Sylvester Turner: “I rise to respond to the remarks of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) who I have the highest respect for, but I…”

“I rise to respond to the remarks of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood) who I have the highest respect for, but I think it would be a great mistake to lead the American people to believe that we have done all we should be doing to secure the homeland. If you look at our record, though you may claim America is safer, it is far from as safe as it might be in light of the threats we face. One year after 9/11, bin Laden on his Web site said his goal is to kill 4 million Americans. The greatest threat we face today is a nuclear bomb brought into one of our major cities by terrorists. In the 2 years before 9/11, we did more to secure loose nukes than we did in the 2 years after 9/11. Three years after 9/11, we still do not have a unified, accessible terrorist watch list. We just read in the paper the other day that 120,000 hours of untranslated wiretap intercepts are at the FBI. We know that 20,000 illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico were caught and released last year into our country because we did not fund the detention space to hold them. We know that our administration says we need anthrax vaccines to vaccinate 25 million Americans in the event of an anthrax attack, and today, in our stockpile, we have enough vaccine to vaccinate 500 people. I submit to my colleagues that the increased spending on homeland security has not been near what it should be.”