Alvaro Uribe Quotes

There is nothing quite like working on a counter-terrorism case in real time.

The attacks of September 11 persuaded many Americans that what might seem to be obscure or distant potential threats can very quickly materialize and it therefore makes sense to attend to them even before they become urgent.

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.

My job is to give the president and secretary of defense military advice before they know they need it.

Although we must change the ways we protect our country, we must also guard against policies that appear attractive but offer little real protection and may even impede our ability to protect ourselves.

One of the great intellectual failures of the American intelligence community, and especially the counterterrorism community, is to assume if someone hasn't attacked us, it's because he can't or because we've defeated him.

As the third anniversary of the September 11th attacks draws near we must ensure our nation is prepared to handle the continued threat of violence and terrorism on our country.

All of the leading terrorism experts are clear on one thing: that in terms of protecting America, we are almost never going to know a place or a time of an attack.

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

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.

Every country in the world has its own security system and its own security forces, its own police and its own army.

As we are all aware, Special Operations Forces, SOF, are playing an increasingly essential role as we continue to fight and, more importantly, win the war on terror.

We have been using foreign affairs ministries to address security issues, but this practice is outdated. It's time to assign the handling of regional security to national organizations and expert institutions.

If al Qaeda or any other enemy of our country manages to create a situation or explode a bomb or murder or incapacitate large numbers of our people, we cannot wait for 7 weeks of a special election in order to deal with that.

Intelligence is our first line of defense against terrorism, and we must improve the collection capabilities and analysis of intelligence to protect the security of the United States and its allies.

Able Danger was a top-secret military planning operation, established in '99 by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to identify cells of al-Qaida worldwide and to take out al Qaida terrorists. They identified five cells worldwide, one of them in Brooklyn.

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.

Why has an administration that talks so much about terrorism and homeland security demonstrated so little competence when it comes to securing the homeland?

National Intelligence Estimates are perhaps the most important documents created in the intelligence mechanisms of our government… A national estimate is a statement of what is going to happen in any country, in any area, in any given situation, and as far as possible into the future…

I was haunted by the constant awareness that I might be required to calculate and decide in an instant of time whether some kind of nuclear action might be required in response to a real or imagined or mistaken attack perceived to be under way against my country.

Historically, decisive security action took place only after a disaster had occurred or a specific plot had been discovered.

The safety and security of the nation depends more so than ever before on intelligence.

Intelligence isn’t just something for the Cold War. When you think of Pearl Harbor, you can understand why. Unpleasant surprises are out there.

A counter-insurgency is won by intelligence—not by bombardment.

The security [of European national is dependent on the effective intelligence of their neighbors.