, you celebrated this college's 107th birthday. I was interested to learn that the school was originally located across the street from the White House. Apparently after a few years on Pennsylvania Avenue—it was time to pack up your bags. Laura and I know the feeling.

General Williams, thank you for your leadership. Sergeant Major Powell, thank you for greeting me.

I'm traveling today with the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Jim Peake. I assume he got a seat. Peake, how are you—finally, yes! He actually was a 1988 graduate of the U.S. Army War College. He claimed he was the president of the class. But he also modestly informed me that the reason why is because he was the oldest member of the class. Anyway, Mr. Secretary, thanks for your service.

Students, faculty, and staff, it's good to be with you.

Over the past century, this important institution has become one of our nation's most revered places. It really has been. After all, the graduates of this college are legendary—and perhaps I'm looking at legends—Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, George Patton to Norm Schwarzkopf, Tommy Franks, and a man who I visited with recently, Ray Odierno. I want to thank you for continuing this college's noble tradition of military scholarship. I thank you for volunteering to serve our nation during a time of war. I appreciate the officers from our partner nations who are studying here and who are strengthening their countries' friendship with the United States.

I know many of you have served overseas in the war on terror. This weekend, I was honored to make one final trip to the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan. During my trip, I had the opportunity to spend time with men and women in uniform, and I've got to tell you, there is nothing better, to be the Commander-in-Chief, and stand in front of brave souls who bring such dignity to the United States of America.

They say, what are you going to miss? I'm going to miss a lot of things—like no traffic jams on the way from Harrisburg. But I'm most going to miss being the Commander-in-Chief. It is amazing to serve with people who are willing to stand up and step forward to address the great challenge to freedom and democracy of our time. We have been called to action, and many have agreed to serve.

You know, the threat emerged long before September the 11th. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the followers of a hateful and twisted ideology grew in strength and number. In lands where repression and despair reigned, these extremists found willing recruits for their murderous vision. They unleashed an unprecedented campaign of terror against the United States—attacking the World Trade Center in 1993, bombing two of our embassies in Africa in 1998, striking the USS Cole in 2000.

For many years, our nation viewed these attacks as isolated incidents, and we responded with limited measures. That changed on September the 11th, 2001. On that morning, Americans woke to news of a plane crashing into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Within the span of 90 minutes, a second plane struck the South Tower, a third one pierced the rings of the Pentagon, and a fourth vanished from the skies above Pennsylvania. By nightfall, the sun had set on a very different world. With rumors of more attacks swirling, Americans went to bed wondering what the future would bring.

On that night, virtually no one would have predicted that more than seven years would pass without another terrorist attack on our soil. It's not a matter of luck. It is a tribute to the dedicated men and women who work day and night to defend our great land. It's the result of tough decisions that we began making immediately after September the 11th.

You see, in those uncertain first weeks, there was no obvious precedent to follow. We faced a choice among many different courses of action. On one end of the spectrum, we could have responded with a purely defensive strategy—hunkering down behind our borders, and retreating from the world stage. On the other end of the spectrum, we could have sought revenge through instant retaliation— attacking nations that support terror, with no broader strategy to address the root cause of the problem.

I rejected both these extremes in favor of a deliberate and comprehensive approach—one where we used all elements of our national power to keep America safe at home, the understanding that we needed to take the fight to the enemy abroad, and the idea of promoting liberty as the alternative to terror.

Last week, I spoke at West Point about transforming our military to wage this war. And today I'm going to talk you about the strategy we pursued to keep our country safe, the results we've achieved, and the institutions we leave behind for future Presidents to carry on this struggle.

After September the 11th, we fundamentally reshaped our strategy for protecting the American people around three core principles. First, we recognized that our homeland security and intelligence capabilities were inadequate. So we launched the largest reorganization of the federal government since the beginning of the Cold War with one overriding purpose— and that was to prevent new attacks.

Secondly, we recognized that even with the best defenses, we could not afford to wait for the terrorists to attack again. So we launched a global campaign to take the fight to the terrorists abroad, to dismantle their networks, to dry up their financing, and find their leaders and bring them to justice. We sent a clear message that America will make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor them.

Immediately after September the 11th, we gave the Taliban in Afghanistan two options: Surrender the leaders of al Qaeda—or you can share in their fate. When the regime leaders made their choice, we made ours. We removed the Taliban from power, we shut down the terrorist training camps, and we liberated more than 25 million Afghans.

After 9/11, we also reexamined the danger posed by Iraq—a country that combined support for terror, the development and use of weapons of mass destruction, aggression against its neighbors, routine attacks on American forces, systemic violations of U.N. resolutions. We concluded that the world could not tolerate such a destabilizing and dangerous force in the heart of the Middle East. I offered Saddam Hussein a final chance to resolve the issue peacefully. It was his choice to make. And when he refused, we acted with a coalition of nations to protect our people—and liberate 25 million Iraqis.

Thirdly, we recognized that the war on terror is more than a battle of arms. It is an ideological struggle for hearts and minds. And to prevail, we must counter the terrorists' hateful ideology with a more hopeful alternative based on liberty and justice. So after removing the threatening regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, we refused to take the easy course of trading one strongman for another. Instead, we stayed to help young democracies emerge as beacons for hope for people across the Middle East. We increased our support for democratic reformers and dissidents around the world. We expanded our efforts to combat the conditions of despair and hopelessness that give rise to rage and radicalism.

While there's room for honest and healthy debate about the decisions I've made—and there's plenty of debate— there can be no debate about the results in keeping America safe.

Here at home we prevented numerous terrorist attacks—including an attempt to bomb fuel tanks at JFK Airport, a plot to blow up airliners bound for the East Coast, a scheme to attack a shopping mall in the Chicago area, and a plan to destroy the tallest skyscraper in Los Angeles. We'll never know how many lives have been saved. But this is for certain: Since 9/11, there's not been another terrorist attack on American soil.

And this is certain as well: Around the world, we're driving the terrorists from their safe havens. We are choking off their financing. We are severely disrupting their operations. Together with our allies, we killed or captured hundreds of al Qaeda leaders and operatives, including the architect of the September the 11th attacks—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. And thanks to the success of the surge, the courage of our troops, and the determination of the Iraqi people, we have delivered a devastating blow to al Qaeda in the land Osama bin Laden once called the central battleground in the war on terror.

In the broader struggle between freedom and terror, people around the world have made their choice clear. In Afghanistan, eight million men and women went to the polls to elect a president for the first time in their history. In Iraq, 12 million people defied the terrorists and elected a representative government. You know, one of the things I'll never forget are the ink-stained fingers of people who had a chance to vote their conscience. In countries from Liberia and Lebanon to Georgia and Ukraine, citizens have taken to the streets to cast off the chains of tyranny, and demand their God-given right for freedom. And around the world, more people live in liberty than at any other time in human history.

This is a hopeful beginning. Yet it is only a beginning. Like the struggle against communism during the Cold War, the struggle against terror will be a generational conflict—one that will continue long beyond my presidency. As my administration leaves office next month, we will leave behind the institutions and tools our country needs to prevail in the long struggle ahead.

We'll leave behind a vastly upgraded network of homeland defenses. Federal, state, and local law enforcement officers are working together more closely than ever before. The number of border patrol agents has doubled since 2001. Our airports and seaports have bolstered screening procedures. Major cities have installed early-warning systems for detecting biological and radiological attacks. And to better coordinate a comprehensive strategy for keeping our people safe, we have a new Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security.

We'll leave behind a revamped intelligence community that has new tools for staying one step ahead of our enemies. Under the new Director of National Intelligence, federal agencies are collecting and sharing information more effectively than ever before. At the new National Counterterrorism Center, representatives from 16 different federal agencies are working side by side to track any new threat. The FBI—agents and analysts have shifted their focus from investigating terrorist attacks after they happen to gathering intelligence to prevent them from happening in the first place. The Treasury Department—there are new programs to shut down financing for terrorism. The CIA—human intelligence capabilities have improved. More operations officers have deployed overseas to penetrate the terrorist organizations. There's a program to interrogate key terrorist leaders. At the NSA, there are expanded efforts to monitor terrorist communications around the world. We need to quickly figure out who the terrorists are talking to, and what they're saying, in order to protect the homeland.

We will leave behind new technologies and resources for our military to keep the pressure on the enemy. Our forces are more mobile and more agile, and better positioned now to deploy to trouble spots around the world. On the battlefield, they have access to real-time intelligence that would have been unimaginable just a couple of years ago. With weapons like the Predator drone in our arsenal, our troops can conduct precision strikes on terrorists in hard to reach areas while sparing innocent life. At institutions like the Army War College, our men and women in uniform are studying new counterinsurgency and counterterrorism strategies—because we're going to depend on you. Long after I'm gone, Presidents will count on you.

We will leave behind a strong coalition of more than 90 nations—composing almost half the world—who have committed to combating terror, and sharing intelligence, and keeping our citizens safe. This coalition includes Saudi Arabia, the nation that produced 15 of the 9/11 hijackers and now serves as a staunch ally in the war on terror. This coalition includes Pakistan, a country that was a supporter of the Taliban before September the 11th and today is a strong partner of the United States. This coalition includes two of America's newest and most courageous friends, the free nations of Afghanistan and Iraq. This coalition includes members of the new Proliferation Security Initiative and the new Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism, who are working to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

We will leave behind new programs to help change the conditions of suffering and hopelessness that give rise to extremism and terror. In Afghanistan and Iraq, new provincial reconstruction teams are helping rebuild war-torn communities, and revive local economies, and restore basic government services. On the continent of Africa, millions are receiving lifesaving treatment, thanks to America's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. And around the world, countries that govern wisely, and open up their economy, and invest in the health and education of their people are receiving strong support from Millennium Challenge grants.

And finally, we leave behind an unprecedented commitment to extending the reach of liberty and democracy. Key organizations devoted to supporting freedom enjoy stronger government support than ever before. Official U.S. policy now requires our diplomats to seek out and support dissidents and democratic reformers in unfree nations. And it is now the stated policy of the United States to seek the end of tyranny in all nations, for all time.

Until that day comes, the United States will not rest in our fight against oppression and terror. As President, I've had no higher responsibility than waging this struggle for the security and liberty of our people. After 9/11, I vowed that I would never forget the wounds from that day— and I'm not. That day defined my presidency, and that day changed the course of history. And while we cannot know the path ahead, we can be confident in the destination—a world where the American people are safe, and children around the world grow up with hope and peace.

