George Pataki, the three-term governor of New York who led the state during the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11th, 2001, believes the threat of terrorism in the U.S. is just as serious now as it was then.
"My honest feeling 13 years after Sept. 11th, we are as at risk today," Pataki said Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
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"We know in the global situation [that] al-Qaeda is not on the run, they're still there.
"And ISIS, which is radically even worse than al-Qaeda, is actively trying to target westerners and Americans. We know we still have the poorest border."
In addition, Pataki said, ISIS, also known as the Islamic State, has been spending hundreds of hundreds of millions of dollars to bribe people into joining its twisted ranks from all over the world.
"If you think back, al-Qaeda had $500,000, no territory it controlled, no technology and the weaponry was a box cutter," he said.
"ISIS has hundreds of hundreds of millions of dollars, sophisticated communications and capabilities, advance weaponry and thousands of westerners carrying Western Europe and U.S. passports.
"We have got to be very proactive to protect ourselves."
Pataki, founder and chairman of the Pataki-Cahill Group, said he disagreed with Secretary of State John Kerry's statement on Thursday that the U.S. is not at war with ISIS.
"I fear it's polling and politics as opposed to reality. The reality is ISIS is at war with us. They know that, the Middle East knows that, the world knows it and the American people know it. The one group that won't admit it is our administration," Pataki said.
He said he was impressed with President Barack Obama's battle plan against the Islamic extremist group which was unveiled during an address to the nation on Wednesday night.
"There were some encouraging things. After six years, the president finally called it terrorism, which he had avoided the whole way through. He did say we are going to destroy them as opposed to containing them as he said just a few days earlier," Pataki said.
"I still have grave concerns about this administration because we've heard strong words before. The words may have been fine, but it's the actions that matter. This president cannot, as he tried to do with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, just give strong words….
"This time the president can't give a speech and walk off the stage. He has got to follow it with actions. I pray he does and the American people get that message to the administration."
Pataki is still choked up thinking about the events of Sept. 11th, 2001 when he received the call that the World Trade Center towers had been hit by commercial jets.
"It was a very emotional time, but if you were in a position of leadership, you just didn't have the luxury of being able to think about the emotional side and the losses we had all incurred," he said.
"You had to move forward and do the job. The president, [George W. Bush] in those days and weeks after Sept. 11, was tremendous and a source of strength for New York, for the country and for the world."
He said there was fear for weeks after the attack that another was on the way.
"We just didn't know. The first thing I had to do was not only be concerned about Ground Zero on lower Manhattan, but the bridges, the tunnels, the airports, the subways, everything that was vulnerable because we didn't know if something could happen next," he said.
"We had to be vigilant, proactive to protect ourselves and certainly in those first hours and first days to try to do everything we could to save as many lives and help those who were hurt as we could."
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