[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 44, Number 9 (Monday, March 10, 2008)]
[Pages 333-338]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the Fifth Anniversary of the Department of Homeland Security

March 6, 2008

    Thank you very much. Thanks for the warm welcome. Mr. Secretary, 
thank you for your kind introduction, and I appreciate your outstanding 
leadership for this Department. I'm really pleased to join you on the 
fifth anniversary of the creation of the Department of Homeland 
Security. Man, does time fly. [Laughter]
    When this Department was established following the September the 
11th terrorist attacks, it was hard to imagine that we would reach this 
milestone without another attack on our homeland. For those of you who 
were here 5 years ago, if you think back to that time, I don't think we 
would have predicted that 5 years later there had not been another 
attack on us. Yet we've been--[applause]--and it's your vigilance and 
your hard work that have helped keep this country safe. And so I want to 
thank you. I hope you take enormous pride in the accomplishments of this 
Department, and I hope you know the American people are grateful for 
your service, and so am I.
    On this anniversary, we must also remember that the danger to our 
country has not passed. Since the attacks of 9/11, the terrorists have 
tried to strike our homeland again and again. We've disrupted numerous 
planned attacks, including a plot to fly an airplane into the tallest 
building on the west coast and another to blow up passenger jets headed 
for America across the Atlantic Ocean. The lesson of this experience is 
clear.

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It's clear to me, and I know it is clear to you. The enemy remains 
active, deadly in its intent, and in the face of this danger, the United 
States must never let down its guard.
    I thank Tom Ridge for being the first Secretary of the Department of 
Homeland Security; it's good to see him again. I appreciate--
[applause]--I want to welcome the members of my Cabinet who've joined 
us, the leadership team at the Department. I appreciate the fact that a 
fine United States Senator and a great patriot has joined us today, 
Senator Joe Lieberman.
    I appreciate the members of the diplomatic corps who've joined us. I 
appreciate the former DHS employees who are here; I appreciate all the 
current DHS employees for serving our country. And I want you to thank 
your families for the sacrifices you're making. I want to thank--
[applause]--and I appreciate the Homeland Security partners from across 
the country who've joined us for this fifth anniversary.
    The events of September the 11th, 2001, demonstrated the threats of 
a new era. I say new because we found that oceans which separate us from 
separate--different continents no longer separate us from danger. We saw 
the cruelty of the terrorists and extremists, and we glimpsed the future 
they intend for us. In other words, there's some serious lessons on 
September the 11th that it's important for all Americans to remember. 
Two years ago, Usama bin Laden warned the American people, quote, 
``Operations are under preparation, and you will see them on your own 
ground once they are finished.'' All of us, particularly those charged 
with protecting the American people, need to take the words of this 
enemy very seriously. And I know you do.
    At this moment, somewhere in the world, a terrorist is planning an 
attack on us. I know that's inconvenient thought for some, but it is the 
truth. And the people in this hall understand that truth. We have no 
greater responsibility, no greater charge than to stop our enemies and 
to protect our fellow citizens.
    To protect the American people, we are on the offense against the 
terrorists around the world. It is better to defeat them over there than 
to face them here in the United States. Since the enemy attacked us, 
since they declared war, since we've responded, we've captured or killed 
hundreds of Al Qaida leaders and operatives in more than two dozen 
countries. With our allies, we removed dangerous regimes in Iraq and 
Afghanistan that had harbored terrorists and had threatened our people.
    Our men and women in uniform, those in the United States military 
are helping people of those countries fight the terrorists and build 
free societies and secure the peace for their children and ours. We owe 
our military a debt of gratitude, and we owe them something more. We owe 
them all the tools necessary to do the jobs we expect of them.
    This war against these extremists and radicals who would do us harm 
is the great ideological struggle of our time. We're in a battle with 
evil men. I call them evil because if you murder the innocent to achieve 
a political objective, you're evil. These folks have beliefs. They 
despise freedom. They despise the right for people to worship an 
Almighty the way he or she sees fit. They desire to subject millions to 
their brutal rule. Our enemies oppose every principle of humanity and 
decency that we hold dear. They kill innocent men and women all the 
time. The only way these terrorists can recruit operatives, the only way 
they can convince somebody that their dim vision of the world is worth 
following is to feed on hopelessness and despair.
    And so our policy is to oppose this hateful ideology by offering an 
alternative vision, one based upon freedom and liberty. Across the 
world, America feeds the hungry; we fight disease; we fight tyranny. We 
promote the blessings of a free society, not only because it's in our 
national interest--national security interests, but because it's in our 
moral interests. You see, by bringing the hope of freedom to these 
societies, we'll help peaceful people marginalize the extremists and 
eliminate the conditions that feed radicalism. And so for the sake of 
our security, for the sake of the peace of our children, the United 
States of America will stay on the forefront of spreading freedom and 
liberty around the world.
    As we wage this struggle abroad, we're also building the 
institutions we need here at