We can be confident because freedom is universal. I strongly believe there's an Almighty, and a gift of that Almighty to every man, woman and child on the face of the Earth is freedom. We can be confident because we're blessed with men and women who willingly put the welfare of their nation before themselves. As long as we have defenders of such character and courage, our nation will always be in good hands and the future will always be bright.

So I thank you for inviting me today. I thank you for having given me the honor of a lifetime to serve as your Commander-in-Chief. God bless.

Secretary Michael Chertoff delivered these remarks in Washington, DC

Introductory Remarks have been omitted

Secretary Chertoff. This year, or this afternoon rather—this morning I should say—I'm going to do something a little bit different. I'm going to look back over the past five years, because I think it's an opportunity for me to reflect upon my experience and my tenure and the department and also the department's entire existence, which has, as you know, been about five-and-a-half years. We had our fifth year anniversary in March of 2008.

And I think, in particular, there are a few areas I want to focus on that, looking back, capture the early legacy of the department and reflect a very substantial return on investments the American public made when they set up the department, and ultimately invested literally billions of dollars and put hundreds of thousands of people into the department's framework.

But before I talk about the department, specifically I want to stand back and look at the entire history of this period since September 11th from the standpoint of the entire administration.

I had the opportunity to serve this president in two roles, both of which were intimately involved with terrorism. The first was my appointment as Chief of the Criminal Division in June of 2001, before, obviously, we had the attack, which put me in a position to be literally an eyewitness at what I would call not physical Ground Zero, but maybe governmental Ground Zero, to the attacks themselves and to what happened afterwards.

And of course I've then had the privilege of serving the president for the last four years as head of this department.

And although I'm always reluctant to crow about an accomplishment at this point because we obviously are always concerned about what happens tomorrow and the next day, I do think with a, you know, kind of traditional touching of wood, I would have to echo what Gary said earlier, that no one would have predicted in the dark days immediately following September 11th when the smoke was still emanating from the smoldering fires underneath the World Trade Center, no one would have predicted that there would have been no successful attack on American soil in the following seven years.

And I don't think that's an accident. I don't know many people who do. I think it's actually a direct result of policies that this president launched, literally, in the minutes after September 11th and has carried through on as we speak today.

It's well known that the president told the Attorney General, John Ashcroft, several days after 9/11, “Don't let this happen again.” And I think this was, in many ways, the touchstone of the president's entire effort with respect to security: Don't let it happen again.

I also believe that not letting it happen again is the single most important obligation that an American president owes the American people, or any leader owes the people of that leader's country.

I was in Paris yesterday signing an agreement with the French Ministry of Defense, and in the ceremonial conference room where the signing took place is a quotation I believe from Charles de Gaulle, which translated from the French is as follows: “Security is the reason for the existence—is the principal reason for the existence of the state.”

Condition number one, the foundation of government, is to protect people, and I think that's an important perspective to have as we look back on the president's activities over the last seven years, and as we reflect upon what's to come in future administrations.

Among the things this president did to protect this country was reorganize and restructure the intelligence community, to unify it, taking the fight to the enemy, killing and capturing senior leaders of al-Qaeda in other parts of the world, thereby degrading their ability to plan and execute plots; enacting laws that would make it easier for us to protect the country and get early warning in a 21st century technology age; creating the department, which I'm privileged to lead; and also removing threats and platforms in Iraq and Afghanistan, which could have been launching pads for further attacks.

And we know in Afghanistan we found laboratories where al-Qaeda was experimenting, trying to determine whether they could create biological or chemical weapons.

All of these things taken together have made this country much safer, and I think it's, for me, my participation in this effort to protect the American people is the most important job and challenge I've ever undertaken in my life, and I've been privileged to do so under the leadership of a president who has been unwavering in his commitment to live up to that statement he said after 9/11: Don't let this happen again.

Now let me get a little bit more specific and look at this from the framework of this department and homeland security, particularly, what do we have ahead of us, and what have we got behind us?

First let me observe that we are obviously in a transition, and that means we are about to pass the baton to a new group of people who will lead this country over the next four years.

The threat of terrorism and the threat of extremist ideologies has not abated, and this was vividly underscored last month in Mumbai, where we saw a skillful, deadly attack particularly targeted upon a financial center in India, and with particular cruelty directed at Americans, British citizens who happened to be there, and of course, Jewish visitors who were in some of the locations in Mumbai. And this reminds us that this threat has not evaporated, and we can't turn the page on it.

There's a lot of work ahead of us in the next few weeks to complete what I think will be regarded as the most dedicated and effective transition that we've had in the country's history; one in which both the incoming team and the outgoing team have worked together very closely to make sure that we put any partisanship aside and make sure that we are all as prepared as we possibly can be to protect this country not only between now and Inauguration Day, but for the months and even years to follow.

The fact is that even as we speak, and through the days leading up to President-elect Obama's inauguration, and then for the months afterwards, we will have to be prepared 24 hours a day, seven days a week to deal with both what we can foresee and what's unexpected.

The threat of terrorism and the threat of extremist ideologies has not abated…

But having said that we have a lot ahead of us, I do think it's true that past is prologue. And to understand what we must do, we must understand from where we've come. So to appreciate what the journey has been, let's go back to the autumn of 2001 and reflect upon what we faced.

I was of course brand new as head of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. Bob Mueller was literally days on the job prior to 9/11, and we were taking over the reins of government after, of course, another significant transition.

At that time there was most notably a huge division between the intelligence-gathering function of the government and the law enforcement function. As head of the Criminal Division, for example, I was not permitted to know what was in the files of the FBI that had been gathered based on FISA-generated intelligence. That was forbidden to me. It was forbidden territory to me.

And I remember on September 11th, I was probably, other than Bob Mueller, the first senior Justice Department official at the Strategic Operations Center at the FBI on the fifth floor, and as we tried to put together who the hijackers were and what the plan was, I remember recognizing how little we knew about what we were facing.

And part of that was a reflection of my own situation, having been deliberately kept in the dark by the law, which forbade anybody on the intelligence side of the house to tell me anything they knew about terrorism.

It could not come over to me until we had reached a point that a case was ready to be prosecuted, and only then could I receive it and the intelligence gathering would be shut down.

I spent a moment on this because it's striking that we lived deliberately having put ourselves in the dark. And that reflection of those early hours, that there was much that we didn't know that we could have known I think has been part of what has animated me over the years I've worked on this.

I remember when the FISA Court finally allowed us a couple of days after 9/11 to look at the intelligence files and we saw some of the stuff that was in there, I mean, for example, Moussaoui, Zacarias Moussaoui, who is now convicted of having been involved in the conspiracy to attack the United States, I remember reading for the first time about what had been discovered on the intelligence side and how that had not been shared with the law enforcement side, and saying to myself on the spot, this is—I hate to use the word, but in a way it's dynamite. It's unbelievable we couldn't know that.

And, again, it's so easy to lapse back and say, what has happened since 9/11 was really unnecessary. We can go back to September 10th. I was there on September 10th. I was there on September 11th. I can tell you, I would not wish on anybody who has the responsibility to protect the American people and to look into the eyes of people who have lost love ones in terrorist attacks, as I have done, I would not wish on them having to put a blindfold back on so they could not adequately assure the public and themselves that everything possible was being done to protect America.

Now let me just remind everybody that 9/11 was followed by a couple of other very stressful things in the United States. The anthrax mailings began within a matter of months, as did the sniper who terrorized, not in a political way, but still in an emotional way, the Washington metropolitan area.

And I think that was a period of time in the fall of 2001 that Americans were as unsure and anxious as they had been during my lifetime, even including in the darkest days of the Cold War. I mean, I was just a little kid during the Cuban missile crisis, and maybe that was comparable, but it lasted only for a matter of days. We were talking about weeks and months of potentially paralytic fear and anxiety in this country.

And what was necessary was decisive action to send a clear message to our fellow citizens that attacks against our nation would not be tolerated.

I want to come back to those days. You know, the president standing on the rubble of 9/11, the president telling people that we were going to take vigorous action overseas and taking that action in Afghanistan within a very short period of time.

What we did here in the United States to begin to track down people who were part of the network that was—or potentially part of the network that led to 9/11—all of this vigorous activity was not only important to prevent an attack, but also to reassure the American public that nothing was left undone within the law that could be done to protect them.

And I will tell you, if you look at the whole history of terrorism and other kinds of catastrophic attacks, or even natural disasters that have befallen people anywhere in the world, if there's any lesson I've learned in the last eight years, it's swift, strong and unequivocal and unhesitating action is the absolute first requirement of reassuring the public and giving them the confidence to continue to live their daily lives, and there's nothing more important than that.

What's noteworthy as we get into the actual strategy that developed during that period was how comprehensive the approach that was developed by the president and by leaders of Congress, how comprehensive that approach was, because there was a recognition that this would be not just a matter of a single reaction or a series of reactions, but an absolute retooling of the government, in many ways heeding the advice of a number of presidential and other commissions that had been talking about the need to upgrade, literally for years, prior to September 11th.

We analyzed what the vulnerabilities were and what the lessons were that we had learned from September 11th. We looked, for the first time, perhaps, very directly and honestly into the eyes of the worst possible threats we might face, without blinking, so that we understood what it is that we had to be prepared to address in order to protect this country, going down the line months and even years into the future.

Working in uncharted territory, people all across the government, in the legislative branch, in the executive branch, in the military, pulled together a strategy that was designed to address the totality of what we faced and what we might face going into the future.

So we passed the Patriot Act almost over—almost unanimously—there was overwhelming support for the Patriot Act in 2001. And by the way, for those who believe it was passed in the dead of night, I was there. We spent a lot of days working with members of Congress on this thing. This was not a midnight type of deal you sometimes see coming out of Congress. This was a well thought out and very, very thoroughly discussed package of measures.

We took major steps to track down terrorist finance and to make sure that we could share information among the intelligence and law enforcement agencies so we never again had that sense of being blindfolded.

The president issued a series of homeland security presidential directives, standing up a Homeland Security Council, directing that we take concrete steps to keep dangerous people out of the country, to make sure we could manage incidents in an effective way, and a whole host of other things designed to upgrade us into the 21st century.

