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Page 17 of 20
TERRORISM AND HOMELAND SECURITY
- More than five years after September 11 and four years after the creation of the massive Department of Homeland Security, the US remains an open target for another terrorist attack. (Clark Kent Ervin. Director, Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security Initiative and former first Inspector General, US Department of Homeland Security. March 2007)
- Repeated government investigations show that it is just as easy today as it was five years ago for terrorists to sneak deadly weapons past unsuspecting screeners in airports. Approximately 1/5 of cargo is shipped on passenger planes and most cargo is not inspected for explosives before being loaded. (Clark Kent Ervin. Director, Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security Initiative and former first Inspector General, US Department of Homeland Security. March 2007)
- Experts agree this the likeliest way for terrorists to smuggle WMD into the US is in one of the 11 million cargo containers that come into its 361 seaports yearly. This is also the sector where successful terrorist attacks are likely to have the severest consequences. A 10- to 20-kiloton nuclear weapon detonated in a major seaport is estimated to kill between 50,000 and one million people and result in direct property damage of $50-100 billion, have a $100-200 billion impact due to trade losses and result in $300 billion to $1.2 trillion in indirect costs. (Clark Kent Ervin. Director, Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security Initiative and former first Inspector General, US Department of Homeland Security. March 2007)
- In spite of crackdown efforts, slipping across US borders to the north and south can still be done with relative ease. (Clark Kent Ervin. Director, Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security Initiative and former first Inspector General, US Department of Homeland Security. March 2007)
- Immediately after 9/11 a variety of measures were put in place in public transit locations in various cities across the country, especially in the Northeast. However, as terrorist threats ceased attract headlines, these measures were either scaled back or terminated because of their costliness and DHS’s reluctance to subsidize state and local recurring security costs. (Clark Kent Ervin. Director, Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security Initiative and former first Inspector General, US Department of Homeland Security. March 2007)
- Many of the sectors and locales that are vital to US economy and well being—for example, the food industry, energy sector, telecommunications networks and financial systems—are especially difficult to protect. Approximately 85% of the nation’s critical infrastructure is privately owned and/or operated by private companies. Traditionally, government has been relatively reluctant to regulate industry and, understandably, industry is unreceptive to self-regulation. In addition, thus far terrorist attacks have not targeted critical infrastructure. All these factors have contributed to the extremely limited degree to effort made to deter or defend against a terror attack to infrastructure. (Clark Kent Ervin. Director, Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security Initiative and former first Inspector General, US Department of Homeland Security. March 2007)
- Shopping malls, sports arenas, movie theaters, and restaurants—by their very nature, are easier to attack. And, the more we are successful in protecting other types of locales, the more tempting “soft targets” become to terrorists. Only in extreme cases would the US public be likely to put up with the kind of countermeasures—heavy police patrols, bomb sniffing dogs, and bag searches—that are routine in other nations that are accustomed to terrorism, for example Israel. (Clark Kent Ervin. Director, Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security Initiative and former first Inspector General, US Department of Homeland Security. March 2007)
- If Hurricane Katrina is any indication, the US remains critically unprepared to respond to an emergency situation. We still lack viable evacuation plans for major cities, pre-positioned emergency supplies of food, water, medicine, pre-fabricated housing. We lack a clear chain of command and coordination among the different federal, state and local governmental agencies that would need to be involved. (Clark Kent Ervin. Director, Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security Initiative and former first Inspector General, US Department of Homeland Security. March 2007)
- The National Guard is a crucial element in ensuring US internal security and responding to national emergencies and security crises. However, these troops have been deployed to Iraq, which means, in the event of an emergency, we may lack adequate resources to respond effectively. (State of Preparedness of the National Guard, 2005)
- “The question of an American public health crisis is not “if,” but “when.” While it appears that the nation has all sorts of strategies in place at the federal, state and local levels, “these mechanisms in practical terms expose overlaps in management jurisdictions, confusion in decision making situations, and lack of full capacity in supply distribution and infrastructures, and illuminates many of the shortcomings in our full preparedness capability.” .” (Maxwell School of Syracuse University’s report “Are We Ready? A Practical Examination of the Strategic National Stockpile of Response to Public Health Crises”)
