[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 17723-17724]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     REMEMBERING SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

  Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I rise today to remember the horrifying 
terrorist attacks that took away so many innocent lives 5 years ago.
  As a rule, tragedies of the magnitude we saw on 9/11 do not have 
silver linings. On that day, we were left only with an aching sense of 
loss, a sadness that seemed endless, and a bitter rage toward those who 
had brought chaos to our doorstep.
  And yet it is undeniable that amidst one of the worst moments in our 
history, an ordinary goodness emerged in America. You could see it in 
the rescue workers and firefighters who rushed toward the rubble, in 
the scores of young people who signed up to serve their country, and in 
the quiet candlelight vigils held by millions of people for those they 
had never met and never would.
  In our politics, too, there was a brief moment where it seemed as 
though the crass partisanship of the nineties would give way to a unity 
of purpose among Republicans and Democrats that would refocus our 
efforts on attacking the terrorists, not each other. We saw this in the 
immediate support given to President Bush, in the near unanimous vote 
to go after the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan, and in the 
formation of an independent, bipartisan commission that would tell us 
how and where to strengthen our homeland security.
  Five years after 9/11, the days of that unity are long gone. In the 
last two elections, the Republican Party has used national security as 
a political weapon to attack and beat opponents, while the 
recommendations of the 9/11 Commission float further and further from 
the front pages. Now, as we approach another election season, the

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party in power has announced again that it intends to ``run on'' the 
issue of national security, with some going so far as to say that the 
terrorists are just waiting for Democrats to take over so that they can 
attack.
  I realize that in this day and age, it is naive to think that 
politics would stop at the water's edge. But I refuse to believe that 
we cannot find the will or the resources to implement a series of 
recommendations that an independent panel of Democrats and Republicans 
agree would keep our country safer from terrorist attack.
  In a report card delivered last year by the 9/11 Commission, the 
country's security efforts received mediocre to failing grades--17 Ds 
and Fs in 41 areas of homeland security.
  To this day, our first responders still do not have the 
communications equipment they need to coordinate a rescue in the event 
of an attack. We still inspect only 5 percent of the 9,000,000 
containers that enter this country every year. We are still spending 
only 2 percent of what we need to secure our railroads and subways, and 
not nearly enough on baggage and cargo screening at our airports. We 
still have only 10,000 border patrol agents to guard 8,000 miles of 
land borders, and only 1 agent to guard every 3 miles of border with 
Canada. And we are leaving some of America's most vulnerable targets--
including chemical plants with toxic substances that could kill 
millions--with the most minimal security.
  If on the day after 9/11 you had told anyone in America that these 
gaps in our security would still exist 5 years later, they might have 
thought you were crazy. And yet since then attempt after attempt to 
correct these problems--from efforts to fully fund rail, transit, and 
port security to the legislation I have introduced to protect chemical 
plants--have been rebuffed by the administration and the Republican-
controlled Congress.
  This cannot go on. National security cannot be something we only 
discuss on 9/11 or when terrorists try to blow up planes over the 
Atlantic or when it suits our political interests on election day. It 
is an every day challenge, and it will take Americans of every 
political persuasion to meet it.
  Like most Americans, the effect of September 11 felt profoundly 
personal to me. It wasn't just the magnitude of the destruction that 
affected me or the memories of the 5 years I had spent in New York, but 
the intimacy of imagining those ordinary acts which 9/11's victims must 
have performed in the hours before they were killed, the daily routines 
that constitute life in our modern world--boarding a plane, grabbing 
coffee and the morning paper at a newsstand, making small talk on the 
elevator.
  For so long, these acts represented the concrete expression of our 
belief that if we just exercised, wore seatbelts, and avoided needless 
risks, our safety was assured, our families protected. Certainly, the 
prospect of mass violence on American soil seemed remote.
  Five years later, we know that world is gone--that we must better 
understand our fragility and better secure ourselves from those who 
have the will and the way to do us harm. This means a change in 
priorities, yes, but it also means a change in our politics--a 
willingness to put aside the petty, if just for a moment, so that we 
may rise together to meet one of the greatest challenges of our time. 
History has shown this will not be easy, but if the ordinary goodness 
that emerged from that rubble 5 years ago is any indication, I still 
believe it is imminently possible.

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