The FBI completely overhauled itself. Bob Mueller changed the culture of the department and put counterterrorism and analysis very much at the center of what the FBI does. And the old legacy of stovepiping between CIA, FBI, Department of Justice and then ultimately our department, that was driven—that demon was driven out by concerted leadership at the very top of all the departments.

In 2004 the president established the National Counterterrorism Center so that we could have integration and analysis of all intelligence drawn from all parts of the United States government, and then of course Congress passed and the president signed the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Protection Act which created the Office of Director of National Intelligence.

Now there were many, many other things that we done, but of course for my purposes, it turned out that one of the most important was the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. The vision of this, which was first recommended by a commission years earlier, was the recognition that to protect our perimeter, we needed not to have one part of the job done at the Treasury Department, one part of the job done at the Justice Department and one part of the job done at the Transportation Department. We needed to bring all of this together. We needed to get together the Coast Guard, the TSA, the customs function and the immigration function so that we could look holistically at air, sea and land, people and things, and ask how do we protect the country against danger, either walking on two legs or coming maybe in a cargo container.

And it was the integration of that in the Department of Homeland Security, as well as the recognition that we needed to plan, to prevent, protect and respond that was responsible for the strategy and the architecture of the department, which was stood up in March of 2003.

The purpose was not simply to create a new department. It was to have one place where the overarching mission would be protect all of our air, sea and land against people coming in to do dangerous things, and then work to protect the internal infrastructure, something that had never been done before, by analyzing and managing the risk in partnership with the private sector.

This was a very big chore, and a very big task and a very big challenge, setting this up. As the first secretary, Tom Ridge said, quote, “One of the greatest challenges of our first year was we had to not only get the department up and running operationally, meaning consolidate systems, integrate servers and get a stapler on every desk; but foremost, we had to strengthen and extent our nation's protective measures, particularly at our airports, seaports and borders.”

That statement adequately—accurately captures the scope of the work that was undertaken by the initial plank owners, the founders of this department, and the men and women who came to the department from our legacy agencies.

So I want to thank those people who were here at the creation for their special dedication and the special energy they brought to standing up the department. In particular, I want to single out Secretary Ridge and his leadership team, and I know Gary was one of the early people here, who really took on the enormous task of building where there was nothing, and did so in a way that allowed me, when I took the helm, to have a firm foundation on which to continue to frame the walls and the roof and the other major structures that make up this department.

The challenge of this department is enormous, and let me put it in some kind of context here. On an average single day, this department screens more than two million air travelers. We inspect more than 300,000 cars crossing the border. We check 70,000 shipping containers for dangerous materials at our ports, and we work with the private sector to secure thousands of pieces of critical infrastructure, whether they be bridges and dams or chemical plans and cyber systems. Every day we rescue hundreds of people in danger or distress, and we naturalize more than 3,200 new American citizens and conduct 135,000 national background—national security background checks during the course of a year.

We manage these and other risks every day. That's not to say that we promise to protect every single person from every danger at every moment. That's not possible. We don't promise to eliminate all risk. That's not possible. And even if it were possible, and I said this four years ago, we would not want to pay the price in our freedom and our prosperity in order to get that level of zero risk.

But what we can do and what we do do is provide risk-based protection against the most consequential threats while striving to minimize disruption and inconvenience. And in order to focus this very, very large task, I like to think about what we do in five major pillars, the pillars of homeland security.

The first is to continue to protect our nation from dangerous people. The second is to continue to protect our nation from dangerous things. The third is to continue to strengthen both the protection and the resiliency of our critical infrastructure. The fourth is to be able to respond in a nimble and effective way if something bad does happen, and also to build a culture of preparedness so that everybody in the country can play their role in preparing to minimize the damage if Mother Nature or man carries out an act of destruction against our country. And, finally, the fifth pillar is the strengthening of operations and management so we can continue to fulfill the promise of the department as it was originally conceived by those who framed it.

Just to let you know how we pursue these goals, we have established 61 specific initiators, or programs, with metrics and benchmarks as a disciplined way of managing ourselves to achieving each of these overall strategic objectives. This approach has kept us on track. It's kept us focused. And it has actually yielded real concrete results in the day to day operations of this department.

Let me give you some sense of some of the milestones that we have reached in the slightly more than five years of the department's existence using the strategic management strategy that I've outlined.

Well, first of all, let's talk about how we've enhanced security. We've complete overhauled or aviation security system. Remember, it was the failure of security on that system that not only led to 9/11, but led to the Lockerbie terrorist bombings and a whole host of other hijackings and bombings that we've seen prior to 9/11.

And today, unlike on September 10, 2001, there were more than 20 layers of security that protect air travelers, from hardened cockpit doors and federal air marshals to 100 percent screening of passengers and their bags.

At our borders where we previously had about 11 miles of fence that had been built during a 10-year period from 1993 to 2003, we now have over 500 miles of fence, protecting not only our country, but our Border Patrol that puts themselves at risk on the border.

We have added new technology at the border. We have doubled the Border Patrol from what it was when this president took office, and through the federal law enforcement training center we have continued to maintain a high professional standard in our training and preparation for our agents.

I, myself, have been to the southern border many, many times over the last four years. I've even welded some of the border fence. I've ridden horse patrol with the Border Patrol. I've stood there while the people go through the ports of entry, and I have to tell you the fine work of the people who protect our borders is transforming what we are doing in terms of border security.

I have heard from people who used to live in areas where they were routinely plagued by criminality or, at a minimum, just property destruction when smugglers move through with impunity. And these people now say that has stopped. They now can live in peace and quite, and that's thanks to the kinds of effort we put at the border.

At the interior, we've done dramatic things to focus on the issue of illegal migration in this country. It's no surprise that we were disappointed and the president was disappointed. We couldn't get comprehensive immigration reform, which I think was the most balanced approach to border security, and also what we need economically and from a humanitarian standpoint.

But, given that Congress has not passed that, the most important thing we can do is enforce the law the way it has been written; and, therefore, we've arrested record numbers of illegal aliens, including more than 11,000 gang members and 34,000 fugitives, and we've deported almost 350,000 illegal aliens in the past year. That is a record.

Prior to September 11th, we hardly scanned any cargo at all coming into our seaports, but today at our seaports, we scan virtually 100 percent of incoming containers for radiation to make sure that a weapon of mass destruction—a nuclear weapon of mass destruction—doesn't come into the United States through the global supply chain.

In addition, we have stationed our inspectors overseas to screen cargo before it leaves foreign ports, and we're enhancing our ability to identify and track maritime threats all the time using intelligent space targeting.

We've also vastly improved our coordination and information sharing with our partners at every level: state and local officials, private sector companies and our international counterparts, with whom we have increasingly close cooperation and with whom we have signed a number of very significant information sharing agreements.

One specific example is the creation of fusion centers all across the country that allow state and locals to fuse the information they collect that may have intelligence value so that they can identify threats and so that we can share in that information and connect the dots with what we see at the federal level.

Another thing that we have done is we've moved swiftly to strengthen the security of our identification documents. We now require passports to fly into the United States from anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, and we are moving and we will be ready this June to require passports or comparable secure documents to enter by land borders.

This plugs a major gap that the 9/11 Commission identified when it conducted its review of security after the September 11th attacks. And we not only rely upon documents and identification papers, but we also look to biometrics.

Through US VISIT we record the fingerprints of all non-American and non-Canadian visitors entering our country, and we check those prints in real time against terrorist and criminal watch lists while maintaining rigorous privacy protections. We didn't do that prior to September 11th.

We've also implemented new standards for secure driver's licenses across the United States to prevent the use of fraudulent or stolen documents. And the Secret Service, which of course is widely known for its protective activities, has actually played a leading role in combating identity theft, bringing down the biggest international scheme involving identity theft in history earlier this year, when a number of people were arrested who were responsible for the theft of more than 40 million credit card numbers.

To protect chemical plants, we now require high risk chemical facilities to develop security plans and harden their assets, and we've implemented new regulations to protect chemical shipments traveling by rail.

We've now deployed an early warning biological surveillance system to 30 major metropolitan areas and we continue to work with our Science & Technology branch to identify new technologies that will make this detection ability quicker and even more efficient and more widely capable of being dispersed that what we now have.

Finally, the president has launched and given us a major responsibility in carrying through the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative, which is significantly reducing entry points into government domains and working to upgrade our ability to detect and, ultimately, to block malicious attacks coming over the internet that threaten either to steal our information or to disrupt what we do. And this, I think, is the last major vulnerability that we are on our way to plugging.

Finally, recognizing that we can't stop everything bad, we have strengthened FEMA, built new capabilities to track commodities, improved emergency communications, and most important, for the first time developed a planning capability with civilian agencies and the DoD that gives us the ability to prepare, train for, exercise against and execute plans for major disasters in a way that simply was not the case prior to 2001.

And I can give you a laundry list of other accomplishments, but I think one way to kind of sum it up is to talk about three major metrics, which in many ways I think are perhaps the poster legacy of the first five years of this department's existence. And these are metrics not based on what we've done, but what we've achieved.

The first of these is reversing the flow of illegal immigration. The second is building a 21st century FEMA; and the third is preventing or disrupting terrorist attacks aimed at the United States itself. And I'd like to just briefly talk about each of these three points.

Two years ago I don't think people had any belief that it would be possible within the remainder of this administration to stop, let alone begin to reverse, the tide of illegal immigration. But we have done that.

Thanks to measures we've taken at the border and our record-breaking apprehensions in the interior, for the first time we see a shift in illegal immigration.

Again, to remind you, 18,000-plus border patrol agents now sworn in, 500-plus miles of fence and more being built every day; and the result of this through every measure is that less people are coming across the border and less people are trying to sneak in.

Our border apprehensions are down 40 percent since Fiscal Year 2005, and particularly in those areas which are high traffic areas we've seen a collapse in the number of people who come across the border illegally.

For the first time since 2001, the Pew Hispanic Center said at a minimum there was no net increase in illegal immigration, and quite likely there was a net decrease in illegal immigration.

Some of this, no doubt, is due to the economy, but Pew also found that for the first time in many years, illegal immigration has dropped below legal immigration, which is a measure of the fact that it's not just the economy, but it's tough enforcement.

This is also supported by anecdotes, by what we hear from people who are interviewed in the media, who have said that they are not going to come back anymore because of border enforcement.

