Our nation today marks the eighth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on our country.
Some of us acknowledge the solemn occasion by gathering with family members, friends or neighbors. Others offer silent prayers. No matter how we observe the day, we take time to remember and to reflect.
The attacks against America united us in a profound way. Eight years later, as we mourn those who were viciously murdered at the hands of terrorists, it is appropriate to take stock of where our nation’s security stands now.
It is critical for us to acknowledge our security successes and to highlight emerging threats that still must be addressed.
This past summer marked the fifth anniversary of the release of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission Report, which made several important recommendations about keeping our homeland safe.
The 9/11 Commission exhaustively examined the events and circumstances that led to that fateful day and identified security gaps to be closed to help prevent future terrorist attacks. On July 22, 2004, the Commission made its findings public.
Later that year, in the wake of the Commission’s report, Senator Joe Lieberman and I led the Senate’s bipartisan effort to pass the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, the most significant reform to the intelligence community in more than 50 years.
As then-chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, I worked with Senator Lieberman and other panel members to remove bureaucratic barriers and promote ‘unity of effort’ in the intelligence community. Our legislation created a new National Counterterrorism Center, mandated improved information sharing, and, most notably, empowered a new Director of National Intelligence (DNI) to lead the intelligence community and serve as the President’s principal advisor on intelligence matters.
Today, those reforms have taken root and are bearing results.
Intelligence information is being shared. Policymakers, war fighters, and intelligence and law enforcement officers at all levels of government are working collaboratively, using shared data to design effective operations to thwart our nation’s enemies.
We also have improved emergency communications and the ability of our nation’s first responders to talk with each other, on demand and in real time. Our reforms included funding to speed the development and deployment of interoperable , or connected, emergency communications systems nationwide.
We have improved airport, chemical plant, and port security. I co-authored landmark port security and chemical facility security bills that became law in 2006. Our enhancements to port security, for example, mean that radiation scanning is performed on almost all incoming cargo. And programs to improve security at foreign ports have been strengthened to identify security threats before they reach our shores.
Looking ahead, we must address the growing cyber security threat to which all sectors of our critical infrastructure and government are vulnerable. We must also improve our defenses against the growing threat of biological weapons in the hands of terrorists. Recently, Senator Lieberman and I introduced legislation to prevent and prepare for terrorist attacks from biological weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Our legislation would implement the recommendations of the Commission for the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. It is also in response to the Commission’s conclusion and a statement by Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, that a WMD terrorist attack is more likely than not to occur by 2013 and that a biological attack is more likely than a nuclear attack.
And new legislation may be necessary in coming years; indeed, that is why Sen. Lieberman and I promoted additional intelligence-sharing reforms in the 2007 homeland security legislation.
In the five years since the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations and in the eight years since the terrorist attack of that day, we have come a long way.
Our nation is safer today than it was prior to September 11, 2001.
But the world is different than it was prior to September 11. Today, terrorist threats continue to evolve and intensify around the globe. Violent extremists, both foreign and home-grown, remain determined to attack and kill Americans.
As a result, we now realize that careful scrutiny is required.
We know that our security systems must continuously adjust to meet new threats and new challenges.
We acknowledge that attending to our country’s safekeeping is an ongoing work that requires tireless vigilance.
And we understand that this is the price that we must pay for our freedoms.