Plan confirms nation still not safe, Bush says

Published Wednesday, August 16, 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) - President George W. Bush said yesterday that the foiled plot to blow up flights between Britain and the United States is evidence the United States could be fighting terrorists for years to come.

"America is safer than it has been, yet it is not yet safe," Bush told reporters at the National Counterterrorism Center just outside Washington. "The enemy has got an advantage when it comes to attacking our homeland: They got to be right one time, and we’ve got to be right 100 percent of the time to protect the American people."

The counterterrorism center is located at an undisclosed site in northern Virginia known as Liberty Crossing. It merges hundreds of government experts and more than two dozen computer networks from various federal agencies focusing on potential threats.

Its high-tech, 24-hour operations center is among the most sophisticated in the U.S. government.

Bush received a briefing from his National Security Council and Homeland Security Council and had separate sessions with each team, attending lunch with all the officials in between.

Bush spokesman Tony Snow said the meetings focused on improving efforts to more effectively fight terrorists. He declined to be more specific, saying that would just give notice to al-Qaida.