Bob Graham Quotes

We know that the most fundamental responsibility of our Federal Government is to ensure the safety of its people and to protect and ensure our National security. And clearly port security has been left in limbo.

These funds will ensure that ports will be able to pay for adequate security measures to protect all Americans against terrorist attacks from our seaports.

My colleagues, while it is good that the Nation is finally focused on the critical issue of securing our ports, our rhetoric and our passion about Dubai must be matched by the funding necessary to keep our ports and our citizens safe.

Port Security is one of our weakest security links, and it must be one of our highest priorities.

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

Ports are the gaping hole in America's homeland security.

Over the last five years, the Administration and the majority in Congress have appropriated less than $900 million for port security grants - despite the Coast Guard's determination that $5.4 billion is needed over 10 years.

Fighting terrorists does not require half a trillion dollars worth of conventional and nuclear forces.

Michael Chertoff and the Department of Homeland Security, they have the primary responsibility of ensuring that our ports are secure.

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

The administration asserts that two thirds or three quarters of al-Qaeda’s managers have been captured or killed, and that al-Qaeda must therefore be on the ropes. Why spend vast sums defending against it?

The administration points out that no major terrorist acts have occurred on American soil since 9/11. Clearly, we must be doing something right, they say, and maybe we don’t need to do much more--- at least not at home.

Border security and homeland security are one and the same.

The organizing premise of any nation's foreign policy is the protection of the homeland.

Our immediate job is defense. We will play offense soon enough, but right now it is defense…. Your job is to keep America free by making Americans feel safe again

The notion of a defense that will protect American cities is one that will not be achieved, but it is that goal that supplies the political magic, as it were, in the president's vision.

When these attacks occur, as they likely will, we will wonder what more we could have done to stop them.

The counterterrorism strategy known as CONTEST aimed to reduce the risk to the UK and its interests overseas from terrorism, so that people can go about their lives freely and with confidence.

How many terrorist attacks has TSA thwarted? We're never going to know the true answer to that question.

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

Without - you know, good intelligence stops plots against the homeland. Without that intelligence, we cannot effectively stop it.

The nature of Homeland Security is that no news is good news. And no news sometimes means somebody got interdicted at the border, somebody got interdicted before they could get on an airplane, somebody was arrested providing material support to terrorism. Homeland Security means very often something you never hear about.

One of our pillars has to be national security - our nation's security both domestically and abroad.

National security, both internal and external, is a challenge.

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