By the way, some people, including Michael Chertoff, have argued that we should postpone investigating what went wrong until the rescue and recovery operations are complete. I disagree. I think that we need to start figuring out what went wrong immediately. Why? Because if I were a terrorist, the time I’d want to strike is right now, when FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security are already distracted and overstretched. We may not have the luxury of a long investigation.

Even if we don’t see an attack soon, I’ll bet that terrorists, many of whom are very smart and well-organized, are going to be following future hurricane alerts very, very closely.