Date: 2006-09-14
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

You are right. I stand corrected. You are probably a little bit more accurate on your football knowledge than I am. But I do remember the Doug Flutie "Hail Mary" pass. That is what our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are engaged in at this point. they are out of options. They are trying the tired path of scare tactics to try to convince the American people that they are actually the ones who are strongest on national security and homeland security. There is just too much evidence mounted against them that is transparent and apparent to the American people. that they see it every single day. All anyone has to do is turn. on the news. any channel. any hour that the news is on. to see that things arent going so well and "stay the course." All "stay the course" amounts to is a slogan. not a strategy. If "stay the course" is their strategy. then I feel incredibly confident about what will happen 54 days from now. Everywhere I go. and I have been all over the country. so have you in recent weeks and months. people. even the most conservative individuals who I have had an opportunity to talk to. are dumbfounded that the Republicans have led us down this path. and are trying to lead people in America to believe that they are moving us in the right direction on protecting our Homeland. Monday was the 5year anniversary. as you mentioned. of September 11. I was home. and I mentioned the last couple of nights that I was home with our first responders commemorating that tragic set of events. One of the most disturbing things. what we did was we actually did a roundtable with our first responders and sat down and asked them. where are we 5 years later? Are all the things that we said and identified that were problems in the aftermath of 9/11. have they been addressed. are we working on them. what do you still need? We really have to listen. that is our job. because we need to listen to our first responders and find out from them what is really going on the ground. I remember. I am sure you do too. that one of the most significant problems that was identified that has been talked about across this country is the interoperability. which is a word that is difficult to understand. That means the inability for the first responders on 9/11 to communicate with each other while the event was unfolding. That was one of the major. major recommendations of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission that we had to fund and improve the interoperability so that across all of the jurisdiction. all of.the intelligence and law enforcement jurisdictions. that there could be communication. The FBI couldnt talk to the firefighters. couldnt talk to the police officers. And today. 5 years later. that is still not in place. Even though it was a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. And it boils down to funding. You have to fund it. There is no way around it. there is no other way to accomplish it. But what are we doing instead? What are we spending our money on? Lets look at what the war in Iraq currently costs. Currently we are spending $8.4 billion with a B a month. We are spending $1.9 billion per week in Iraq on this- war. $275 million per day. $11.5 million per hour.