US Senator Hillary Clinton said Monday on the fifth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks that America, while less vulnerable, is "not safe enough."
WASHINGTON: US Senator Hillary Clinton said Monday on the fifth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks that America, while less vulnerable, is "not safe enough."
"I think it is fair to say that we are safer, but not safe enough," the New York lawmaker and former US first lady said. "We have a lot of work to do. We have to make our borders and ports and our rail and mass transit systems safer than they are today," she said.
"We have to make sure our bridges and tunnels and infrastructure is protected and nuclear and chemical plants, for example," Clinton said.
"We have done a lot, but we still haven't put the money where the threat and the risk is," she said. "What I see shows New York is still the number one target of the terrorists."
Clinton made her remarks as remembrance ceremonies were held across the United States in honor of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks, when Al-Qaeda militants slammed passenger jets into the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon.
Although there have been no successful new attacks on the US mainland since then, Clinton said the risk remains high.
"I think there is certainly a very strong case to be made that in Iraq, people are now turning into suicide bombers," she said.
"The insurgents and the jihadists terrorists have learned a lot. They have acquired skills they didn't necessarily have before. We have seen suicide bombings in Afghanistan -- something we never saw before. So the source of the hatred, the source of the conflict has probably spread beyond Al-Qaeda," she said ahead of events to be held in New York marking the anniversary.
US President George W Bush launched September 11 commemoration events in New York on Sunday, laying wreaths in reflecting pools where the World Trade Center's twin towers once stood.
He is to give a televised speech to the nation Monday night after attending events in New York, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 crashed after a struggle between passengers and the hijackers.
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