It's supported by what we see on the south side of the border, where in a place like Sasabe where there was a booming economy in providing people who are crossing the border with water bottles and backpacks and other kinds of comfort items. That's collapsed. Those businesses have dried up because people aren't crossing the border in that area anymore because of what we've done with the tactical infrastructure and the Border Patrol.

And that is evidence you can see with your own eyes.

I know some people don't like to believe we're accomplishing this, but I think the American people not only insist upon it, I think it is the only thing that will ever pave the way for Congress to say to the American people, okay, we have proven that we are dedicated to protecting you. Now we want to talk about a more comprehensive resolution of this problem.

The second major area is the dramatic reformation of FEMA and our entire government-wide ability to respond to disasters and catastrophes.

You will recall, or you won't recall, that about a month before Katrina I gave a speech and I talked about what we had discovered in our Second Stage Review. And one of the things that surprised me was the lack of plan—actual, concrete planning—for civilian emergencies that existed in a civilian domain. And, of course, this was underscored by what happened a month later in Hurricane Katrina.

We spent an enormous amount of effort, not only at this department, but across the government, changing that approach and building an integrated planning system and the ability to work together to draw up specific preparations for dealing with foreseeable catastrophes and attacks that meant both increased capabilities and increased ability to integrate all of our response, whether it be military or civilian.

Among other things, we've completed a National Response Framework. We've modernized our logistics management, and perhaps something that I think is most important is we've gotten the Department of Defense very closely aligned with us at every level so that we really are joined at the hip in a way that I think people would not have believed possible when I came in in 2005.

And I want to pay special thanks to the leadership of the Department of Defense because whether it was Admiral Keating or General Renuart or the civilian leadership, they have simply stepped up and said whatever we could do to work with you we are here to do it. And they deserve an awful lot of applause.

We had a major stress test of this new capability in late 2007 and 2008. We had unprecedented California wildfires. We had historic Midwest floods. We had the worst tornado season in recorded history, and finally we had back-to-back hurricanes in the Gulf; Gustav and Ike. And, I might say an evacuation with Hurricane Gustav that was night and day compared to what we saw in Hurricane Katrina.

The fact is that whether faced with fires, floods, tornadoes, or hurricanes, we think we have demonstrated to the American people that FEMA has been very substantially and successfully retooled, and the nation's emergency management system has been vastly improved.

And, by the way, I believe that's a direct result of the fact that it had not been FEMA operating by itself, but FEMA integrated in the department where you have the Coast Guard. You have air assets and Customs and Border Protection. You even have the TSA able, literally on a day's notice, to put screeners into distribution centers to give food out to people who need food, something that could not be done if FEMA was isolated and standing on its own.

But then let me come to the third, and maybe the area that the American public thinks of first when they think of homeland security, which is the success of our counter-terrorism strategy. And, as I've said, this is not merely a work of Homeland Security, but it is a work of everybody in government at all levels, and also an enormous amount of cooperation from just the general public.

To put in perspective what we have faced, I want to make it clear: it's not that we haven't been attacked since 9/11. It's that we haven't been successfully attacked. There have been efforts to attack us.

Let's look back to the summer of 2006 in the airline plot that originated in London, which, had it succeeded would have resulted in detonating liquid explosives on multiple airliners coming to North America from Britain with literally thousands of deaths and perhaps a crippling blow to the aviation system.

And there are currently pending in our United States courts two cases involving allegations of attacks, terror attacks, here in the United States: One, the allegation of a terrorist attack being planned on Fort Dix; another involving allegations of an attack planned at JFK Airport, and of course, there are cases like the Lackawanna Six, or the cases up in the Northwest part of the United States where people were arrested and convicted for material support to terrorism.

All of the this work done at the Department of Justice, but also with the full support of the U.S. government.

These are the kinds of examples of plots that have been prevented. And when you look at what's gone on everywhere else in the world, successful attacks in Madrid, successful attacks in London, newly successful attack in Glasgow, attacks in Mumbai, in Islamabad, in Bali. I could go on and on.

It's not astonishing to reflect, but it is frightening to reflect, that since September 11th, excluding Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorists have killed more than 20,000 men and women and wounded more than 43,000 around the world.

Let me say that again. Since 9-11, excluding Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorists have killed more than 20,000 men and women and wounded more than 43,000 around the world. That is a stunning figure.

Not one of these deaths and not one of these woundings occurred in the United States after September 11th. And that is also a stunning figure.

That's a testament to the president's leadership, to the work of every one of my colleagues, almost 220,000 men and women in this department, and to the fine work of everybody else who stands watch for this country at every level of government.

So I—therefore, I really have to conclude by giving my personal thanks, not only as secretary, but as a citizen and as a father, to the people of this department and the people of this government, and of state and local government, and all of our partners for what they have done to keep us as safe as we have been over the last seven and a half years.

And that, in the end, these three major metrics, and perhaps most important what I said was the number one reason, or maybe it was Charles de Gaulle said it was the number one reason for the existence of the state. I think that's a lot to reflect upon with gratitude, as this administration passes into history and a new one comes on board.

Let me conclude by just making a couple of other brief points. One of the great joys of this job was obviously the opportunity to deal with the president, cabinet, colleagues around the world; but in many ways the greatest pleasure was dealing with the individual men and women who make up this department.

Some of the memories, as I reflect back that I carry most dearly are things like riding horseback patrol with the Border Patrol down in Arizona, or getting on a motor life boat, in Motor Life Boat school, getting on a motor boat and riding with the people who were training to be rescue swimmers for the Coast Guard; sleeping on a cot in Baton Rouge during Gustav with the people of the Joint Field Office; and also over-nighting on Coast Guard ice-breaking cutter up in the Arctic on a lonely overnight over the course of the summer.

Since 9-11, excluding Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorists have killed more than 20,000 men and women and wounded more than 43,000 around the world.

The opportunity to meet and talk to and spend some time with the outstanding people who work in this department on a personal level has been the most rewarding thing I have done in the last four years, and it's something I'm going to tell my successor will be a special treat that she will have in store for her.

So for all those who hosted me, ate meals with me, rode with me—I didn't get seasick, but got tossed around a little bit with me—thank you for sharing your experiences with me and letting me absorb them and incorporate them into what I've tried to bring this department.

Finally, one word of advice to the country. It's easy for the gratitude, for the freedom, and the safety we've enjoyed over the last seven and a half years to be taken for granted. We take a lot of things for granted in our society. But history has shown us that when you begin to take these things for granted, you often lose them.

I don't think we need to live in a draconian society or a police state in order to protect ourselves. But I do think we need to continue to resolve to carry on what we have put into place. Not that it's perfect, not that it can't be adjusted here or there, not that it can't be criticized or debated; but if you look at the totality of the architecture that's been built, I don't think you can, in fairness, describe it as anything other than a success.

And it will remain successful as long as the public continues to support the people who fulfill their responsibility in the next administration as they continue to carry out their most important missions.

I have perfect confidence in the dedication of my successor, and the new administration. I believe they are as dedicated as we to protecting Americans, and I believe they will want to carry on and discharge its most important obligation with as much vigor as we did.

I think what we need to do as the public is to support that effort, and that is what I intend to do as a private citizen.

And I hope and I pray that when my successor looks back on, let's say two or four years in office, she's able to say, as I have been able to say, we have not experienced another successful attack on American soil.

If she can say that, that's going to be not only her triumph and the triumph of the new administration, but also something in which all of us who have stood up this department can take a quiet and very deep pride.

So I want to thank the members of the department, and everybody else I've been privileged to work with, and I want to wish you all not only a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and every other happy holiday of the season, but God's blessings, as we continue to do the most important work for the American people, which is keeping us safe.

Q. I'm Rosemary Jenks with Numbers USA. You mentioned that all travelers who are non-Canadian and non-American are being screened through US-VISIT.

Secretary Chertoff. Right.

Q. And that's at land ports, airports, and sea ports?

Secretary Chertoff. That's right.

Q. That shocks me because just a few months ago it was, like, two percent at land borders.

Secretary Chertoff. Well, we got a lot—because most of the traffic at land borders is Americans and Canadians in the northern borders.

Q. And Mexicans.

Secretary Chertoff. Well, Mexicans do have—Mexicans we have fingerprints for so we have the border crossing cards.

Q. Okay, thank you.

Q. Phil Riley from the American Legion. General McCaffrey indicated recently that 40,000 plus border patrol are needed. Could you tell us what you really think the real requirement is?

Secretary Chertoff. Well, I think what we've planned for is 20,000. We've got about a little over 18,000 now and there's money in the budget for 20,000. I think once we reach 20,000 the Border Patrol is going to have to access with the right lay down of tactical infrastructure, meaning fencing, and technology, whether that's enough or whether they need more. And I think that's going to be part of the exercise they have to engage in as they do, kind of, a four-year plan out there. But I think that, and I certainly wouldn't exclude the possibility of—well, I don't know that 40,000 has a particular appeal to me, but I certainly think what we've got now is very effective and I'm looking forward to the additional 2,000 come on next year.

Q. Hello, this is Jennifer Lee from China Press. I have problem for the immigration application. Is there any difference or change for the transition team or the new administration? Thank you.

Secretary Chertoff. Well, I can't speak for what the new administration is going to do on immigration applications. What I can say is that we have dramatically reduced the backlog, which had been persistent for a long period of time, in background checks and we were able this past year to get more new citizens naturalized by a significant margin than in prior years, and that's notwithstanding an overwhelming flow, an unprecedented flow, of applications that came in over the last year. So that's—a lot of progress has been made, but that new administration has to speak for itself.

Vice President Dick Cheney delivered these remarks in Washington, DC

Q. According to the latest FOX News opinion dynamics poll—I know how much you like polls—you now have the lowest approval rating of the last eight years: 29 percent have a favorable opinion, 61 percent unfavorable. I know that you say that politicians shouldn't chase polls. But when people see all that you did as Vice President in a kind of final report card, they'll be right here to say they still disapprove. Does that bother you?

Vice President Cheney. No. We didn't set out to achieve the highest level of polls that we could during the course of this administration. We set out to do what we thought was necessary and essential for the country. That clearly was the guiding principle with respect to the aftermath of 9/11. I feel very good about a lot of the things we've done in this administration. I think that they will be viewed in a favorable light when it's time to write the history of this era.

