The result is that we will continually have to make difficult and inherently subjective decisions about how best to use the resources we have and about how to reconcile security imperatives with our need to do business overseas. Admiral Crowe stressed that no amount of funding, however, will make U.S. diplomatic facilities immune from the terrorist threat. Old assumptions are no longer valid. Today, U.S. government employees from many departments and agencies overseas work and live in harm's way just as military people do. This means, he said, that the United States must better provide for their safety.
Service abroad can never be completely safe.
But we can reduce some of the risks to the survival and security of our men and women who conduct the nation's business far from home. The United States has a choice, he said. We can continue as we have been. We can continue to see our embassies blown away, our people killed and our nation's reputation eroded. I would hope we would not make that choice.