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home to keep our country safe. The second part of the strategy is to 
protect the homeland. The first part is to stay on the offense, bring 
people to justice where we find them, and spread liberty as the great 
alternative to their hateful ideology. The second part of the strategy, 
of which you're intricately involved, is to protect America. And that's 
why I'm here to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Department of 
Homeland Security, because you're on the frontlines of doing what the 
American people expect us to do, and that's to protect them.
    Before 9/11, there was no single Department of Government charged 
with protecting the homeland. So we undertook the most sweeping 
reorganization of the Federal Government since the start of the cold 
war. We merged 22 different Government organizations into a single 
Department with a clear mission: Secure America, and protect the 
American people from future attacks.
    The past 5 years, the men and women of this Department have carried 
out that mission with skill and determination. In ways seen and unseen, 
you work each day to protect our people from dangerous and determined 
enemies. I know how hard you work; a lot of Americans don't. And perhaps 
on this fifth anniversary, the message will get through that there's a 
lot of dedicated, decent, honorable folks working their hearts out to 
protect the country.
    The Department of Homeland Security is working to stop terrorists 
from infiltrating our country. On 9/11, America was attacked from within 
by 19 men who entered our country, hid among us, and then killed 
thousands. To stop this from happening again, we've taken important 
steps to prevent dangerous people from entering America. We made our 
borders more secure. We've deployed new technologies for screening 
people entering America.
    We're on track to double the number of Border Patrol agents who 
serve our country. For those of you who--that wear the uniform of the 
Border Patrol, thanks for what you're doing. We've unified our terrorism 
databases into one central database. We are enhancing it with biometric 
capabilities. We've improved the way we evaluate visa applicants. We 
made it harder to counterfeit travel documents. We want to know who's 
coming to our country and who's leaving our country, and we take 
significant steps to be able to tell the American people the answer to 
those questions.
    Secondly, the Department of Homeland Security is working to stop 
terrorists from smuggling biological and chemical and nuclear weapons 
into our cities. The Department has deployed a layered system of 
protections against these dangerous materials that starts overseas, 
continues along our borders, and extends throughout our country. We've 
launched innovative programs to protect major metropolitan areas by 
providing early detection of biological or nuclear or radiological 
attacks. We are determined to stop the world's most dangerous men from 
striking America with the world's most dangerous weapons.
    The Department of Homeland Security is working to protect our 
transportation systems and other critical infrastructure from terrorist 
attacks. Our enemies have declared--they have made it abundantly clear 
that if they can strike economic targets here in America, they can 
terrorize our people and do great harm to our economy. So in the face of 
this threat, the Department of Homeland Security has taken decisive 
action. Since

9/11, we've worked with the private sector to develop comprehensive 
security plans for 17 of the Nation's critical sectors, including our 
food and water supplies, chemical and nuclear facilities, power grids 
and telecommunications networks.
    Under Operation Neptune Shield, the men and women of the Coast Guard 
are protecting more than 360 ports and more than 95,000 miles of coast 
guard. We've taken action to protect our transportation systems, 
including a massive overhaul of security at our airports and new steps 
to protect our railways and mass transit systems.
    The message should be clear to the American people. We will protect 
our country; we will protect our economy from those who seek to do us 
harm.
    The Department of Homeland Security is working to strengthen our 
defenses against cyber attacks. Our enemies understand that America's 
economy relies on uninterrupted use of the Internet and that a 
devastating

