Chris Smith: “Mr. Speaker, the lethal threat to Americans will not go away by wishing it away. The faceless cowards who murdered…”

“Mr. Speaker, the lethal threat to Americans will not go away by wishing it away. The faceless cowards who murdered thousands of innocent men, women, and children this week and the hate-filled extremists, who today are scheming future acts of terrorism, must be rooted out. Mr. Speaker, even before Tuesday's atrocities, deaths from worldwide acts of terror were on the rise. But nothing could have prepared Americans, and the world, for the cruel and barbaric slaughter of so many innocent people. In 1999, 233 people were murdered by terrorists. In 2000, the number jumped to 405. In 2000, roughly half of all the terrorist incidents in the world were directed against Americans and U.S. assets. Each day, 10 to 12 threats are aimed at U.S. posts overseas. However, most of those are on foreign soil, so we were lulled into a false sense of security. Mr. Speaker, people should know that whatever intelligence gathering lapses may have occurred, Congress did step up to the plate time and again through successive administrations. We did it after Beirut. We did it through the succeeding years. We did it after the bombing of our embassies in Africa. Today, it is all too clear that our initiatives have fallen short. And now, Mr. Speaker, the task of mitigating and ultimately ending the terrorist threat requires the strongest medicine of all. It is time to take the gloves off.”