- The Bush administration intends to slash counterterrorism funds for police, firefighters and rescue departments across the country by more than half next year. (White House to Cut Anti-Terror Funds, The Associated Press, November 30, 2007)
- The Homeland Security Department has given $23 billion to states and local communities to fight terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks, but the administration is not convinced that the money has been well spent and thinks the nation’s highest-risk cities have largely satisfied their security needs. The department wants to provide $3.2 billion to help states and cities in 2009 but the White House wants to cut that to $1.4 billion, forcing the new administration to live with this funding decision through September 30, 2009. (White House to Cut Anti-Terror Funds, The Associated Press, November 30, 2007)
- This proposal is not only at odds with the White House’s own stated goals but flies in the face of the concern that our ports, for example, are not secure, and are susceptive to a terrorist attack that could result in a crippling loss to our nation’s economy. Most importantly, these funds are more directly related to protecting Americans and fighting the war on terrorism that much of the money spent (and in too many cases mis-spent) in Iraq. (White House to Cut Anti-Terror Funds, The Associated Press, November 30, 2007)
- According to a 2007 Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington report “Homeland Security for Sale—DHS: Five Years of Mismanagement,” a deeper look into the problems referenced by President Bush presents a different and disturbing truth about the nature of the problems at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Soon after Thomas Ridge was appointed by President Bush to become the first Secretary of DHS, 3 longtime Ridge aides left DHS to working for the lobbying firm Blank Rome. Soon afterwards, Blank Rome’s revenues grew 186%. Ridge was tied to the lobbyists in several investigations and over the next five years, 90 DHS employees left to work for private companies profiting from DHS. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington 2007 report “Homeland Security for Sale—DHS: Five Years of Mismanagement.”
- Bernie Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner under Rudy Guilliani, was selected to take over from Ridge in December 2004 and described by President Bush as one of the most accomplished and effective leaders in law enforcement in America. But within a few days he withdrew his name from consideration for the position as it became known that he had made substantial amounts of money, eventually determined to run into the millions of dollars from companies he would be doing business with through DHS. In fact he was eventually indicted for accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars, failing to report in excess of $500,000 in income and making numerous false statements in applications for high level positions in the federal government, including the job of Secretary of DHS. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington 2007 report “Homeland Security for Sale—DHS: Five Years of Mismanagement.”
- Katrina demonstrated that cronyism, lack of leadership, mismanagement and underfunding turned it into the most ridiculed agency in the government. Joe Allbaugh, President Bush’s former campaign manager, was appointed to be the Bush’s first director of FEMA. Allbaugh make his “very close friend” Mike Brown, deputy director. After Allbaugh resigned in 2003, Bush promoted Brown to Director of FEMA, even though Brown had no emergency management experience. After the disastrous performance of FEMA during Katrina, Brown resigned. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington 2007 report “Homeland Security for Sale—DHS: Five Years of Mismanagement.”
- During this catastrophe, Joe Allbaugh had successfully lobbied for two major Katrina contracts: a $29 million contract for KBR to rebuild naval bases and a $100 million rebuilding contract to Shaw, Inc. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington 2007 report “Homeland Security for Sale—DHS: Five Years of Mismanagement.”
- In July, 2004, a report prepared for Congress determined that DHS contracts worth more than $34 billion had significant waste and abuse or were mismanaged. Some of the most aggregious include a $10 billion contract to Accenture and partners for Border and Transportation Security, lobbied for by Bush supporter, Charles. R. Black; an $8.9 million contract for a company called BearingPoint, with no apparent connection to any DHS sub-department and lobbied for by Blank Rome; a $1.2 billion contract to Boeing Service Company for Transportation Security, again lobbied for by Blank Rome; and a $100 million contract to Fluor Enterprises, Inc. for FEMA, again lobbied for by Charles R. Black. Source: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington 2007 report “Homeland Security for Sale—DHS: Five Years of Mismanagement.”
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