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attack in cyberspace would be a massive blow to our economy and way of 
life. And so we've taken steps to enhance our cyber security, created a 
new National Cyber Security Division in this Department charged with 
protecting against virtual terrorism. We've established a Computer 
Emergency Readiness Team to provide 24-hour watch, so we can stop cyber 
attacks before they spread and cripple our economy. The United States 
Secret Service has established 24 Electronic Crimes Task Forces with a 
mission to prevent, detect, and investigate cyber attacks on our 
country.
    As we protect our cyber networks, we're also working to deny our 
enemies the use of the Internet to recruit and train operatives and plan 
attacks on America. Our strategy is to deny the terrorists safe haven 
anywhere in the world, and that includes a virtual safe haven on the 
Internet.
    The Department of Homeland Security is working to strengthen 
cooperation with State and local governments, so we can prevent 
terrorist attacks and respond effectively if we have to. Before 9/11, 
the Federal Government sent threat information to authorities--local 
authorities by fax machine. Today, we've established 21st century lines 
of communication that allow us to share classified threat information 
rapidly and securely. We've helped State and local officials establish 
intelligence fusion centers in 46 States. These centers allow Federal 
officials to provide intelligence to our State and local partners and 
allow locally generated information to get to officials here in 
Washington who need it.
    Even all these steps--with even all these steps, we know that a free 
society--there's no such thing as perfect security. That's the 
challenge. To attack us, the terrorists only have to be right once; to 
stop them, we need to be right 100 percent of the time. And so we're 
working to ensure that if attack does occur, this country is ready. 
We'll do everything we can to stop attacks, and we are. I can 
confidently tell the American people, a lot of folks are working hard to 
protect them with a good, comprehensive strategy.
    But if the enemy is able to make it here and attack us, we want to 
be able to respond. And so since September of 2001, we've provided more 
than $23 billion of equipment and training and other critical needs for 
America's State and local first-responders. We want people at the local 
level prepared.
    We've worked with officials in 75 major metropolitan areas to 
improve the ability of first-responders to communicate clearly in an 
emergency. We've helped establish mutual aid agreements with States and 
strengthened the Emergency Management Assistant Compact among States, so 
that when communities need help from their neighbors, the right 
assistance will get to the right people at the right time.
    We've greatly expanded the Nation's stockpile of drugs and vaccines 
that would be needed in the event of a bioterrorist attack or a mass 
casualty incident. We now have enough smallpox vaccine for every 
American in case of an emergency. We've increased our investments in 
biodefense medical research and development at the National Institutes 
of Health by more than 3,000 percent since 2001. We launched Project 
BioShield, an effort to speed the development of new vaccines and 
treatments against biological agents that could be used in a terrorist 
attack.
    We've learned from our mistakes to improve our response when 
disaster strikes. When Hurricane Katrina hit our Nation's gulf coast, it 
exposed weaknesses in America's emergency response capabilities, so we 
retooled and restructured FEMA. Since Hurricane Katrina, we've improved 
FEMA's logistics management, strengthened its operations planning, 
augmented disaster assistance programs, and provided the Agency with 
additional personnel and resources.
    And we have seen outstanding results as a result of these efforts. 
FEMA's response to the California wildfires, to the Minneapolis bridge 
collapse, and the tornadoes that struck the Mississippi Valley last 
month were exemplary. Despite these efforts, today, FEMA and the 
Department of Homeland Security--because of these efforts, FEMA and 
Homeland Security are better prepared. There's still work to do, but 
we're doing it. We're never satisfied here in the Department of Homeland 
Security. We're constantly assessing weaknesses and needs and constantly 
adjusting, because there's no greater calling than to protect our 
country.