I think the fact that we were able to protect the nation against further attacks from al Qaeda for seven-and-a-half years is a remarkable achievement. To do that, we had to adopt some unpopular policies that have been widely criticized by our critics. But I think, in terms of, is 29 percent good enough for me? Well, we fought a tough reelection battle. We won by an adequate margin in 2004. We've been here for eight years now. Eventually, you wear out your welcome in this business. But I've—I'm very comfortable with where we are and what we achieved substantively. And, frankly, I would not want to be one of those guys who spends all his time reading the polls. I think people like that shouldn't serve in these jobs.

Q. What do you think are the powers of the President, relative to Congress and the courts during the war?

Vice President Cheney. I think they're very significant. And I think they have to be. And I think there's ample precedent for that. And the fact of the matter is that, especially given the kind of conflict we're faced with today, we find ourselves in a situation where I believe you need strong executive leadership. What we did in this administration is to exert that kind of authority. We did it in a matter that I believe, and the lawyers that we looked to for advice believed, was fully consistent with the Constitution and with the laws of the land. And there is, as I say, ample precedent for them.

If you think about what Abraham Lincoln did during the Civil War, what FDR did during World War II. They went far beyond anything we've done in a global war on terror. But we have exercised I think the legitimate authority of the President under Article II of the Constitution as Commander-In-Chief in order to put in place policies and programs that have successfully defended the nation. I think you've—

Q. If you could conceptualize it for me, sir, what do you think are the powers of the President relative to Congress and relative to the courts during war?

Vice President Cheney. Well, I think in wartime, when you consider his responsibilities as Commander-In-Chief, clearly that means command of the Armed Forces. It also, when you get into use of forces in wartime, means collecting intelligence. And therefore, I think you're fully justified in setting up a terrorist surveillance program to be able to intercept the communications of people who are communicating with terrorists outside the United States. I think you can have a robust interrogation program with respect to high-value detainees.

Now, those are all steps we took that I believe the President was fully authorized in taking, and provided invaluable intelligence, which has been the key to our ability to defeat al Qaeda over these last seven years.

Q. This is at the core of the controversy that I'm going to get to with you in a moment. If the President, during war, decides to do something to protect the country, is it legal?

Vice President Cheney. In general proposition, I'd say yes. You need to be more specific than that. I mean, but clearly, when you take the oath of office on January 20th of 2001, as we did, you take the oath to support and defend and protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. There's no question about what your responsibilities are in that regard.

And, again, I think that there are bound to be debates and arguments from time to time, and wrestling back and forth about what kind of authority is appropriate in any specific circumstance. But I think that what we've done has been totally consistent with what the Constitution provides for.

The President of the United States now for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States. He could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody, he doesn't have to call the Congress, he doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in. It's unfortunate, but I think we're perfectly appropriate to take the steps we have.

And go back and look at how eager the country was to have us work in the aftermath of 9/11 to make certain that that never happened again. Now we've had a lot of time pass over it and so we've had—I think more people are more complacent, perhaps, than was true some time ago. We've also had a lot of our critics who want to score political points who've made what I think are outrageous charges. But in my mind—

Q. What rights do the Congress— what constitutional rights do the Congress and the courts have to limit the power of the President when it comes to these matters of national security?

Vice President Cheney. Well, the Congress has—clearly has the ability to write statutes and has certain constitutional authorities granted in the Constitution. But I would argue that they do not have the right by statute to alter presidential constitutional power. In other words, you can't override his constitutional authorities and responsibilities with a statute—

Q. So if they want to say you can't surveill or he can't detain?

Vice President Cheney. Well, they have, for example, said—passed the War Powers Act. The War Powers Act is still in force out there today, that requires him to grant certain notifications to the Congress and give them the authority to supercede those by vote if they want to when it comes to committing troops. No President has ever signed off on the proposition that the War Powers Act is constitutional. I would argue that it is, in fact, a violation of the Constitution; that it's an infringement on the President's authority as the Commander-in-Chief. It's never been resolved, but I think it's a very good example of a way in which Congress has tried to limit the President's authority and, frankly, can't.

Q. Mr. Vice President, we have to step aside for a moment, but when we come back I want to continue this conversation with Vice President Cheney about the controversies over surveillance, over interrogation, over detention. Back in a moment.

Q. And we're back now to continue our conversation with Vice President Dick Cheney.

I want to discuss the controversies that we've alluded to over national security over the last eight years. First of all, let's get to the big picture: Was it worth it? Did the decisions that you helped set in place on interrogation, on detention, on surveillance, did they, in fact, save lives that you would maintain would not have been saved under the old rules?

Vice President Cheney. Yes, I believe that.

Q. Can you be specific?

Vice President Cheney. Well, I guess I'd direct you to the intelligence agencies involved, but I know specifically of attacks that were thwarted—I think of the airliner attack that was planned out of Heathrow, when they were going to hijack—

Q.—bomb attacks.

Vice President Cheney. —six airliners and blow them up over American cities. There has not been a single attack against the homeland, against the United States, in seven-and-a-half years. There have been attacks in Madrid, Spain; in London, England; in Mumbai and Bali and Mom-bosa—all over the globe. And the threat is still out there and still very real. But the actions that we took, based on the President's decisions and based on some outstanding work by the intelligence community and by the military, has produced a safe seven-and-a-half years, and I think the record speaks for itself.

Q. Let's drill down into some of the specific measures that you've pushed: First of all, the warrantless surveillance, on a massive scale, without telling the appropriate court, without seeking legislation from Congress—why not in the aftermath of 9/11, in the spirit of national unity, get approval, support, bring in the other branches of government?

Vice President Cheney. Well, let me tell you a story about the Terror Surveillance Program. We did brief the Congress and we brought in—

Q. A few members.

Vice President Cheney. We brought in the Chairman and the Ranking Member, House and Senate, and briefed them a number of times up until—this would be from late '01 up until '04, when there was additional controversy concerning the program. At that point, we brought what I describe as the “Big 9”—not only the intel people, but also the Speaker, the Majority and Minority Leaders of the House and Senate, and brought them into the Situation Room in the basement of the White House. I presided over the meeting. We briefed them on the program and what we'd achieved and how it worked, and asked them, should we continue the program. They were unanimous, Republican and Democrat alike, all agreed, absolutely essential to continue the program.

I then said, do we need to come to the Congress and get additional legislative authorization to continue what we're doing? They said, absolutely not, don't do it, because it will reveal to the enemy how it is we're reading their mail. That happened. I mean, we did consult. We did keep them involved. We ultimately ended up having to go to the Congress after The New York Times decided they were going to make the judge review all their—make all of this available, obviously, when they—in reacting to a specific leak.

But it was a program that we briefed on repeatedly. We did these briefings in my office; I presided over them. We went to the key people in the House and Senate Intel Committees, and ultimately the entire leadership, and sought their advice and counsel and they agreed we should not come back to the Congress.

Q. You also pushed to strip enemy combatants of any ability to challenge their status in court and also denied them any protection under the Geneva conventions.

Even in the midst of a war on terror, is there something wrong with not allowing even a suspected terrorist to have his “day in court,” to have an independent review of the status of his case?

Vice President Cheney. Well, there's several points there, Chris, that you've touched upon. I think the—first of all, you've got to remember that what we did after 9/11 was make a judgment that the terrorist attacks we were faced with were not a law enforcement problem, they were, in fact, a war. It was a war against the United States—and therefore, that we were justified in using all the means available to us to fight that war.

And in a war, you capture the enemy and you hold them until the war is over with. You don't capture German prisoners of war and then put them on trial in World War II. That's not what we had to deal with here. But in terms of what kind of rights these folks had, they were not covered by the Geneva Convention. They were unlawful combatants. They were not—

Q.—the Supreme Court—

Vice President Cheney. Well, okay. But they were not—this was the decision we made at the time based on the precedent that was available. They were not citizens of a state that was a party to the Geneva Convention. They did not adhere to the laws of war. They spent all their time trying to kill civilians for their—to achieve their political ends. They didn't wear uniforms. I mean, by any definition that was available to us at the time, the Geneva Convention does not traditionally apply to terrorists.

Q. Here's my—

Vice President Cheney. Second—no, let me finish.

Q. Can I just ask you one question, because I think it will bring the point in? In the first big test case, which was against Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan, the military jury in the end—military jury ended up acquitting him of all the major charges against him. The government asked for 30 years to life. The judge ended up deciding that he should be released based on time served. The question basically is this: Even the government can get things wrong sometimes.

Vice President Cheney. So?

Q. So the question is, therefore, don't Salim Hamdan, whomever, have a right to have some independent person judge and say, this person is being held based on legitimate evidence or not being held based on—

Vice President Cheney. Well, remember the situation here. We had hundreds of people that were held at Guantanamo. And the majority of them have been released. And they were released based upon reviews of their cases, and determinations that were made that there was no longer a need to hold them because they were no longer a threat, or they no longer had any intelligence value.

They're all guaranteed an annual review of their case at Guantanamo. And when you do get ultimately to trial, they'll be tried by military commissions. They will have representation. And military commissions is exactly the way, in World War II, that we treated those handful of individuals that—like, for example, the German saboteurs who landed on Long Island, were captured, were tried by military commission, and subsequently executed. And those commissions were upheld in a Supreme Court decision after the war. We follow that same basic fundamental precedent here.

Q. Let me ask you about the Supreme Court. In the last few years, I think you'd agree the Supreme Court has sharply undercut the powers of the executive branch. It has said—

Vice President Cheney. I think that's an overstatement.

Q. Well, it has said that all detainees have a right to challenge their status. It said you have to go to Congress to get approval of military commissions. And it said, in fact, even enemy combatants have protections under the Geneva Convention.

Bruce Fein, legal conservative scholar, worked in the Reagan Justice Department—said the following: “The irony with the Cheney crowd pushing the envelope on presidential power is that the President has now ended up with lesser powers than he would have had if they had made less extravagant, monarchical claims.” Did you overreach? Did you end up making the presidency weaker, not stronger?

Vice President Cheney. I don't believe so. I think, again, I'd come back to the proposition that when we made judgments, for example, about military commissions, we followed precedent. We did exactly what was done by FDR in World War II, subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court, in a decision the Court made.

Q. Then what do you make of what the court ended up—

Vice President Cheney. The court changed. The court changed its mind, obviously, and evolved over time, and there are a different set of judges now than there was then.

Q. Does that mean you were wrong?

Vice President Cheney. No, I don't think we were wrong. We have to follow whatever the court determines. Sometimes, the court makes bad decisions, or decisions we disagree with.

