President Bush has shown great leadership. He has said that the 21st century will not be ruled or dictated by terrorists dictators and murderers. He is absolutely right. God bless him for his resolve.

The jealousy and resentment that animate the terrorists also affect many of our former cold war allies.

Since the tragedies the Department of Homeland Security was established to prevent terrorist attacks within the United States and most importantly to share intelligence information among government agencies and departments.

We worked to develop our own operations to advance U.S. counterterrorism objectives by penetrating terrorist safe havens and collecting intelligence that would inform policy and enable our own operations.

The terrorist uses surprise and stealth and the only way to defeat that is by having accurate and timely intelligence.

We can no longer expect an Intelligence Community that is mostly male and mostly white to be able to monitor and infiltrate suspicious organizations or terrorist groups.

Since 2001 the Patriot Act has provided the means to detect and disrupt terrorist threats against the U.S. Prior to enactment of the law major legal barriers prevented intelligence national defense and law enforcement agencies from working together and sharing information.

Terrorists continue to exploit divisions between law enforcement and the intelligence communities that limit the sharing of vital counterterrorism information.

We ought to recognize that we have an offensive responsibility to take the war to the terrorists where they are. That responsibility has waned in the last year as military and intelligence resources were withdrawn from Afghanistan and Pakistan to be used in Iraq.

As a former career intelligence professional I have a profound appreciation for the value of intelligence. Intelligence disrupts terrorist plots and thwarts attacks. Intelligence saves lives.