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Posted on 04/09/2004 3:09:45 PM PDT by Theodore R.
Expect terror attack - Cohen Former defense secretary speaks at UW forum
By Becky Orr rep6@wyomingnews.com Published in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
LARAMIE - Americans should expect more terrorist attacks on United States soil, a former secretary of defense says.
William S. Cohen said Thursday that future attacks are inevitable given the country's size, its uncontrolled borders and other factors.
"We may foil most of them," Cohen said. "(But) we have to be successful 100 percent of the time."
Those plotting against America have to be successful only once, he added. "The question becomes, 'What do we do?'"
Cohen is a Republican who was U.S. secretary of defense under Democratic President Bill Clinton from 1997-2001. His selection was the first in which a president chose someone from another political party to be on his cabinet.
Cohen was at the University of Wyoming as part of a lecture series. Also a former congressman, he said the United States must complete its mission in Iraq.
The U.S. fighting in Iraq raises arguments about whether being there is the right or wrong thing, he said. "But we are there, and we have to make sure that we prevail while we're there."
Pulling up stakes puts the future for the other countries in the region on the line, he said.
Cohen added that people forewarned others as early as 1999 that a terrorist attack was likely to happen in the United States.
Such warning came on Sept. 15, 1999, when members of the U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st Century published its report. Cohen appointed the commission.
So what were some reasons for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks?
"The shorthand answer is we got lazy," he said. "We slacked off. We started to take our eye off our immigration policies."
And now, the Osama bin Ladens of the world can "plot our destruction sitting in a cage calling on the very technology you and I use to produce prosperity."
Efforts to train people in 150 cities about consequence management response to attacks are under way. "We're getting there, but not there yet," he said.
A good defense alone can't win the battle, he said, which is what prompted President Bush to go against the Taliban and led up to the Iraq war.
Americans will have to make tough choices about how much privacy they're willing to give up to be safe, he said. One example is a national identification card that has both good and bad consequences.
"Should we be able to check out what you're reading?" he asked "Who is reading the Quran, who is reading the Bible?"
Former Wyoming Gov. Mike Sullivan and Peter Simpson moderated a question-and-answer session after Cohen's speech.
Sullivan said he worries that partisanship and money in the political system - and particularly in Congress - interferes with lawmakers' ability to make the right decisions.
Cohen said in response that "we've got to get back to some core values in terms of fixing the system and looking at it in a less partisanship fashion. Security is not a Democrat or Republican issue."
Cohen said he supports the efforts of the Sept. 11 commission. The commission's work can "identify points along the way where each of us - myself included - might have done something differently" and whether what was done before Sept. 11 was reasonable. He added that the country also has to look forward to fix mistakes.
Cohen said he was happy to come before the commission to explain about bin Laden during his time as secretary of defense.
Cohen said he didn't know where bin Laden was and that he wasn't willing to launch missiles against him not knowing if he was going to hit the target. "I'm satisfied with what I did," he said.
Cohen took questions from the audience, one of which dealt with the country's approach toward economic terrorism.
Economic terrorism comes into play as the gulf between the have's and the have-not's grows bigger, he said. Cohen said the country must develop relationships to help find ways to create prosperity in various parts of the world.
He added that America lacks a good energy policy. And Americans have gotten away from conserving oil and energy.
"Does everybody in the U.S. have to have an SUV?"
I think we all know what we need to do... it's IF we'll ever do it that is the question.
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Wow! Klintoon's butt-boy is a frickin genius. Like didn't Condi Rice say the EXACT same thing yesterday!!!
And I loooove the way the lame-stream-media keeps throwing in "Republican" whenever this maggot's name is mentioned. He's a republican like Robert Byrd, aka 'Sheets', is a fiscal conservative.
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