Q. Was that a bad decision?

Vice President Cheney. I think it was. I think—we did go and get congressional authorization from the Congress for the military commissions. But I think that, frankly, the basic decision they made was wrong. But it's their authority. The vote was 5-4. It was different than the one that had prevailed after World War II that was available to us at the time that we put all of this together.

But in terms of undermining the presidency, no, I don't think so. I think reasonable people can disagree. You make decisions to the best of your ability. You work with the other branches of government. If the court makes a judgment or a ruling, then we comply with the ruling of the Supreme Court.

Q. I want to get into one last area in the couple of minutes remaining in this segment. In Stephen Hayes' biography of you, he says that “if I had had the wit to ask you back in 2007, you would have told me that you strongly disagreed with President Bush's decision to fire Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.” Is that true?

Vice President Cheney. Obviously, I did disagree with the decision. It wasn't my decision to make. The President doesn't always take my advice. I will say that I think Bob Gates has done a good job as Secretary of Defense. I've worked closely with him, I've known him a long time. We worked together many, many times over the years. And so I think Gates has done a fine job. But I was a Rumsfeld man. I'd helped recruit him and I thought he did a good job for us.

Q. And just to follow up, when you look at how badly the occupation was handled, and in 2006, what a mess Iraq was, and how much things have improved under Bob Gates and General Petraeus, perhaps, was President Bush right and you wrong?

Vice President Cheney. Well, you'd have to give the President credit for the surge, as well, too. I mean, some good decisions were made. But I'm not one of those who believes nothing good happened in Iraq prior to 2007. I think the fact that we were able to go in as effectively as we did and take down the Saddam regime; that we were able to kill his sons, capture him, bring him to trial; that we had three national elections; that the Iraqis wrote a constitution that's bearing fruit today; that they've got a government that we've just signed a historic agreement with in the Status of Forces Agreement—all of those things happened, including the death of Abu Musab al Zar-qawi—all of those things happened up through the end of '06.

So to do what many people want to do, which is say everything was bad before '07, only good after '07, I don't think that's fair, and I don't think the President would buy that analysis, nor do I think Bob Gates would.

Q. Mr. Vice President, we have to take a final break here. But when we come back, I'm going to ask Dick Cheney about Iran, about Osama bin Laden, and about how he and Washington have changed over the last 40 years. Back in a moment.

Q. And we're back now for one final segment with Vice President Dick Cheney.

A little over a year ago, Mr. Vice President, you said the following: “We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” As you and the President leave office in a month, isn't Iran in fact closer than ever to achieving that goal?

Vice President Cheney. Well, they're clearly continuing to work on it very aggressively, Chris, no doubt about it. We're continuing to work to prevent that from happening. And I would expect that the Obama administration will do the same as soon as they're sworn in.

Q. But this was perhaps the centerpiece of the Bush doctrine, that we will not allow the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons. Is it a failure by your administration to be leaving that problem to Barack Obama?

Vice President Cheney. I don't think so, in the sense that this is a continuing issue, this whole question of proliferation. We did, obviously, take down Saddam Hussein's regime. He'd been one of the proliferaters previously. We stripped Libya of its nuclear aspirations. They turned over all their centrifuges and feedstock and weapons design to us. We took down the A.Q. Khan black market network that was selling nuclear weapons technology to Libya—

Q. Iran—

Vice President Cheney. —Iran. They were selling to Libya and to Iran, and to North Korea. So we—I think we've done a good job of working generally the nuclear proliferation problem. We have not yet been able to stop the Iranian program. We continue to work on it. And we will pass on to President Obama the legacy that exists with respect to the efforts that we've already put in place.

Q. You have been very honest in this discussion today. And so I'm going to ask you, in your heart of hearts, do you believe diplomacy can solve this?

Vice President Cheney. That's the policy of the administration, and I support the policy of the administration.

Q. But you're not prepared to say that you believe diplomacy can solve this?

Vice President Cheney. Well, I hope it can. That's clearly what we've tried.

Q. Over your objections, sir?

Vice President Cheney. No, not over my objections. I've supported the efforts to try to put in place sanctions, which I think have had a significant impact on the Iranian economy, to support the efforts going through the U.N. Security Council. We've tried a broad range of possibilities here to try to slow down the Iranian operation.

Q. They haven't worked.

Vice President Cheney. Not yet.

Q. Speaking of disappointments, do you believe that Osama bin Laden is still alive?

Vice President Cheney. I don't know. I'm guessing he is. We've had certain pieces of evidence become available from time to time—there will be a photograph released, or something that allows the intelligence community to judge that he is still alive.

Q. I know that we have severely damaged al Qaeda, but on a personal level, is it a major disappointment to you that the likelihood is that we will not catch him on your watch?

Vice President Cheney. Well, I would prefer to have gotten Osama bin Laden a week after 9/11; so would the President. I think more important, though, is what we've been able to do generally to his organization. Even if you were able to get Osama bin Laden, which clearly we would like to do, you've still got—have had in the past a strong functioning organization there. He's been holed up in a way where he's not even been communicating. I mean, there are questions about whether or not he's even running the operation. But we have had major success against the organization. We've captured and killed a lot of al Qaeda members and, as I say, we prevented further attacks against the United States.

So that's probably the most important objective. Capturing Osama bin Laden is something we clearly would love to do— there are 30 days left.

Secretary Condoleezza Rice was interviewed by the AFP in Washington, DC

Q. Thank you. I guess we'll start by looking forward a little bit, and I know you welcomed the election of Barack Obama—

Secretary Rice. Yes.

Q.—and for what it meant for the United States, and also how the outside world looked at Obama. But why do you think there is such overwhelming support around the world for Barack Obama? What does that say about the eight years that President Bush has just had?

Secretary Rice. Well, look, this is new and it's a different face of America. It is for many, I think, a confirmation that America is what it says it is, which is a place where people come from humble circumstances and they do great things. And it's also the first African American president. And for a lot of the world where that would be unthinkable that a minority would be a prime minister or a president, I think it's just an extraordinary story.

I also think that the elections themselves, the first really openly contested elections in the United States in what, almost—more than 50 years, were particularly exciting. And around the world, I heard people talking about Iowa caucuses and things of that sort who probably don't know where Iowa is on a map. And so I think it was a very exciting election, too.

Q. Isn't there more to it, though? It seems from what we hear and see in the newspapers and people we interview that there's also a lot of antipathy towards President Bush around the world, and they're, in a way, breathing a sigh of relief that they see hope.

Secretary Rice. Lach, it depends on where you're talking about. The two most populous—

Q. Latin America and Western Europe.

Secretary Rice.—countries in the world, China and India, the continent of Africa, President Bush is not only regarded as someone who had policies that took those relationships to a different level, but in the parlance of the day, he's popular. But I don't think popularity is the issue. I think the issue is how America has been able to change the terms of the foreign policy debate in many important places.

Perhaps it's not popular in the Middle East to say that it's time for the people of the Middle East to live in freedom, not in tyranny. Perhaps it isn't always popular to be a fierce defender of Israel's right to defend itself, but at the same time, a fierce defender of a Palestinian's right to live in their own state. And so perhaps that's why in some places, the popularity of the Administration or of our policies has not been very great. But it would simply be wrong to say that that's a blanket statement for the world.

Q. I think from what I understand, it was also the world seeing the U.S. having two standards in some parts of the world, anyway. They raise the issue of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib. I'll let my colleague, perhaps Jordi, follow up on that front since it was also felt in Latin America.

Q. Yeah, because Guantanamo was one of strongest points of criticism not only from Cuba, from the whole of Latin America. And again, this region, for instance, has moved to the left in a very strict way for the last years. And now, since you are just about to quit— to leave government, and again, this last conference—meeting in Brazil was historical. They were not only studying the setup of a new body without the United States, but also unanimously asking for the lift of the embargo against Cuba.

Secretary Rice. Well—

Q. But what do you think? How do you feel about—

Secretary Rice. Well, I think you just— you have to have a little bit of historical perspective on this. When has there not been some antipathy toward the United States from Latin America? In the '70s, in the '80s, in the '90s? I don't think so.

Q. And why President Bush didn't—

Secretary Rice. No, no, no.

Q.—change that? How could—

Secretary Rice. In fact, I think if you look and not just talk about the region— let's talk about some specific places in the region. The United States has never had a stronger relationship with Brazil, and never recognized the emergence of Brazil as a multiethnic democracy ready for global leadership. And that relationship is built between this Administration and a country of the left. President Lula is from the left. And I think most people did not expect the United States and Brazil to have the kind of strong relationship that we have.

If you look at the relationship with Colombia, this is probably the strongest relationship the United States has ever had with Colombia, one of the strongest relationships ever with Chile, with Uruguay. And so what you're talking about—and not to mention much of Central America. So what you're talking about is we're now past that period in the Cold War where the United States saw Latin America through the prism of a global struggle with the Soviet Union. And it has freed American policy to have good friends on the left and good friends on the right, as long as they are friends who are governing democratically, who are promoting free trade, who are looking to open their markets and to deliver for their people.

This President is also the one who has spoken about the need for social justice in Latin America. So if you look at the issue of American—the regard for the United States in [Latin] America, yes, not very popular with Venezuela. But frankly, with—

Q. Nicaragua?

Secretary Rice. Well, or Nicaragua—

Q. Ecuador, whose president is visiting Iran.

Secretary Rice. No, in fact, there are some countries where I think one would have to ask about the democratic intent of a country like Venezuela. Chavez's own people have turned against him in a couple of cases. And we'll see how well he fares with lower oil prices. But the fact of the matter is the United States has doubled assistance to Latin America, we have the strongest relationships with the big countries of Latin America that we've ever had, and I think we're leaving that region in good shape.

Now as to Guantanamo, yes, some people have been critical of Guantanamo. But I really challenge all to say what you do with extremely dangerous people who, in fact, say that they will kill Americans again if they are let out. And in that regard, I have to applaud the forward-leaning posture of the Foreign Minister of Portugal, Luis Amado, who has come forward to say that it is also incumbent on Europe to help resolve the issue of Guantanamo.

We have been transferring people back to countries of origin for some time now. The population of Guantanamo is down significantly from where it was. But even some who have visited Guantanamo, like the OSCE, have found that, in fact, it is a place that respects the rights of the prisoners, but these are very dangerous people.

