We need more personnel. Again, we've tripled the number of Border Patrol agents in the last five years, but I think we have to add significantly more.

I certainly think an attempted attack upon the United States is inevitable.

Yes, it is safer, and I'll tell you why. This plot probably would not have been stopped prior to September 11, 2001.

The enormity of this, the breadth of this threat, you would have had thousands of Americans killed, it would have been comparable to 9/11.

I've known Mike Chertoff for quite a while. We've had some agreements on different issues, but he's always been cool, always entirely composed. But when he called me last night, that was the first time in my relationship with him that I…

This is -- this is war. This is not the same as a highway bill or a tax bill. This is life and death. And 'The New York Times' should understand that.

No, I really don't. Actually, I've been chairman since September, and I thought I had a very good working relationship with Bennie Thompson. We've worked together on port security, on ammonium nitrate, on Dubai ports.

That is not true at all. One of the reasons that there was a reduction in the overall amount of money is because 46 percent of the money that's an allocated over the last four years is still in the pipeline.

Yeah, Mike Chertoff is totally wrong on that. First of all, what he forgets to say is this is a 40 percent cut from last year.

I would leave it now by saying I'm disappointed, but I'd say it's getting more and more difficult to defend him staying in the position.

I'm very disappointed. There's just been to me really a lack of good faith in dealing, and I'm very disappointed in Secretary Chertoff.

Well, my understanding is that it is true and that it was there, it was certainly considered to be a valid threat, and it was called back.

New York Congressman Peter King calls the cuts disgraceful.

Thank God he was dealing with a police officer at the other end. If that had been an agent of al Qaeda or somebody from organized crime, or someone from a foreign government, they would have been able to blackmail him. And, again, he -- he…

If Dubai ports is divesting itself of all American aspects of the contract, this is over. We can all go forward. There's no acrimony. There's no more problem.

it is a first step, but this battle is by no means over.

in his 14 years in Congress, he has never had as many calls in his office as he has on this single issue.

The law that is on the books now is pre-9/11. It's geared toward encouraging foreign investment. It's not geared towards stopping terrorism.

This is, potentially, having an enemy within our perimeter.

Only partly. It actually raises more concerns. It shows that the committee looking at it did have concerns about this company, you know, enough concerns to put these conditions on them.

I would not want a Pakistani company, though, working on our ports, because I know -- and all of us know -- there is still a large Taliban influence in the Pakistan government, in the Pakistan intelligence agencies.

We welcome a full investigation.

the president should freeze the contract until a full investigation is conducted.

When you're talking to an African-American audience on Martin Luther King Day, and you accuse the opposition of running a plantation, that definitely is using the race card.

That definitely is using the race card. It definitely has racist connotations. She knows it.