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    The Department of Homeland Security is vital to our safety, and it's 
just one of the institutions that have been built or transformed to keep 
our Nation safe. We created the new Office of Director of National 
Intelligence, which led a broad restructuring of our Nation's 
intelligence agencies for the threats of the 21st century. We 
transformed the FBI into an Agency whose primary focus is stopping 
terrorism and reorganized the Department of Justice to help combat the 
threat.
    We created the National Counterterrorism Center, where members of 
this Department, as well as the FBI and the CIA and other Departments 
and Agencies, work side by side to track terrorist threats and prevent 
new attacks.
    At the Department of Defense, we created a new Northern Command 
responsible for homeland defense and enhanced Strategic Command that is 
responsible for defending America against long-range attacks.
    We created the Proliferation Security Initiative, a coalition of 
more than 85 nations that are working together to stop shipments of 
weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems, and related 
materials.
    And to find out what the terrorists know about planned attacks, we 
established a program run by the CIA to detain and question key 
terrorists and operatives.
    My administration is determined to ensure those in our Government 
charged with defending America have the tools they need to fight the 
terrorists. One of the most important tools is the ability to monitor 
terrorist communications. To stop new attacks on America, we need to 
know who the terrorists are talking to, what they're saying, and what 
they're planning.
    We cannot get this vital information without the cooperation of 
private companies. Unfortunately, some private companies have been sued 
for billions of dollars because they are believed to have helped defend 
America after the attacks of September the 11th. Allowing these lawsuits 
to proceed is--would be unfair because if any of these companies helped 
us, they did so after being told by the Government that their assistance 
was legal and their assistance was necessary to defend the homeland.
    Allowing these lawsuits to proceed would be unwise because 
litigation could lead to the disclosure of information about how we 
conduct surveillance and give Al Qaida and others a roadmap as to how to 
avoid the surveillance. Allowing these lawsuits to proceed would be 
dangerous because private companies besieged and fearful of lawsuits 
would be less willing to help us quickly get the information we need.
    The United States Senate passed a good bill that will protect 
companies from these lawsuits and ensure our intelligence professionals 
have the tools they need to keep us safe. This bill passed by a strong 
bipartisan majority of 68 to 29, and a bipartisan majority of the House 
stands ready to pass the Senate bill if a vote were held. Unfortunately, 
House leaders blocked a vote on the Senate bill about 3 weeks ago. At 
the time, House leaders declared they needed 21 more days to work out 
their differences and get a bill to my desk. The deadline arrives on 
Saturday. If House leaders are serious about security, they will need to 
meet the deadline they set for themselves, and pass the bipartisan 
Senate bill, and get it to my desk this Saturday.
    The men and women of the Department of Homeland Security can be 
proud of all that you have accomplished in 5 years. I've just laid out 
some of that which you've accomplished, and it took me about 30 minutes. 
You have built a vital and effective Department that is helping to 
prevent dangerous enemies from striking our people. Your efforts and all 
the institutions we have built since 9/11 are a lasting legacy that will 
give future generations and future Presidents the instruments they need 
to keep our country safe.
    The most important legacy we can leave behind is a commitment to 
remain vigilant. With the passage of time, the memories of September the 
11th have grown more distant. For some, there is temptation to think 
that the threats to our country have grown distant as well. They 
haven't. And our job is to never forget the threat and to implement 
strategies that will protect the homeland from those who seek us harm.
    Under the superb leadership of Secretary Chertoff, that is what the 
men and women of this Department do each day. And so on

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behalf of the people, thanks for stepping forward; thanks for 
shouldering this awesome responsibility. You're working with vital 
partners in State and local and tribal governments, in the private and 
nonprofit sectors, and the international community to meet the threats 
of our time. Many of you serve in dangerous circumstances, and on this 
anniversary, we remember all those who have given their lives to keep 
our people safe.
    I appreciate every member of the Department of Homeland Security for 
your dedication and your courage and your resolve. You're helping to 
ensure that as we wage the war on terror across the world, we never 
forget where it began: in our homeland.
    May God bless you and your families, and may God continue to bless 
our country.

Note: The President spoke at 1:10 p.m. at DAR Constitution Hall. In his 
remarks, he referred to Usama bin Laden, leader of the Al Qaida 
terrorist organization.