Q. Is there anything underway with Europe right now for them to do more to help close Guantanamo, take prisoners?

Secretary Rice. Well, I—we have—a lot of people have gone back to their countries of origin, a lot of them. But I'm hoping that the opening that Luis Amado has given—and we talked about it when I was in Portugal several weeks ago—that that will give a new impetus to helping to deal with the prison population of Guantanamo. But there are some people who are really, really dangerous, and I really don't know if you're going to want to put those people out on an unsuspecting population, even if they're in prison.

Q. You pointed out the relation—special relationship with Brazil. Do you think it's time for them to have a seat at the Security Council?

Secretary Rice. Well, the President made clear in his UNGA speech that the Security Council needs to be reformed. It reflects another time and another place. And I am a believer, and the President believes, that the—any workable arrangement, any workable proposal ought to be reviewed. Certainly, a country like Brazil with its great democracy and its increasingly global role, I would think would be a fair—would have a fair—a fair argument for why it might be a good Security Council member. But I think it's going to have to be done in the context of an overall reform of the Security Council.

Q. You said recently that the war in Lebanon in 2006—one of the most difficult moments in your tenure as Secretary of State.

Secretary Rice. Yes, yes.

Q. Do you have any regret about how you handled this crisis?

Secretary Rice. No. In fact, I think it turned out well. It was just that going through it was very difficult, because it was Hezbollah's fault that that war started. And yet it was Lebanon that suffered. And that was very difficult because we had to make sure that a ceasefire was not going to simply establish the terms of the status quo.

And so it was really important that Lebanon—or that Hezbollah not be in control of the south with—rather than the Lebanese army. And so flowing the Lebanese army into the south and making sure that they could do that was very important. Getting the UNIFIL deployed was very important. Getting the political terms right was very important. But it was difficult to watch Lebanon continue to suffer while those terms got into place. But I think Lebanon came out of that not only with the army deployed to the south, not only with strong international support, but the address for the negotiation of that ceasefire was Lebanon, not Syria. And that's important.

Q. Yes, but why didn't you press more efficiently on Israel to control the force they used against Lebanon at that time?

Secretary Rice. We were very clear that the civilian innocents should be spared. And as you know, I even went so far as to arrange for the Israelis to give a pause so that you could get humanitarian assistance in. But it's very difficult when Hezbollah is using people as human shields. It's very difficult when the terrorists are embedded in villages. That's the hardest part of fighting counterinsurgency, because they have no—they don't respect the lines between innocent civilians and their own activities, and so it makes it very difficult. But I think that Fuad Siniora, for whom I have enormous respect, demonstrated that he could defend his country's honor, and that ultimately, he could negotiate a good peace.

Q. Going back to the war on terror again, I think you said that you're still—your greatest concern is the risk of another massive attack on the United States. And I was just wondering, in this context, President-elect Obama has also said that your Administration took its eye off the ball by going into Iraq. And now you see that this is still a concern. It hasn't happened, but you have the war on terror, in a way, blurring all sorts of boundaries in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and most recently in India, that they seem to have the initiative, that is, the Taliban and other militants.

Are you really winning this war on terrorism? Maybe they're not—they haven't attacked the U.S. mainland in the past eight years, but they are certainly spreading across—

Secretary Rice. Well, look, it's something to be valued that they haven't attacked the U.S. mainland in the last seven years, so let's not just float over that. That was not a foregone conclusion after September 11th. And even though every day I worry that they still might, I do think that we have more in the way of information, intelligence, capability to process it and act on it than we had—I know than we had before September 11th.

And what the President has done in terms of modernizing our homeland security, modernizing our surveillance capability, modernizing and expanding the international umbrella over international terrorism is really quite extraordinary. And I'll come to Pakistan and Afghanistan and India, but if you look at Saudi Arabia, this is a place that was under enormous threat in 2000 and even 2004, 2005. And they fought back and they're winning that war. If you look at Southeast Asia, this was a place that everybody thought would be a new homeland for al-Qaida. They're winning that fight.

And if you look at South Asia, yes, there is a problem—a kind of coming together of the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan with the difficult-to-defend Afghan border. But I do not think that it would be right to say that they are unchallenged there or they're somehow on the march. They're able to do hit-and-run attacks across that border. And the capacity of the Afghan Government has to be strengthened, and the Pakistanis need to continue to press in those ungoverned spaces.

But the President said, when he spoke to the Congress back in 2001, this would be generational. It would be a generational war. We're winning a lot of the major battles, but the war is not yet over.

And as to Iraq, yes, the attack of September 11th didn't come from Iraq, but it did come from the Middle East, the homeland of al-Qaida. The center of the caliphate is the Middle East. And Usama bin Ladin certainly understood, and Zawahiri certainly understood and said that Iraq was a central front in the war on terror. It's because they understood that al-Qaida getting a foothold in Iraq would mean something very important to the movement, not just politically but psychologically, philosophically. Defeating them in Iraq, as we and the Iraqis are very close to doing, means that it is a tremendous setback for them.

Q. You said—yeah, but al-Qaida's— its central front or where it came from is the Middle East. Now, for many Arabs, the central problem is the Palestinian-Israeli problem. You have taken that up in the past year, but—

Secretary Rice. No, we took that up almost immediately. The problems was that—what we were bequeathed, what we inherited, was a raging intifada; Ariel Sharon, having been brought to power not to bring peace, but to defeat the intifada. We forget suicide bombs—not in the West Bank—in Tel Aviv, along the banks of Tel Aviv. And Yasser Arafat in power, having refused peace and continuing to steal his people blind.

And we have transformed that over time into a working relationship between the Palestinians and Israelis; increased improvements in the West Bank, both economically and politically and in terms of the building of real security institutions; and the first actual negotiations between the two sides on all the core issues since the failed Camp David talks of 2000. And they're making progress. And they have confidence, as they have said, in their negotiations. And the international community, as expressed in the Security Council, has confidence in the Annapolis process. So this has come a very long way from where we found it.

And yes, they haven't gotten to the establishment of a Palestinian state yet. And yes, Hamas is wreaking havoc in Gaza. But if you look at where this was in 2001, you have to remark on how far it's come. You know, cities like Jenin. Do you remember what was going on in Jenin in 2000? Do you remember the shell that hit the Church of the Nativity in 2000 in Bethlehem? This is a very different situation now.

Q. What about Hamas? Now they are—I think the Egyptians are trying to get a 24-hour addition to the truce that expired for Hamas over the weekend.

Secretary Rice. Yes.

Q. Have you been on the phone with the Egyptians? And how crucial is it to reestablish the ceasefire?

Secretary Rice. I have not talked with the Egyptians. I have talked with Foreign Minister Livni. I believe that everyone should support Egypt in what it's trying to do. But it's clear that Hamas is not at all concerned about the welfare of the Palestinian people, or it wouldn't be threatening to launch attacks into Israel again. It ought to be paying attention to the disaster that it's creating in the Gaza.

Q. So is anybody talking to Hamas right now to get them to restore the—

Secretary Rice. My understanding is the Egyptians are.

Q. Just the Egyptians?

Secretary Rice. Yes.

Q. To go back to Iraq, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President Bush—

Secretary Rice. Yeah.

Q.—is going on trial this month. I know you don't want to interfere in the—

Secretary Rice. Of course not.

Q.—with the Iraqi judicial process. I understand that. But doesn't it bother you that this guy got such an enormous support in the Middle East?

Secretary Rice. Well, I don't know. Look, on Al Jazeera, certainly. It's not surprising to me in the least. But look, what's amazing to me is that this continues to get reported at all. Do you really think in 10 years anybody will remember this incident? Or will they remember that there is a democratic Iraq under a Shia leader of a multiethnic, multiconfessional Iraq, in the center of the Middle East with good and strong, long-term relations with the United States. That's what'll be remembered. And those of you who insisted on reporting on one incident will, I think, look at the history and wonder why it became such a major issue.

Q. It's—maybe it's an incident, it's only symbolic, but it was live on TV and the images will stay—

Secretary Rice. Yeah, but that's the problem.

Q.—in 10 years.

Secretary Rice. But that's the problem. The problem is that today's headlines and what's important in history, there are almost no resemblance to one another. That's the problem. And it's a bit as if you say that some—and I'm sure there were plenty of them—ugly incidents in 1947 or 1948 were ultimately more important than the creation of NATO in 1949 and the eventual basis on which Germany unified, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Eastern Europe was liberated. What matters is these major structural changes in the international system, not some incident on Monday.

I know it's hard to report it that way, but I do have historical perspective. And what matters is that the United States liberated the people of Iraq from Saddam Hussein, who had used weapons of mass destruction, continued to seek them, had gone to war against his neighbors, had annexed Kuwait, who put 300,000 of his own people in mass graves, who committed genocide against Kurds and Shia. And that that's been replaced with an Iraq that won't attack its neighbors and won't seek weapons of mass destruction, and will be the first multiethnic, multiconfessional democracy in the center of the Arab world. And that's going to change the very face of the Middle East, and that's what will matter.

Q. When you arrived more than three years ago, I remember the motto at that time was to win the hearts and minds of the Arab world. And this motto disappeared. Does it mean it was impossible?

Secretary Rice. You know, no, over time the hearts and minds will come with greater democracy and greater freedom for the Arab world. I understand that a lot of the history between the United States and the Arab world is one that Arabs look to as a time of humiliation and lack of respect. That didn't start with President Bush and it wasn't going to end with President Bush.

But over time, I think that the fact that America has stood for the Arab world and for Arabs to have the same rights and the same ability to live in freedom that we have, that that will ultimately be respected.

Q. Well, from the Arab perspective, just because I spent quite a lot of time there—

Secretary Rice. Mm-hmm.

Q. I mean, one thing they complain about is the continued settlement building.

Secretary Rice. Yeah.

Q. They already see the loss of Palestine as a historic disaster. Then when you talk about deaths, it's true we hear about the suicide bombings which are horrific and many Israelis have died in them.

Secretary Rice. Yeah.

Q. But we rarely hear about the—

Secretary Rice. I've talked—

Q.—Arab civilians who were killed and apparently—

Secretary Rice. I talked about them just the other day. I talked about the fact that that period in 2001, 2002, was, yes, suicide bombings in Israel proper, and also Israeli military operations in response, large-scale military operations in response, in which many, many—proba-bly thousands of innocent Palestinians died.

