U.S. Pols Quote IRA Statement

By Sean O’Driscoll 

IT has become one of the great clichés of the presidential election, yet nobody seems to know that they are quoting the IRA. 

“Terrorists only have to be lucky once, we have to be lucky all the time.” 

It’s a phrase the American public has heard so many times this year that it’s like an election year mantra. 

The quote actually comes from the IRA’s Brighton bombing statement 20 years ago this month, in which it sent a message to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who narrowly avoided injury in the attack — “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always.”

The phrase reemerged on a huge scale after September 11, as terrorism experts were drafted in to conference after conference to explain why America needed to be better prepared for terrorist attacks. 

It was gradually picked up by the Bush administration and has spread across the political spectrum. 

President Bush used it in the first debate with John Kerry, when he advocated a renewal of the Patriot Act. “The enemy only has to get lucky once, we must be right 100% of the time,” Bush said, paraphrasing the IRA’s spokesman, P. O’Neill. 

It is also a favorite line of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who used it many, many times this year. 

In February he admitted he had no idea where the line came from. “This is a poor quote from somebody, and I forgot who said it, but somebody once said that ‘a defender has to be right every time, and an attacker, a terrorist, only has to be lucky once in a while.’” 

In early August, Rumsfeld told reporters covering a visit by the Danish defense minister that terrorists “only have to be lucky once or twice and they can kill 2[000] or 3,000 people. The defender has to be lucky all the time.”

The phrase has also been worn into the ground in Congress. Just last week, Michigan Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra, urged the passing of the September 11 Intelligence Reform Act.

“We have to be right 100% percent of the time when dealing with terrorists. They only have to be lucky once,” Hoekstra said.

It’s also a favorite of the acting CIA chief John McLaughlin, who told CNN in July, “We can be excellent 1,000 times, all they have to do is be lucky once.”