John Kerry on terrorism:

Senator Kerry, let me ask you a question. Robert Kagan, who writes about these issues a great deal from the Carnegie Institute for Peace, has written recently that Europeans believe that the Bush administration has exaggerated the threat of terrorism and the Bush administration believes that the Europeans simply don't get it. Who's right?

SEN. KERRY: I think it's somewhere in between. I think there has been an exaggeration, and there's been a refocusing that it's --

MR. BROKAW: Where has the exaggeration been in the threat on terrorism?

SEN. KERRY: Well, 45 minutes deployment of weapons of mass destruction, number one; aerial vehicles to be able to deliver materials of mass destruction, number two. I mean, I-nuclear weapons, number three. I could run a long list of clear misleading, clear exaggeration. The linkage to al Qaeda, number four. That said, they are really misleading all of America, Tom, in a profound way. The war on terror is less-it is occasionally military, and it will be, and it will continue to be for a long time, and we will need the best trained and the most well equipped and the most capable military, such as we have today.

But it's primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world, the very thing this administration is worst at. I will renew our alliances. I will rejoin the community of nations. I will build the kind of cooperative effort that we need in order to be able to win and, most importantly, the war on terror is also an engagement in the Middle East economically, socially, culturally, in a way that we haven't embraced because otherwise we're inviting the clash of civilizations, and I think this administration's arrogant and ideological policy is taking America down a more dangerous path. I will make America safer than they are.

President Bush on terrorism:

In the last year alone, terrorists have attacked police stations, and banks, and commuter trains, and synagogues -- and a school filled with children. This month in Beslan we saw, once again, how the terrorists measure their success -- in the death of the innocent, and in the pain of grieving families. Svetlana Dzebisov was held hostage, along with her son and her nephew -- her nephew did not survive. She recently visited the cemetery, and saw what she called the "little graves." She said, "I understand that there is evil in the world. But what have these little creatures done?"...

We're determined to destroy terror networks wherever they operate, and the United States is grateful to every nation that is helping to seize terrorist assets, track down their operatives, and disrupt their plans. We're determined to end the state sponsorship of terror -- and my nation is grateful to all that participated in the liberation of Afghanistan. We're determined to prevent proliferation, and to enforce the demands of the world -- and my nation is grateful to the soldiers of many nations who have helped to deliver the Iraqi people from an outlaw dictator.