And so that's why I say we have left this in a much better place. Because you can go to Jenin now, the site of one of the worst of those incidents, and you can see instead a hospital that's been reopened with USAID monies, and you can see Salam Fayyad's security forces in control in Jenin, even if there are Israeli incursions, about which I call the Israelis all the time. But you—that's precisely what I mean, that it was not just Israelis, but innocent Palestinians who died in that period, too.

And on the settlements, I think we've made stronger statements about the Israeli settlements than at any other time in American—for an American administration. But what has to happen is that they need to determine these borders so that everybody knows what's in Palestine, everybody knows what it's Israel, and that's what we've focused on in the negotiation.

Q. I think your predecessor, James Baker, though, actually went as far as urging Congress to freeze the loans— the housing guarantees.

Secretary Rice. Well, in fact, one of the things that has happened that seems to have been little noticed is that much of the support to the settlement movement has ceased from the Israeli Government. You know that there—if you look at the support for the—there were these guarantees, loan guarantees. The Sharon government got rid of those. So in fact, some of that's already happened.

Q. Israel's biggest concern is Iran and its capacity perhaps to build a nuclear bomb. How much do you share their concern with—you seem to be saying that the P-5+1 process is going the correct way and that you will eventually achieve results by pressuring the Iranians. I sensed from the Israelis they're much more worried. They live in the neighborhood. How—you know, how do you coordinate on that? And are you urging the Israelis to hold back while you let the diplomatic process work?

Secretary Rice. Well, the Israelis have said that they understand that the diplomatic process needs to work. They're not going to give up any of their options, just like the President's not going to give up his options. But I think everybody understands that the diplomatic path is the way to try and resolve this, because the unintended consequences of anything else would be very grave.

The Iranians are paying a cost. We'll see how long it takes before that cost starts to have an effect on Iranian policy. I think it will be exacerbated by the lower oil prices. The economy was already a shambles before the lower oil prices. Now one has to wonder how long they can hang on given the new circumstances and given their increased international isolation.

But quite apart from that, we've also strengthened the defenses and the security cooperation of the states in the Gulf— Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain—and Israel as well. And we have strengthened our own capabilities with an additional carrier group in the region. Iran also, of course, faces the fact that there now is emerging a strong and independent Iraqi state which has historically been a bulwark against Iran, but this time will be a bulwark against Iran that doesn't invade its neighbors, which would be a real step up from Saddam Hussein.

And so I don't think that the Iranian geostrategic position necessarily looks that rosy in the future. Now, it is true that they have, through their tentacles like Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza, the ability to cause a lot of problems for Palestinians, Israelis, Lebanese and the like. But there's a significant backlash against Iran for what it's doing.

Q. When oil prices were high and the Iranians were bold, at some point was the Bush Administration seriously debating a military strike? Was that debated at one point more than—I mean, I know always the option's on the table, but was it ever—

Secretary Rice. Yeah. No, look, the option was on the—is on the table, but it's always on the table. No, what the President did, really from 2005 on when we set out to change the direction of our Iran policy toward support for the multilateral negotiations in a more active way, that was really the principal option on the table.

Q. It was never a big part of the debate at one point where it became—

Secretary Rice. Look, it's all—

Q.—it rose higher in the debate?

Secretary Rice. It's always there, but it's—I don't think it'd be fair to say it ever rose higher.

Q. According to an Italian newspaper this Sunday, last Sunday, Venezuela is helping Iran to transfer some material to Syria. This is quoting so-called report from CIA. Could you comment on that? Could you confirm what that—

Secretary Rice. No, I can't comment on the specific report. I don't know the origin of it or what it's talking about. But—

Q. Do you worry about these new actors? You're saying that you're securing the position of Gulf states.

Secretary Rice. Yes.

Q. That's true?

Secretary Rice. Yeah, yeah.

Q. But in the meantime, they keep building up—

Secretary Rice. No, it's a problem.

Q. We don't know what nuclear problem it is—

Secretary Rice. It is really a problem.

Q.—and there are new actors in the field.

Secretary Rice. No, the—on Iran,—it's a dangerous state. I don't mean to suggest that it's not a dangerous state. It is which is why the international community needs to get even tougher than it has been. The United States has been quite tough, continuing to designate Iranian entities and making it harder and harder for Iran to access investment or financial resources. And so we're going to continue to do that.

Yes, there are—Venezuela is engaging in all kinds of activities that are potentially destabilizing. But it's really remarkable that the conditions in Venezuela continue to deteriorate and that the energies of the Venezuelan regime seem to be pointed outward rather than to trying to deal with the significant problems that Venezuela itself has. And I think those pressures of those problems are going to become even more severe.

Q. Can we go to Europe?

Secretary Rice. Yes.

Q. I would like to speak about Georgia, if you don't mind. The crisis in Georgia took the U.S. Administration and everybody by surprise. Does it mean that you've chosen an unreliable ally with Saakashvili?

Secretary Rice. No, no, it didn't—look, I wouldn't say it took us by surprise. The exact timing and exactly what happened, of course, but the fact is that had been a really volatile region for some time. The reason that I went to Georgia a month before that was to see if we couldn't, on the Abkhaz side, get Georgia to accept a non-use of force pledge so that we could strengthen the diplomacy that Frank-Walter Steinmeier was engaging in.

The Georgians were not unwilling to do that, but they were concerned that the Putin April 16th decree had created facts on the ground that would—were close to recognizing Abkhazia, and so we were in discussions back and forth about how a non-use of force pledge would relate to the status quo in Georgia.

So we'd been involved in that area— Steinmeier and I had been very active— because we knew that it was volatile. And similarly, with South Ossetia, there had actually been some talks just a couple of days before it all came—all blew up.

The problem is that I think there wasn't great wisdom on the part of any of the actors in those days leading up to the Russian invasion. We'd been pretty clear with the Georgian Government that they shouldn't try anything militarily because that was only going to produce a backlash. But then, of course, the Russians went way beyond what anybody could have defended to protect their peacekeepers, and I think tried to overthrow the Georgian Government. And they didn't succeed.

Q. They didn't succeed, but the Georgian Government is in political trouble now and—

Secretary Rice. That is—however, (inaudible) the debate about the war and so forth was in the context of Georgian democracy. That's only as it should be. But what was—would have been inappropriate and would—we did resist was for Russia to make that—make any decisions about the Georgians for Georgians.

Q. But do you think a new Georgian president could be more willing to make concessions to the Russians?

Secretary Rice. Look, I—the—

Secretary Rice. I believe that the president of Georgia has been a good friend of the United States, and we've worked through a lot of problems together. I think I've been clear that I don't think that the days before the events of August 8th— was it—were—6, 7, 8—that Georgia really behaved in a way that was responsible. We were clear about that.

But let me just say on this, the—Geor-gia has a right to have its own policies and to have its territorial integrity intact, and that's what we've been defending. And frankly, with Russia sitting in South Ossetia and Abkhazia with the resounding support of Nicaragua and Hamas, I don't think the Russians have come out of this very well.

Q. The OSCE—

Mr. McCormack. You have about five minutes left, guys.

Q. Okay.

Q. The OSCE announced today that they will pull their observers out of Georgia as of January 1st after Russia refused them to stay. Are you disappointed?

Secretary Rice. Not surprised. But look, we'll have to continue to work on this. And I guess Russia is not prepared to take responsibility for the well-being of all those people. Big responsibility.

Q. On Russia's influence in the Six-Party Talks—

Secretary Rice. Yes.

Q.—are they going ahead with the U.S. and the other members to stop fuel supplies there? It sounds like they are going to fulfill their quota.

Secretary Rice. There were some fuel supplies that were already, as I understand it, close to delivery. They may—

Q. Right. I think Sean said it was going ahead.

Q. And would it bother you—

Secretary Rice. Yeah, but we don't have any disagreement with Russia about—

Q. There's no disagreement? Because I heard from—I mean, from Moscow, we did report that they are going to fulfill their quota. But maybe it's not their next turn.

Secretary Rice. I think their quota was a part of the last tranche.

Q. Right. Anyway, do you have any hope of a breakthrough or progress on the Six-Party Talks after the breakdown in Beijing before the Bush Administration ends?

Secretary Rice. Well, I think they'll— we'll get the verification protocol eventually. Whether it's in our term or in the next administration's term, I don't think it matters that much, because the real issue here is that about 80 percent of the verification protocol was agreed, and then the North Koreans made some representations to us about clarifying certain elements of the verification protocol so that there was no ambiguity. They then refused to write that down, even though it's all in the negotiating record. And so we are not in a position to go forward on our obligations because they haven't—we haven't nailed down the verification protocol. But everybody knows what is required here, and the negotiating record is absolutely clear about what that verification protocol means. We just need it written down.

Q. Are they—is the North Korean regime waiting for the next administration? Do you have any sense that that's happening?

Secretary Rice. I don't know. And frankly, we've taken this a long way and we've got a written verification protocol. We've got understandings about what it means. We've got five-party unity on insisting on the Chinese draft of the verification protocol. We've got substantial disablement that has taken place, a reactor that's still shut down, and an agreement for the overall denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. I think that's pretty good work with a difficult state like North Korea.

Q. On Zimbabwe, Madame Secretary, you—

Secretary Rice. Yes.

Q.—last week, you tried to get something at the UN on Zimbabwe and it was—

Secretary Rice. No, we actually didn't try for an outcome document that would—

Q. Yeah, I understand that.

Secretary Rice. Yeah.

Q. But on January 1st, the Security Council composition changes. Will you try before the end of the Administration—another plan, another try?

Secretary Rice. I'm going to consult—

Q. Will you make another try on Zimbabwe?

Secretary Rice. I'm going to consult with our allies, particularly with some of our African allies and with the Brits, and we'll see. But I think that it's high time that the international community step up the sanctions on this regime. I don't know how much longer people can let this go on, claiming that it's somehow an internal matter. It's not. It's clearly having problems—causing problems across the border. And even if it were an internal matter, what has happened to the—happening to the Zimbabwean people is unconscionable.

Q. What kind of sanctions?

Secretary Rice. Well, we have, as you know, some asset freezes and the likes, and there have been some discussions about whether some of that might be multilateralized. So we'll look.

Q. On Pakistan, do you have anything more on what measures the U.S. can provide these convoys that are being attacked from Pakistan into Afghanistan?

Secretary Rice. Yeah. We're—this is being discussed within defense channels, so I really don't want to go any further. But they're looking for ways to protect the moves.