Michael Chertoff
Michael Chertoff
Michael Chertoffis an American attorney who was the second United States Secretary of Homeland Security under Presidents George W. Bush andBarack Obama, and co-author of the USA PATRIOT Act. He previously served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, as a federal prosecutor, and as Assistant U.S. Attorney General. He succeeded Tom Ridge as United States Secretary of Homeland Security on February 15, 2005...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPublic Servant
Date of Birth28 November 1953
CountryUnited States of America
appreciate fema leading task vital
I appreciate his willingness to take on the vital task of leading FEMA during this challenging time.
billions cost people sending
The cost of identifying all those people and sending them back would be stupendous. It would be billions and billions of dollars,
answer clear english possibly
I'm going to answer the questions. I thought I was about as clear as I possibly could be in English as to what I'm doing and why I'm doing it,
house judge
I'm not going to judge others, ... I've got my own house to put in order.
dealing judge local problem state
I'm not going to judge others, ... I did not have a problem dealing with state and local officials.
people kitchen tools
Even the kinds of ingredients you can find in your own kitchen can be used to make bombs. So the problem is with the people and not with the tools.
vacation world terrorism
There really is no vacation from the world in which we live.
country struggle years
The fact that we have not had a terrorist attack in this country in the last six years is not a cause for complacency or a time to celebrate the end of the struggle. The threat is not going away. The enemy has not lost interest. ...Fundamentally, we're in a struggle about ideology. Terrorists want to remake the world in their own image and it is the image that is intolerant of the kinds of institutions that we cherish.
country moving wind
So people have to decide. Do they want to have the security? Do they want to continue to plug the gap [in border security] that GAO has identified and recognize that there will be some costs to doing that? Or do we want to make sure that business isn't hampered and that people can move back and forth readily, and recognize that, if we don't put some barriers in place, we're going to wind up with dangerous people coming into the country?
running years organization
But one thing that we have done in the last four years is we have really put pressure on the leadership of this organization [Al Qaeda]. We have killed a significant number of leaders. We've captured others. Those that remain have to look over their shoulders, they have to be on the run. So that even if we don't manage to kill or capture them all within four years, what we do do is put the kind of pressure on them that makes them focus on their own skins, as opposed to carrying out attacks.
technology people september-11
We now have capabilities in science and technology that raise the very realistic possibility that a small group of terrorists could kill not only thousands of people, as they did on September 11th, but hundreds of thousands of people. And that has changed the dimension of the threat we face.
pain mistake thinking
I think the idea that you can go this alone is - was a huge mistake. And unfortunately, there was a price paid in terms of suffering and pain for people in New Orleans.
country criticism program
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.
believe mean iraq
You don't bargain with terrorists. You don't appease terrorists. And anybody who believes that this is about something we've done has to ask themselves why it is, on September 11, 2001, before we were in Afghanistan, before we were in Iraq, he committed a dastardly attack killing over 3,000 people. I mean, this is not a matter of negotiation; it's a matter of victory.