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Fox News Reports — And Decides: America Is Safer

During its coverage of the 9/11 anniversary yesterday and today, Fox News examined the question: “Are we safer five years after the attacks?” Their answer: a resounding yes. Watch it:

[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2006/09/Fox_safer.320.240.flv]

National security and terrorism experts disagree. A recent bipartisan survey by the Center for American Progress and Foreign Policy magazine found that 86 percent of the surveyed experts believe the world is now more dangerous, and 84 percent believe the United States is losing the war on terror.

The public agrees. Just 14 percent of Americans feel safer now than they did five years ago.

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Transcript:

– BUSH: Many Americans look at these events and ask the same question, five years after 9/11, are we safer? The answer is yes.

– FOX NEWS ANCHOR: The president says, as he has said repeatedly this week, that we are safer than we were prior to the 9/11 attacks. However, we are not completely safe.

– RICE: We are safer, but we are not yet safe.

– FOX NEWS ANCHOR: A reminder, as Condi Rice said to Fox yesterday, that while we are much safer since 9/11, we are not safe yet.

– ELIZABETH MCDONALD: Look, anybody who says we’re not safer now is just politicizing the issue.

– FOX NEWS GUEST: And we do tend to forget what happened on 9/11, but we do, I think, feel safer. At least, Americans seem to feel safer now than they did, you know, right afterwards.

– OLIVER NORTH: Let me go around the horn with each one of you, because you are the experts in your field. The question on the minds of everybody five years after this attack is: are we safer? Jennifer, are we safer as a country?

GRIFFIN: In the United States, it’s a much safer and more secure environment. [snip]

HERRIDGE: I’d say we’re safer in large part we’re able to choke off the money for groups like al Qaeda. [snip]

ROSEN: So on the whole, I think objectively, we would have to conclude that yes we are safer than we were on September 10th, 2001.

NORTH: Brett Baier, you get the last word. Safer or not?

BAIER: Ollie, I think we’re safer as a nation and I think the president has mentioned this many times — we’re safe, but not yet completely safe.

– CARD: I think we are definitely safer than we were on September 10th, 2001.

– WALLACE: All of us have our own thoughts about the last five years, where are we on the war on terror?

HUME: We’re certainly safer. I think that’s clear.