Representative Heather Wilson: “One of the things that is hard to understand is just how difficult prevention is when you're facing a terrorist threat…”

“One of the things that is hard to understand is just how difficult prevention is when you're facing a terrorist threat compared to what we faced during the Cold War. I served in the military during the Cold War. I served overseas in Europe for most of my time as an officer, graduated from the Air Force Academy and then did my service overseas. In some ways I kind of look back on this and say as an intelligence problem, the Soviet Union was a very convenient enemy. They had their exercises the same time every year. They came out of the same barracks. They had tables of equipment and standard organizational charts. They used the same radio frequencies, the same rail lines. They were a very predictable, potential enemy. Had they ever attacked us, they would have been very difficult to defeat, but we had no doubt about where they were and what they were doing pretty much, and we had huge systems set up for what we called indications and warning, ballistic missile early warning systems and systems that would launch our air interceptors if bombers came close to the United States. We were very good at looking at what the Soviet Union was doing to immediately protect America.”