John Kerry stands pat on Americans ‘safer than ever’ remarks

Secretary of State John F. Kerry on Sunday stood firm on his assessment that Americans are “safer than ever,” despite a spike in deaths from terrorism across the world.

Mr. Kerry, who has been ridiculed for making the comment last week to a House committee, said he understands how Americans could feel more unsafe but insisted they are wrong.

“I understand. Of course I understand it,” Mr. Kerry said on ABC’s “This Week.” “People are thinking about the day-to-day vision of what is happening on the ground in Syria, in Libya where 21 Coptic Christians have their heads cut off, where a [pilot] is burned in a cage, where American journalists have been beheaded publicly. We understand that.”

“But I still stand by what I said, which is in large terms, compared to the last century, there are in fact fewer people dying of the means that [if] you look at state war, violence, health, et cetera,” he said.

Mr. Kerry went on to defend another remark about how the U.S. is winning the war against the terrorist army Islamic State, which also is known by the acronyms ISIL and ISIS. That comment drew criticism for being disconnected from reality in Iraq and Syria, where the group controls large swaths of territory.

“What I said was we’re on the road to success and that begins in Iraq. And yes I stand by it,” he said. “We are growing in the capacity on the ground. … Each time the Iraqis had now gone forward in an offensive effort together with allies, the coalition. We have routed ISIL. And the fact is that in Iraq, they have gained back a fixed significant percentage of the area that ISIL was controlling.”

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Mr. Kerry said that he wasn’t trying to downplay the terrorist threat and that the Obama administration remains “super focused” on fighting terrorism.

“There is an uptick in the level of terrorism and specific incidents of people being killed, and that threat is very, very real,” he said. “Nobody is trying to minimize it. President Obama has put together a coalition of countries that have come together. We’re all super focused on this.”