Kerry serially minimizes the threat of terrorism. Silly comments after the 1996 Khobar bombings.

SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Bryant, I've got a couple of questions that I'd like you to answer, or Director Freeh to answer, at a later date, and provide me, if you would, the answers. The first one has to do with the question of -- are things worse in the United States today than they have been throughout this century?

I mean, there's a tendency, I think, an understandable tendency, when you have an attack such as this, as we've experienced in the last couple of years, to presume oh, my God, the whole -- I mean, you know, we're all going in the toilet, things are more dangerous than it's ever been before -- and I would like, if you could, just to examine the level of violence in the United States, from 1900 to 1920, relative to today; the level of violence from the 1920s, during Prohibition, relative to today; the level of violence in the 1930s and 1940s, relative to today; in the 1950s, during the anti-Communist period, the 1960s, there was a substantial disobedience period; 1970s, 1980s, during the period when we started to declare war on drugs. I would appreciate it very much if you could give us a historical perspective. Is it more or less dangerous? Do we have more or less civil disobedience? Is there more or less risk to the American people today than there was some time previous to the 1990s?

Secondly, and sort of following along that line -- one of the disturbing things to me is the message sort of goes out that gee, we've got a failure here. It seems to me, as I look at this, and I would appreciate, again, a follow-on to answer the sort of general question, have we been successful or not? We are the most forward- deployed nation on earth. We have more troops forward deployed than any country on earth. We are the leading fighter against terrorism on earth. If you're a terrorist, you're not afraid of Brazil, you're not afraid of Argentina -- I mean, you're afraid of the United States! Because we're the ones that are engaged. We are the leading supporter of Israel, and most active in that part of the world, where there is a substantial amount of terrorism. We are the leading nation trying to resolve that conflict. We are the leading capitalist country, and as consequence, a target of fundamentalist movements that see us as the great Satan, or whatever else it is that they call us. And we're the most open society on earth.

And it seems to me that we have been successful in providing some peace and stability in the United States -- that it's not accidental, that up to now, there's been a relatively small amount of violence in the country, and I'd like to have you -- again, in a follow-on, answer the question -- are we being successful?

In my judgment, most of this stuff I can't talk open, but I see example after example after example, indeed, the director, earlier, when he tracked back from 1994 -- those were successes! Those were instances where we prevented violence in the United States of America, as a consequence of intervention! We deployed the resources, and we achieved a success.

So I would appreciate very much, answers to both questions -- first, the one that puts this thing in historical perspective, and determined whether or not we have less violence or more violence today from terrorism or civil disobedience, or anarchists, or whatever, that has the objective of trying to disrupt domestic tranquillity -- and secondly, as to whether or not, with all the resources that we're deploying, and a substantial amount, not just in law enforcement, but in national security, as well -- should the American people say, not doing a bad job, given that we're the most forward-deployed of the -- a leading anti-terrorist country, that we've been very active in the Middle East, that we're the leading capitalist nation, have we been successful?

SEN. SPECTER: Looks like you have the balance of Sen. Kerry's five minutes. I think it's about 18 seconds. But you go beyond that.

BTW, here are the comments from Senator Shelby that seem to have set Kerry off:

SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R-AL): Thank you Mr. Chairman. I think this is a very important hearing. Director Freeh, it seems to me that what we're doing and have been doing, and this is not your fault, is reacting to terrorism, to acts of terrorism over the years going back many years. In other words, we're in a defensive mode in this country and perhaps around the world. We're waiting, waiting; fearing, fearing, the next act: be it on a plane, at an airport, in a shopping center, or a dance hall somewhere; be it in the U.S., perhaps somewhere else.

Shouldn't we be trying to root out the cause of terrorism? Because we know, to some extent, where a lot of it originates, who's causing some of it - maybe not exactly the act (or type?) there - what some of the motives are, rather than just sit back in a bunker in America - or make a bunker - America into a bunker, and wait and fear and fear?

Our policy is important, but up until now, I believe that our policy, although it's not easy, has been just react, react. And that will only make it worse, in my opinion.

MR. FREEH: Senator I agree with you. There's a 1989 study, I'm sure you're familiar with, which was really the follow-up of the PanAm 103 bombing and the primary and most cogent conclusion of that was that the United States has to have the national will and the moral courage to exercise that in a much more broad based manner --

SEN. SHELBY: And our allies in the world, our friends and trading partners will have to have it too, because most civilized nations in the world are going to be victims in some way of international terrorism planted by low groups or certain special interest groups.

MR. FREEH: Right, you're absolutely right. We can't respond to this problem adequately and we can't prevent it by doing what we do, I think, very well. The World Trade bombing case you couldn't have had a more professional, more effective investigation. People were arrested, they were charged, they were convicted, but that doesn't discourage terrorists from not only retaliating from that prosecution but acting on their own.

SEN. SHELBY: It doesn't go to the root cause, does it?

MR. FREEH: Exactly, it does not. SEN. SHELBY: And as Senator Cohen and others have raised the specter of giving up something in America - giving up something, wiretaps, everything else, giving the FBI or others more latitude that they don't have today, that won't root out terrorism. It might help you react in some way, hopefully, to catch someone that has blown up a plane or blown up a shopping center or assassinated someone somewhere in the world, but it won't, will it Mr. Director, root out terrorism?

MR. FREEH: By itself it won't, you're right. But --

SEN. SHELBY: And it's a piecemeal approach, is it not?

MR. FREEH: That's one half of the equation. The responsive part of it. It's very similar to - let me just give you what I think is a good, although much smaller analogy. You have a small city in the United States, your state, some other state, where we have a crack gang basically taking over a neighborhood, a housing project, and the police, you know, are arresting people in a sort of piecemeal fashion. They're taking down a couple of people, but the gang, the terrorism, the infrastructure, their resources are intact.

So what we do is we don't simply continue to treat it as a routine criminal problem, we go in there with effective resources. We get intelligence as to what they're doing. We try to penetrate them with undercover agents. We make buys directly to arrest them. We attempt to use some of them to testify against the others.
If we're successful, we take down that whole enterprise, the cause of it as well as the appearance of it.

SEN. SHELBY: And in your words that's half the equation, isn't it. It's a part of it.

MR. FREEH: Well, if you take down the whole enterprise, in that analogy, that's the whole solution.

SEN. SHELBY: How are we going to take - my time is up - how are we going to take down terrorism?

MR. FREEH: I think we need the responsive capability, within the Constitution. I don't think we should, nor do we have to sacrifice any of our Constitutional privileges. But I think internationally, as you mentioned, with our allies in particular, we need to have the international will and the moral courage to act on that and act on it decisively.

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