A Year of Achievements

This afternoon I had the privilege of giving remarks at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on our department’s accomplishments for the year and our priorities for 2008.

By any measure, 2007 was a year of strong progress and maturation for our department. From border security and immigration enforcement to passenger screening, critical infrastructure protection, and emergency response, we launched important initiatives to strengthen America’s security and we began to see the fruits of our labor in many vital areas.

To keep dangerous people from entering our country, we reached a landmark agreement with the European Union to share advance passenger information on international travelers. We also began collecting 10 fingerprints from foreign visitors at our international airports, which allows us to run more comprehensive terrorist and criminal watch list checks and identify unknown terrorists. We implemented new rules to improve screening of private international aircraft. And we strengthened passport requirements for air travelers in the Western Hemisphere.

To keep dangerous things from arriving here, we launched our Secure Freight Initiative to scan overseas cargo for radiation. We expanded our Container Security Initiative to 58 foreign ports so that our inspectors can screen cargo before it departs for the United States. We installed Radiation Portal Monitors at our land and sea ports of entry to prevent radiological materials and weapons from entering our country. We also seized record amounts of illegal drugs at our borders and at sea.

In addition, we strengthened critical infrastructure protection. We began implementing tough new chemical security regulations to protect chemical facilities from terrorist attack. To protect our ports, we provided port workers with a secure, tamper-proof TWIC credential. We deployed behavioral detection officers to more than 40 of our nation’s airports. And we expanded information sharing with our state and local partners through our participation in fusion centers.

In the area of emergency preparedness and response, we retooled and restructured FEMA, giving its employees better tools, logistics and tracking systems, and more effective disaster registration capabilities. We also hired full-time directors in all 10 of FEMA’s regions. As a result, FEMA’s response time was faster this year and the organization was widely praised for being on the scene quickly during the California wildfires and other disasters.

And to improve the department’s management and operations, we strengthened our information technology oversight and contracting, gave our employees new resources and on-line training tools, and moved forward to consolidate our headquarters operations into a single campus.

Next year we’re going to build on our success in these and many other areas. In particular, we’re going to continue to strengthen security at the border and enforce our nation’s immigration laws. We made a lot of progress this year to build fencing, hire new Border Patrol agents, and strengthen interior enforcement. Next year we will build even more fence, hire more agents, and deploy new technology at the border.

We’re also going to implement new secure identification requirements as part of our Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative and we will release final regulations for secure driver’s licenses under the REAL-ID Act. Secure identification was a 9/11 Commission recommendation and remains one of our best tools to prevent terrorism and identity theft.

Finally, we’re going to accelerate our efforts in the area of cyber security and we’re going to continue to institutionalize our department and work with Congress and American people to do our level best to protect this nation.

Of course, behind every one of our accomplishments this year stand the 208,000 men and women of the department. These achievements would not be possible without their resolve, the continued support of our public and private sector partners at every level, and the American people.

Happy holidays and thanks for reading.

Michael Chertoff

The Battle for Our Future

Earlier today, I had the honor and privilege of speaking at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the site for one of the greatest speeches of modern times, Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” address.

Delivered in 1946, Churchill’s speech eloquently outlined Soviet communism’s threat to the free world and called for firm and principled resistance. Like his warning a decade earlier about Nazi Germany, his words that day were roundly criticized. On both sides of the Atlantic, Britain’s greatest statesman was called a fear-monger for his efforts.

A half century later, in 1996, the words of Margaret Thatcher, another great former British prime minister, were also unheeded after she had come to Westminster and warned of the rise of Islamic radicalism.

But as I mentioned today, time has vindicated them both.

Appeasing Nazi Germany in the 1930s led to World War II. Containing the Soviet Union following the Second World War led to its downfall. Downplaying the threat posed by Bin Laden a decade ago led to the horrific 9/11 attacks.

Incredibly, we face exactly the kind of complacency in our post-9/11 world that Churchill and Thatcher confronted in decades past.

As I said today, too many members of our “thinking” classes deny or downplay the fact that war has been declared against us by an ideology that is as ruthless and fanatical as that of Nazism or communism. Spread by a network of cult-like entities that span the globe, this ideology denies the dignity and humanity of its opponents, and sanctifies the slaughter of innocent people, especially mainstream Muslims, for rejecting its hateful and bigoted message.

Members of Al Qaeda and their fellow travelers seek not only revolution in their own countries, but domination of many countries. Beginning in the Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa, they seek control over actual territory where they can train, assemble advanced weaponry, impose repressive law, and plan further attacks against our nation and its allies.

How have we responded? Under President Bush’s leadership, we’ve destroyed Al Qaeda’s Afghan headquarters, deployed our intelligence assets globally, captured or killed terrorists on nearly every continent, partnered with allies on information sharing and intelligence, and adapted to the evolving threats we continue to face here and abroad.

By responding in strength, we’ve applied Winston Churchill’s words at Westminster to our enemies today. As Churchill said of the communists, “There is nothing they admire so much as strength and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness.” Whether it’s Hitler or Stalin, Bin Laden or Iranian President Ahmadinejad—for ideological fanatics, weakness is provocative.

Were Churchill alive today, he would encourage us to maintain our resolve, preventing our enemies from launching further attacks, gaining control of nation states, and obtaining weapons of mass destruction. He would tell us that we must have a clear vision of the threat, not one colored by wishful thinking.

I’m also certain that Churchill would recognize that ours is ultimately a battle of ideas, a clash between the forces of reason and modernity and those of medieval fanaticism. Through the liberation and exercise of reason, we’ve witnessed wondrous things – the conquest of ancient diseases, the freeing of legions of people from poverty and starvation, and the unleashing of the information age. Ours is not a struggle against religion, for there is no necessary contradiction between reason and faith. Indeed, reason is God’s gift to humanity.

This is a battle that we must win, and one that calls on all of us to be engaged.

Michael Chertoff