Vito Fossella Quotes

The safety of the American people has got to be our number one priority. That is our most important problem.

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

I think that the American people should rest assured and be assured that every federal agency that has a role to play in this terrorism is working overtime now, taking every necessary action to protect our great citizens.

One of the essential elements of government responsibility is to communicate effectively to the American people, especially in time of a potential terrorist attack or a natural disaster.

Governments in countries across the world have a duty to do everything possible to keep the public safe from terrorist attacks.

And we ask the American people to play an important part of our layered defense. We ask for cooperation, patience and a commitment to vigilance in the face of a determined enemy.

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.

The safety of the people is the first and foremost responsibility of government… We are not as prepared as we should be with our public safety network…. The margin for error is exceedingly and uniquely low.

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

Ensuring the safety and security of our monuments and infrastructure is critical to protecting our communities and the American people.

We protect the American people from a staggering range of threats. But make no mistake, securing the homeland against terrorism remains our top priority.

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.

When we talk about safety and security of the American people, politics falls aside pretty quickly.

The backbone of our nation's domestic defense against terrorist attacks will continue to be the men and women in local law enforcement and emergency services.

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.

The president's priority is to protect the safety and security of the American people. That's the physical security of the American people as well as the prosperity of the American people.

If the Bush Administration cannot ensure Americans that they will be safe from the flu, how will they protect our country against a possible bio-terror or chemical attack? The American people deserve better.

Our people are working overtime - I say our people; our federal agencies in this regard - and that I'm confident that the way that you can stop this and make Americans the most protected for this is to take it to the terrorist groups.

Our nation owes a debt of gratitude to the 9/11 Commission members for their valuable service and important recommendations to improve homeland security.

I am committed to ensure that our intelligence community, law enforcement, medical professionals, and military have the information and funding needed to protect the American people from threats at home and abroad.

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.

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.

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

For political and bureaucratic reasons, governments at all levels are telling far less to the public than to insiders about how to prepare for and behave in the initial chaos of a mass-casualty event.

And how the government communicates about homeland security is central to how the public responds.