Dan Coats Quotes

In a brave new world, a post-September 11 world, anyone is going to make certain mistakes. The mistakes that have been made on homeland security, on protecting our Nation from another terrorist attack, are mistakes of omission. We are simply not doing enough.

If terrorists attacked New York, Washington, or San Francisco with a weapon of mass destruction, the next day we will all be asking what steps we might have taken to prevent it. So the question is, “Why do we not take those steps now?”

The Commission's findings underscore that the nation is still vulnerable to attack and that we must move more quickly to make us safer. We must take the Commission's work and use it to make certain that such horrific attacks never occur again.

The security of our country is not just a top priority, it's the top priority.

I want to give the American people assurances that we are protecting them.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, it became clear that the FBI's number one priority must be the prevention of another terrorist attack.

America's entire homeland security enterprise positively invites questions even as it strives to reassure.

But I warn my colleagues that we will fail in our efforts to protect the homeland if we do not take additional steps to avoid a trade-off between protecting ourselves against terrorists attacks and preparing for and responding to natural disasters.

I will make no apologies, ever, for protecting the lives and the safety of the American people. We have to give more tools to our folks to be able to do that, not fewer, and then trust those people and oversee them to do it the right way. As president, that is exactly what I'll do.

We have no more fundamental obligation in government than to ensure the safety of our citizens.

Secondly, security. Both the challenges we face in the world and the responsibilities that our country has in protecting our people, are major issues. We need to do more in the context of domestic security.

And while the U.S. can never be 100 percent safe from a future strike, our government is working around the clock on measures to protect the American people.

I think, in the wake of Sept. 11, it's important for the American public to understand that to the extent that there are individuals within the United States who would undertake terrorist attacks, that we are doing something to address that.

The bottom line is we are pursuing every single possible action to keep our country safe from terrorism.

I think the important thing to remember here is that we haven't been attacked again at home since September of 2001.

America has survived and grown stronger through September 11th and subsequent wars with Afghanistan and Iraq and those who seek to do us harm. We have faced - and met - tremendous challenges ramping up a public health and safety system to protect Americans from future threats.

Our top focus - protecting our Nation - must go beyond homeland preparedness; America will only be secure if we deal with threats before they happen, not just after they happen.

There are over 100 entities in the federal government that have something to do with homeland security.

Since September 11, the U.S. has significantly improved its security to prevent another attack.

The lessons of September 11 are that if we allow law enforcement to do their work free of political interference, if we give them adequate resources and modern technologies, we can protect our citizens without intruding on our liberties.

And so every one of us in the FBI, I don't care if it's a file clerk someplace or an agent there or a computer specialist, understands that our main mission is to protect the public from another September 11, another terrorist attack.

I think the American people believe in stopping and preventing terrorism pretty much at any cost.

I go to bed at night worrying that I didn't do enough that day to make sure I protect the American people.

We all must recognize that homeland security funds should be allocated by threat and no other reason.

I just want to keep America safe. Who could be against that?