Thank you for inviting me to speak today, the 5th anniversary of the terrorist attacks against the United States. I appreciated the opportunity to hear from the other speakers, Dr. Parker and Professor Stern, and the commentary by Major General Rossander. Obviously, the topic of "lessons learned" from the September 11 attacks is a vital one, for all of us.

You should know from the start that I am a close personal friend of George W. Bush. I was 14 when we met, at Philips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. We got to know each other there, and then were at Yale at the same time. My son went to university in Texas when George Bush was Governor, so when we went to visit our son, we would visit George Bush at the same time. And when he was elected President, I felt very fortunate, because here was my old friend, right in Washington, where I have lived for many years. So when I talk about the President and 9-11, I am talking as his friend and someone who has known him for more than 40 years.

I want to take a moment to remember Anna Lindh, who was murdered on September 11, 2003. We mourn her loss.

When we talk about how the United States prepared, or didn't prepare, for the terrorist attacks, I am reminded of something I heard about Louis Freeh. Louis Freeh was Bill Clinton's choice as head of the FBI. And on his first day, Freeh walked into his office, looked around, and said "What's that?" And he pointed at the computer on his desk. Someone told him, "Well, that's your computer, so you can keep in touch, monitor things." And Freeh said, "Get rid of it." He didn't want it. There was not going to be a computer system for the FBI on his watch. You had agents trying to use their home computers to communicate with each other, to follow the news, but they didn't have the technology that would have helped them do their jobs. That's one reason why the FBI was so unprepared for 9-11. They lacked a basic ability to communicate between headquarters and the agents, or among the agents.

Having said that, I agree with much of the study you've presented. The President recognizes that he wasn't ready for the attacks. He told Bob Woodward, "I was not on point. I was not prepared." Terrorism was on his agenda, but so were a lot of other things.

Now of course there is nothing more important to George Bush than the war on terror. Not long after September 11, six days later, the President asked me and my wife to go out to dinner with him and Laura. He wanted to show that it was OK; it was safe for Americans to go to a restaurant and eat dinner. So we did. The President likes Mexican food, so we went to the El Paso Café, in Arlington. The media came along and reported that the President had gone to dinner, six days after September 11.

That night we went back to the White House. I was standing outside on the lawn with the President and his dogs. It was a beautiful night although of course we were thinking about what had just happened. And the President said, "This changes everything. I know what I'm here for. I can't ever let something like this happen again." It wasn't something he asked for, not something he wanted, but he knew then that he was going to be defined by how we responded to the attack.

I know for a fact that the President has memorized the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission Report. He follows the grades, the report cards, that the Commission has been giving out, ranking how well the government is reforming and fixing the problems that allowed us to be so surprised on 9-11. He knows that the grades are not all good. He uses that to motivate people, to get agencies to do what they need to do.

Many people in Sweden, and probably in this room, are opposed to the Iraq War. I understand that. It is a divisive issue for many Americans too. I think you have to see the Iraq War in the perspective of 9-11. Consider Saddam Hussein. Here was a man who supported terrorists. He made cash payments to the families of suicide bombers. He harbored Abu Nidal. He possessed weapons of mass destruction and he had used them, on Kurds in Iraq and against Iran in the war between Iraq and Iran.

He hated Americans. He had fought with America. He fought with us in the conflict over Kuwait, and later, he was constantly trying to shoot down American and British planes patrolling the no-fly zones over Iraq. We could no longer tolerate Saddam Hussein's existence. He was a threat and was going to remain a threat for as long as he was in power. I think the single biggest weakness in the U.S. before 9-11 was a lack of leadership and focus. No one was focusing on the threat. Osama Bin Laden must have been getting tired of no one noticing him. We knew, or should have known, what he was trying to do. He had already killed Americans, in the attacks against the U.S. Embassies in Africa, and in the car bomb attack against the World Trade Center in 1993. He kept making statements saying he wanted to kill as many Americans as possible. He was practically shouting "Hey, pay attention to me." Well, now he has our attention.

I know that Vice President Cheney is not the most popular guy in Sweden. But he is fulfilling a role. The President asked him to be "Dr. Doom," to think of the worst things that an enemy might try to do to us. So that we can stop them. If it sounds like the Vice President is alarmist, is always saying there is another threat out there, that's because he is doing the job of keeping us alert, keeping us focused on what could happen again.

Because it could happen again. Any time. We are safer, but we are not safe.

Ask yourselves if Sweden is safe. How far away is London, Madrid, now Copenhagen? Are there pockets of people in Sweden who might pose a threat to your society, or to other societies?

How adequate are Sweden's laws? Do you have the ability to conduct wiretaps or carry out searches? Can you do the things you need to do to detect and stop a threat? And if you don't have the tools you need, are the politicians ready to lead, to make any necessary changes so that law enforcement and intelligence agencies can stop the bad guys before they strike.

In the end, I come around again to leadership. If we're going to avoid another 9-11 we need to make institutional changes, as so many people have pointed out. I think we may need to change our attitudes, to recognize the threat and be prepared to fight it. We might need changes in laws or police procedures. But all of this stems from leadership. Someone at the top has to step forward and say "This is the most important item on my agenda. I'm going to focus on this until I am satisfied that we have done everything we can." And in the United States, George Bush is that leader.