But that's why as we manage the most serious risks, we drive down the consequences of an act. It's not terribly different from what we do with organized crime in this sense. When we attacked organized crime at law enforcement community, we didn't eliminate crime, but by targeting the high-priority elements of where they were causing the greatest damage to society, we drove the risks down, we drove the consequences down to a level which was still bad but was not as bad as it had been. Likewise, in the era of terrorism, what we seek to on the way to eliminating terrorism is drive down, again to protect the most important, most valuable things against the greatest risks so that the consequences of an act are less serious a year from now than they would have been, let's say, a year ago.
Gee, that reminds of something someone said once... maybe during a political campaign or something... can't quite remember...