Frances Townsend Quotes (19 Quotes)

We must be unanimous in our strong condemnation of such state sponsorship of terrorism and demand its end in our lifetime.

FedEx can track a package anywhere in the world real-time. FEMA should be able to do the same thing for ice, water and food.

It turns out we were all wrong, we had not adequately anticipated,

It turned out we were all wrong, we had not adequately anticipated, ... The thing that changed this was not Katrina itself, the thing that was the catastrophic event was the failure of the levee.

Probably 70 percent of hands went up, ... And people were really stunned that there is nowhere in the Patriot Act the mention of library records.

I find the developments in Yemen not only deeply disappointing but of enormous concern to us, especially given the capabilities and the expertise of the people who were there.

We can improve the response. We can make it faster and more efficient, and that's the focus of the 125 recommendations, which are really broken into 17 different areas.

The problem is you can't share these details when you have operational leads. It takes time.

divorce this from partisan politics.

It was bin Laden who decided that it should just focus on the East Coast, and that the West Coast should be held in abeyance ... as a follow-on attack. It's our understanding now that it was too difficult to get enough operatives for both the East and West Coast plots at the same time.

I should make clear from the outset that we do not know if the bird virus we are seeing overseas will ever become ... a pandemic.

FedEx can track a package around the world anywhere, real time. The Federal Emergency Management Agency should be able to do the same with ice, water and food.

the official primarily responsible for advising and assisting the President in the coordination of domestic incident management activities of all departments and agencies in the event of a terrorist threat, and during and in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, major disasters, or other emergencies, within the United States.

And so our allies in Saudi Arabia face as great, if not a greater, threat by virtue of this escape than we do.

We knew they were going to fly a commercial airliner into the tallest building in California. And it was an analytic judgement by the intelligence community that that meant the Library Tower.

Though there will be tragedies we cannot prevent, we can improve our preparedness and response to reduce future loss and preserve life. And while we will work diligently to implement immediate improvements, it is important to recognize that the true transformation envisioned in this report will require a sustained commitment over time by the federal government as well as by state and local governments that have essential duties in responding to disasters.

In truly catastrophic events state and locals may be incapacitated or overwhelmed or even worse.

In response to Hurricane Katrina, the National Response Plan came up short. We need to rewrite the NRP so it is workable and so it is clear.

When we talk about integrated use of the military, we're not just talking about active forces. We also have to make maximum use of the state National Guards.