Are We Any Safer?

We're far safer now than we were 10 years ago. The Bin Laden raid made that so clear. That was a C.I.A. run operation. We have much more coordination than we ever did. Intelligence. Military. Law enforcement. New York is a very tough nut to crack. I believe that what happened with Najibullah Zazi is the clear example. They got the intelligence from Pakistan. He came to Denver for a subway attack. They nabbed him with that intel because with this interface now, plus with this "see something, say something" and the speech they made yesterday- that nationally publicized press conference last night with the police commissioner and the mayor of New York City, they scared the bejesus out of everybody. I think that now, they're going to have 8 million people, you know, junior g-men looking for bags left someplace. I'd hate to be a middle eastern man trying to move his family in a Ryder truck.

I don't know where this all came from. We have our listening devices in virtually every congregation area with Muslim-Americans and foreigners and we are checking every one of their visas and their passports.

We have people in mosques. Top to bottom. You know, the one thing we can't prevent is not these vast

plots but it's the lone wolf who gets it in his head to get a gun and shoot people. That's the danger going forward. I think we will continue successfully to prevent these massive terror attacks.

Well, you know, we have a vast data base that we never had before. We've taken, you know, the barometric measurement of tens of thousands of people in the Afghan national territory and in the border region, we're much, much better prepared now to find out exactly who they are.

You know, I could have had a dream at 3:00 In the morning and said they have mid eastern and they speak arabic. This is kind of a no brainer, I think. I do not believe that this specific credible threat is much more than aspirational and a lot of it comes back to the intelligence received in that compound in Pakistan when we got Bin Laden, we got that treasure trove and in it, he says guess what? I'd love to have one of you guys do something nasty on the anniversary of 9/11 to show that we're still relevant.

Having said that and you get a couple of phone intercepts and huge reaction, their victory is the huge reaction itself. That's what costs us money. How much is all this police overtime? How much -- you know, we got choppers in the air and that's why they call it terrorism. The President is coming to ground zero on Sunday. So, this is going to be the most hardened, soft target that ever existed.