An answer:

The moment on 9/11 when that second plane hit the second tower, it was instantly clear that America and the world were plunged into a War on Terror that was life or death.

Simultaneously, it was also clear to experts in Washington and around the world that we were plunged into a Race Against the Terrorists -- a race to secure the world's most vulnerable stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons before al Qaeda could get to them.

We knew al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had declared in an interview it was al Qaeda's "religious duty" to obtain weapons of mass destruction. We knew that ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, vast stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Russia were highly vulnerable to theft.

I've been in Russia, reporting for my last book, "Avoiding Armageddon" (it was also a PBS series). I've written about deadly arsenals stored in dilapidated buildings secured with just a padlock, sometimes surrounded by chain-link fences riddled with holes.

I've told stories of financially strapped nuclear thieves -- a navy captain and a civilian clerk -- who separately successfully stole bomb-grade uranium; luckily they were nabbed trying to sell it on the black market before their stash could become a terrorist bomb, hidden on a rusty old freighter heading for our shore. I've written about the excellent Nunn-Lugar program (named after former Sen. Sam Nunn and current Sen. Dick Lugar) by which the United States funds efforts to secure those materials before terrorists can get them.

So you must think, as I thought, that after 9/11, the Bush administration would surely rush to increase the funding and race to secure the vulnerable Russian weapons before the terrorists got them. Well, you are wrong and I was too. Bush inexplicably froze all funding of that Nunn-Lugar program for one whole year, in a short-sighted dispute with Russia over access to a small portion of the sites. Luckily, fellow Republican Lugar privately lobbied Bush and convinced him to overrule the ideologues.

The funding began. But more than half of Russia's vast arsenal is still vulnerable. Other arsenals throughout the world are too. So are and research reactors that use weapons-grade fuel. We are in danger of losing this life-or-death race against terrorists. It is a race we should have won long ago, a race we dare not lose.

For awhile after 9/11, the U.S. military pounded al Qaeda, seemed poised to capture bin Laden and crush an American enemy that attacked the U.S. mainland as no one had since the War of 1812. But Bush diverted military power from that war to invade Iraq. Soon there were just 6,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and 130,000 in Iraq. Al Qaeda has regained strength -- today it threatens the American homeland again.

So, Saddam Hussein has been toppled -- but are you safer? That's the question you'll hear asked from now on. Right up until you provide the definitive answer on the first Tuesday of November.

(Martin Schram writes political analysis for Scripps Howard News Service.)