Peter T. King

The president has a right to discuss his national security policies with the public. But that should be done in the light of day without endangering our sources or methods. The public has no need to know details about intelligence assets or special operations units. Such disclosures endanger those who protect us.

White House leaks of classified information put the lives of U.S. service members, intelligence officers, and civilians at risk. That's why I support a measure passed by the Senate Intelligence Committee to crack down on such leaks.

We can't gather the intelligence we need to foil future attacks, if we are blindly granting terrorists the right to remain silent. But for some reason, we've already done that - with the terrorist who tried to bring down Flight 253.

If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.

George Bush, Dick Cheney, every one of the speakers praised John Kerry's war record. No one said he was unfit. They said he has terrible judgment, and that's his record as a senator. Nobody questioned his military record.

But 85 percent of the mosques have extremist leadership in this country. Most Muslims, the overwhelming majority of Muslims, are loyal Americans.

As far as Iraq, the important thing is that the Taliban is gone in Afghanistan, three-quarters of the al-Qaida leadership is either dead or in jail, and we now have Saudi Arabia working with us, Pakistan working with us.

My goal, if I could have an ultimate goal, is to have new leaders emerge from within the Muslim community who are not defensive: who, day in, day out, are willing to denounce radicalizations, denounce the attempts by al Qaeda to go into their communities.

The U.N. is capable of endless process and mindless psychobabble, but as far as getting the job done on the ground, I just don't see them doing it.

To me, we never get enough funding. In New York, we are clearly the number one terrorist target in the country.

And if the imam and the Muslim leadership in that community is so intent on building bridges, then they should voluntarily move the mosque away from ground zero and move it whether it's uptown or somewhere else, but move it away from that area, the same as the pope directed the Carmelite nuns to move a convent away from Auschwitz.

Well, first, the situation in Afghanistan is much better than it was. But there is no comparison between Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq has a bureaucracy, Iraq has wealth. Iraq has an educated class of people who are positioned to come in and take over.