Speed was of the essence when the hurricane hit, |
State and local authorities have the principal, first-line-of-response obligation, with respect to a disaster of this kind, ... Obviously, the law recognizes they can't do it themselves. |
That 'perfect storm' of a combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners, and maybe anybody's foresight, |
That is unacceptable and we are going to change that immediately. |
That might be a model for some kind of data retention issue. It might be one that would say the government, instead of holding the data itself, will allow it to remain in the private sector, provided the private sector retains it for a period of time so we can ping against it. |
That would be hugely, hugely difficult, and require an enormous expenditure of resources. |
That's one of the issues we have to look at. |
That's why we have asked our procurement people to look hard when the invoices come in for contracts, to make sure these are fair and reasonable prices and to make necessary adjustments to assure that there is appropriate performance and that the public is getting value for its money. |
The best principle is not only to fight the last battle, ... In July we talked a lot about subways. In September we talked a lot about hurricanes. We still need to talk about aviation, about avian flu. |
The cost of identifying all those people and sending them back would be stupendous. It would be billions and billions of dollars, |
The department intends to build an integrated border security system. |
The devastation and tragic loss of life caused by Hurricane Katrina earlier this week reinforce the urgency of our coalition's work, |
The DHS programs supporting these teams already possess their own communications and aerial surveillance capabilities, such as helicopters and P-3 aircraft, ... Once in position, the teams will be able to relay up-to-the-minute, dependable information on which authorities could act confidently. |
The fact of the matter is we have learned some lessons, we've listened to some of the critics, and where there is merit to some of those observations, we've incorporated changes to take account of those criticisms. |
The lesson is that when the storm hits, the best place to be is to be out of the path of the storm, ... There's plenty of notice about Rita. |