Remarks by Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge To the National Press Club
Date: November 05, 2003Source: Computer Crime Research Center
... function. Working in tandem with our state and local partners, we will continue to build and to enhance the center's identification and assessment capabilities in the months and the years ahead.
NextAs you all know, citizen preparedness is a key component of homeland security, and in February of this year the department launched one of the most widely recognized initiatives, the Ready Campaign, a national, multimedia public information program designed to build a citizens' preparedness movement by giving Americans the basic tools they need to prepare themselves better and their families in the unlikely, but possible, event of a terrorist incident. You may know it -- you may know it as the "duct tape package." But, in fact, that was just one of the elements in the emergency preparedness kit that some folks chose to highlight in an attempt to add some humor to what is obviously a very difficult subject to talk about, and that is the need to prepare for a potential terrorist event.
But I will tell you that the humor surrounding that one particular element in the kit certainly aroused enough national interest, because within a couple of weeks after we initiated the Ready Campaign, we had 100 million hits on the Web site. So, obviously, people wanted to get ready, and we believe that when an incident occurs is not the time to prepare or to plan. You've got to prepare and plan long before that occurs.
So we've had a great response to the Ready Campaign. After all, every citizen of this great country has a role to play in ensuring the safety of our country. Be it through prevention with your watchful eyes, be it through preparedness in the event of an attack, we're always stronger with citizens at our side.
Among other initiatives launched at DHS has been important funding of our states and cities for emergency preparedness and response. I'm sorry I can't be here tomorrow to listen to my friend the Mayor of Boston, because the cities, very appropriately, and the governors have urged the Congress and the Administration, through the Department of Homeland Security, to secure as much funding as possible to assist them as they respond to both requests from the federal government, but also to build up a national capacity around this country as we go about preventing attacks and reducing our vulnerability to attacks.
In every way, this effort can be successful only if ceded to the cities and states across the country. You cannot secure the homeland from Washington, D.C. You can only secure it from the hometown. If every hometown is secure, then the homeland will be secure.
In every way we recognize the challenges that states and localities face when planning to respond to a potential disaster, and that's why the department is committed to providing them with the tools they need to respond and, more importantly, to be ready, to be prepared.
Already to date we've pushed millions of dollars out of the door by way our Office of Domestic Preparedness and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. All in all since March 1st, we've provided approximately $1.6 billion in funding through grant programs, worked with Congress to win passage of a much needed supplemental to gain additional funds, and today I'm pleased to announce that we're making an additional $1.5 billion available to states and cities as early as tomorrow to defray the costs of Liberty Shield and other preparedness measures. So within a very short period of time, we have available to our partners at the state and local level in excess of $3 billion.
Now, additionally, this Thursday I'll be testifying before Congress to continue the funding dialogue so that all of our states and cities have the resources they need to be prepared and ready for all possible emergency contingencies.
And then, finally, without a doubt, since our start-up, we've taken a giant step forward in harnessing the power of our nation's homeland security resources, particularly in merging 22 separate, disparate agencies into one department, which Tami mentioned marked the largest federal reorganization since World War II.
As part of this merger, we reorganized all of our border functions, which creates one border dedicated to securing the borders and one dedicated to enforcement responsibilities and immigration concerns.
Along the same lines, I'm pleased to announce today that our Coast Guard service authorities have awarded two contracts totaling $129 million to Northrop Grumman Corporation Systems for initial development and delivery of the first new national security cutter.
In the 2004 budget, the president has asked for the largest increase the Coast Guard's ever seen, a 10 percent increase, because as we keep adding additional responsibilities on top of this incredibly performance-driven agency, they need additional people and equipment in order to complete their mission.
And this announcement today of the first new national security cutter is a part of their multiyear strategy, called the Deep Water Acquisition Project that will give them more people and new equipment to perform the multiple tasks that they do so well on a day-to-day basis.
As part of the service's Deep Water Program aimed at replacing aging offshore fleet, this initiative will allow us to continue to push our borders further out to sea.
As part of our reorganization efforts, we've also begun streamlining chains of command, establishing single points of contact within our department for outside agencies and law enforcement personnel, consolidating watch and warning functions into a unified, more effective system in the process of combining -- this is a real chore -- a real challenge -- combining the personnel and payroll systems of 22 agencies and 180,000 people. It will take us a couple more days to get that done.
The goal is very straightforward. We want all hands communicating, all resources working together as they should be, and all of this achieved as quickly as possible. One team, one fight. That's the picture of the Department of Homeland Security.
So the bottom line is this. Everything we're doing, everything achieved in the department's first 100 days, from creating smart borders to developing the best of technology tools, from intelligence gathering to intelligence coordination, from partnering with the private sector to opening lines of communication with our regional, state and local responders, it all adds up to this: Your country is ready rather than waiting.
And I commit to you that working with 180,000 of your fellow citizens that this nation will raise to a new level of readiness each and every day. As long as there are those who value vengeance over life, nothing can be guaranteed. However, in the event of an attack, this nation is certainly prepared to respond.
That's in large part because every day the men and women of DHS, along with this country's state and local authorities, believe that doing the right thing, with the right level of focus, is never optional. It's an everyday requirement. They have to be right in everything they do every single day.
So they go to work in this post-9/11 world knowing that what they do and how well they do it can mean the difference between life and death. And they're comforted by your hopes and prayers for their good efforts, determined to be right in everything they do, knowledgeable. And with the memories of citizens and soldiers who will never pass our way again, our people pledge to secure a country where duty and love of country and liberty transcend all else.
And so as I say to our enemies, what I said to them nearly 100 days ago, to those of you who want to get at us, you best never underestimate us. Because Americans do not live in fear, we live in freedom, and we will never let that freedom go.
It's in that spirit that people of DHS, 100 days older and wiser and more efficient and more determined than ever to move further forward in our mission, will continue to build a nation where terrorism in any form posed by any group can never find sanctuary on American soil, a nation that is safe and secure for all those who call it home.
We are pledged to freedom. We will fight for it. And we will do everything possible so that it will endure for generations to come.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
MS. LYTLE: The first question is, is the homeland safer now with Saddam Hussein now longer in power?
SECRETARY RIDGE: Absolutely, yes. You know, the transaction or the relationship that we never want to see occur in this country is when a nation state secures the capability of developing biological, chemical weapons, or other weapons of mass destruction, works in collusion, or contracts out, or finds a group of terrorists and sees to it that their discoveries and their weapons are shared with a terrorist group. That's a transaction we never want to see occur.
And with the demise of Saddam Hussein and his regime, we are considerably safer.
But I do think it's important to note that one of the biggest challenges in the 21st century as it relates to terrorism has to do with the capacity of nations to build these weapons and transfer them to terrorist groups. But one of the challenges of the 21st century and, frankly, a challenge of the progress the world has made with the globalization of transportation, education, science and commerce is, whether...
Add comment
Email to a Friend
