Right after 9/11, the country showed a lot of grit.
We really did come back.
"For the last nine days, the entire world
has seen for itself the state of our union
and it is strong."
But, democracies are very good
at going after yesterday's threats
and yesterday's wars
and not in dealing with long term threats
that haven't made the headlines yet.
A not so obvious that I identify in the article
is the threat of a so-called "dirty bomb."
The reason it's such an insidious threat is that
a dirty bomb is actually all about fear.
You take some radiological material that you can get
in a hospital and mix it with a conventional bomb.
Just any kind of conventional explosive.
And you set it off in, God forbid
the center of Washington.
The radiation levels will be such that
they're the equivalent of a superfund site.
It'll paralyze that whole community.
There really isn't a great defense against a dirty bomb.
because explosive material is available
and unfortunately the security precautions being taken
for even this radiological material
are not yet strong enough.
This is going to happen sooner or later.
Unlike a lot of things that are really scary,
there's something we can do about it.
The best defense is simply
arming people with the facts beforehand.
If you release that kind of device
near the Library of Congress in Washington,
The radiation levels in the District of Colombia
would increase by enough
that 1 person per 10,000 people over the next 10 years
would die of cancer.
Which sounds pretty horrible, obviously
we should evacuate Washington.
Well, do the math, one person dying
for each of 10,000 people in a city of 500,000 people
is 50 people dying.
Now, you can save 50 people from dying of cancer
if you just went into an office building
on K street and told people to quit smoking.
If I say superfund site, that sounds awful
we should get out of town.
If I say 50 people and put it in perspective, it's not.
the problem is no one, not in the Bush administration
or President Bush.
Not in the Obama administration or President Obama
has ever had a discussion with the American people
like the one I just tried to have with you
where you explain that a dirty bomb
sounds really scary but, it doesn't kill very many people.
If you try to have that discussion after the bomb goes off,
and the president got on, it's the same as if
50 more people got cancer out of the whole
city of Washington, don't worry about it.
Imagine what Donald Trump would do with it.
Imagine what any candidate would do,
"you're soft pedaling terrorism
you're weak, you're throwing in the towel
we've gotta clear out of Washington.
We can spare no life, we must do this."
What this illustrates is that in a democracy,
we react even to things as serious as the threat of terror
based on what's in the headlines, and based on what
people are talking about.
After the bomb goes off, there'll be a presidential
commission saying, "Why weren't we doing this?
We knew this." And the presidential commission will recomend
that we do this and that, and we will instantly do it
and then we'll ignore some other threat.