This may sound trite, but bad things happen to good people, and when you're facing terrorism, natural disaster, you can have every wonderful plan in place, but I am a realist.

Significant steps have been taken since 9-11 to protect out country here at home, but much remains to be done, Americans from across the political spectrum must come together to develop the next phase of our efforts to counter global terror.

This may sound trite, but bad things happen to good people, and when you're facing terrorism, natural disaster, you can have every wonderful plan in place, but I am a realist.

If there were a major earthquake in Los Angeles, with bridges and highways and railroads and airports all shut down and huge buildings collapsing, I don't care how much planning you do, the first 72 hours is going to be chaotic.

And if you do all you can, that's all you can ever do.

The other thing about FEMA, my understanding is that it was supposed to move into the Department of Homeland Security... and be what it was, but also having a lot of lateral communication with all those others involved in that issue of homeland security.

Well, it's taken a long time to get the Department of Homeland Security established. It's taken a long time for the Congress to decide how much it wanted to fund.