Michael Chertoff Quotes (172 Quotes)

We're going to have to go house to house in this city. We're going to have to check every single place to find people who may be alive and in need of assistance.

The tenor of his discussions on Monday . . . was, this was bad, but it could have been worse, ... There was not a report to me until the following morning that there was a significant breach of the 17th Street levee.

Our goal at DHS is to completely eliminate the 'catch and release' enforcement problem, and return every single illegal entrant,

As long as the president wants me to continue to do that work and thinks I can make a contribution, I'm going to stay at my post.

She obviously has the confidence of the president, and that has a huge impact on her ability to influence the process,

I think that the lesson of this hurricane, which we will clearly look at as we go over an after-action evaluation, is going to be very valuable in moving forward. I mean, this was an ultra-catastrophe, but we have to be prepared even for ultra-catastrophes, even things that happen once in a lifetime and once in a generation. So, yes, we will be studying that.

And I have to say, I agree with some of the criticisms that some have made about that state program which allocates the grant money on a very rigid formula all across the country, with a certain percentage to each state.

We're going to go back and look at all of this after-action, when we have time, but I've got to emphasize something We are still in the middle of an emergency.

The president has been unambiguous in his mandate that we leave no stone unturned, and leave no efforts unexhausted in proceeding to do whatever we can to rescue people and alleviate suffering,

My judgment was that we had a battlefield commander, ... To go down there, I would have been doing Mike Brown's job.

And one of the things we did here was we put the maximum amount of money up front in those cities that were at the greater risk, but that doesn't mean that we keep rebuilding the same security over and over again.

We've got the adequate personnel now who are able to make sure that we have a comprehensive evacuation effort.

everybody's patience has been taxed.

We have made a lot of progress in the first year of Community Shield.

We make sure there are assurances in place in general. Sufficient to satisfy us that the deal is appropriate from a national security standpoint.

In an interview on ABC's Good Morning America, ... The lesson is that when the storm hits, the best place to be is to be out of the path. ... There's plenty of (advance) notice about Rita.

We're going to make sure that victims of this disaster, whatever their economic circumstances, get the necessary financial assistance to ensure that they can obtain a temporary residence for the time being, ... These programs have been designed to give families the maximum amount of flexibility and freedom to decide where they want to relocate and what they want to do over the next few months.

I think there's a strong argument that it ought not to be located in downtown Washington because of the desire to have some distance, you know, between ourselves and some other buildings,

Mike Brown talked about the need to take seriously this hurricane ... It was difficult to know where on the Gulf Coast it was going to land.

Obviously, people feel strongly about their home communities and they tend to see their own risks to the exclusion of others. Our job is to balance.

absolutely an appropriate response while this and other intelligence information continued to be examined and analyzed.

I'm not going to judge others, ... I've got my own house to put in order.