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| Has the Bush Administration fumbled Homeland security? |
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MICHAEL CROWLEY
Senior Editor, The New Republic
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Posted 08.11.04 | 4:30 PM
Jim -
You note that Porter Goss has been promptly attacked by Democrats. Well, yes — but this is after repeated raw partisan attacks Goss has made against the Democratic presidential nominee in this campaign, including, among other things, a cheesy op-ed Goss wrote for a Florida newspaper entitled "Need Intelligence? Don't Ask John Kerry." I don't blame Democrats for their frustration. Our national security establishment is supposed to be devoutly non-partisan, which is one reason why Colin Powell and Tom Ridge won't be attending the GOP convention next month. The Congressional intelligence committees also have an honorable history of bipartisanship. These traditions are especially important at a time, after the Iraq WMD fiasco, when the public doubts the independence and credibility of intelligence agencies. But Goss in recent months has evolved into a campaign attack dog, ready and willing to do things like bash Kerry in op-eds and with commentary posted (and briefly expunged, tellingly) on the Bush-Cheney campaign website. Even Pat Roberts, Goss's counterpart on the Senate Intelligence Committee and no namby-pamby centrist himself, had recently urged the president to choose a non - politician with a wellspring of bipartisan support. Bush had to know that Goss's forays into campaign politics were going to be the source of Democratic irritation - which is why, as I said yesterday, I suspect this may be a replay of the Homeland Security Department trap.
Let me start wrapping up my side in this debate with a general thought. As I've argued, I find plenty of fault in Bush homeland security policies: I think he has never given the Homeland Security Department the money and attention it requires to be effective; communication with the public about the terror threat remains a total farce - from Tom Ridge's endless gaffes to John Ashcroft's hysterics to the laughingstock color-coded alert system to the idiotic disclosure of Mohammed Khan's name; and I still don't understand how Bush keeps choosing tax cuts over spending for all sorts of security upgrades, from food safety to rail security.
But what most troubles me is this administration's approach to what the experts call "low-risk, high-consequence" threats. You're right, Jim, that we can never be perfectly insulated from terrorism. If someone wants to truck bomb a bank or blow themselves up on the subway, there are limits to what a democratic society can do to stop that. But there is a quite lot we can do to drastically reduce the chances of a devastating attack that wreaks massive damage, with casualties in the tens of thousands. I'm thinking here of attacks on chemical and nuclear plants, and in particular the possibility of nuclear terrorism. We've already discussed some specifics about these threats, so I won't rehash them here. But I'm at a loss to understand why, in cases where so many lives are at risk, this president isn't willing to err on the side of expense and extra regulation. To me, the continued vulnerability of chemical plants and the amount of weapons-grade nuclear material laying around the world, largely unsecured, says a lot of what you need to know about Bush's real dedication to homeland security.
Jim, it's been a pleasure debating you and, in places, an education. So let me close on a magnanimous note. You're right that the best test of homeland security is whether or not we're attacked, and so far Bush has passed that test. Obviously I'm thrilled about that - and perhaps this president's policies are more effective than I realize. However I still don't feel that the U.S. is anywhere close to "secure." And I worry that something terrible may soon happen, something which will reveal this president's failures far more starkly than anything I can say.
Hmm, maybe that didn't turn out so magnanimous, after all. Either way, I enjoyed the sparring. And may we all remain safe.
Yours,
Mike
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JAMES S. ROBBINS
Contributing Editor, National Review Online
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Posted 08.11.04 | 5:20 PM
Mike,
Thank you as well for a fun and educational experience, I have enjoyed it very much. I think we are doing our part to raise the civility of public discourse.
I appreciate your views on Porter Goss, and I'll still duck on that issue. I would like to see it develop more. And case in point, lest we rush to judgment on the Khan leak, Mickey Kaus has a good piece on Slate that argues this might be an overreaction. That's another problem with Washington, the trajectory of "scandals" that generate in haste and take weeks to undo. Like the Honorable Mr. Wilson and his incredible claims about Iraq not seeking Niger uranium, why did so many people fall for his nonsense?
I'd like to return to the original question, has the Bush administration fumbled homeland security? I would conclude it definitely has not. While there may still be some work to do in areas like chemical plant security, port security and the like, the steps that have already been taken since 9/11 in transportation, border and critical infrastructure security, the passage and implementation of the Patriot Act, and the training and assistance that has been given to our first responders have all made our country much more secure than it was three years ago. And while the administration has done well defending the country, it has also adopted a strategic offensive against terrorism involving all the elements of national power. This has been the most important component of securing the homeland. I haven't heard yet of any serious mistakes that the administration has made that have made our country more vulnerable than it was pre-9/11, and certainly the terrorists have not been able to pull off any of their many threatened plans to attack our country. I really cannot see how one can conclude anything other than that President Bush has executed sound stewardship in his role as commander in chief.
To understand the magnitude of how well we have done in our national effort to combat terrorism, we have to remember that in order to succeed, our intelligence operatives, law enforcement agents, troops and policymakers have to make the right decisions hundreds of times a day, while the enemy only has to be right (or lucky) once. The fact that we have gone so long without the enemy getting over the goal line again tells us that we must be doing something — many things — very well indeed.
Thus, after reviewing the play, the ruling on the field stands. Offense retains possession. First down.
All the best,
Jim
Note: James Robbins's response concludes this debate.
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ROBBINS
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Posted 08.11.04 | 11:05 AM
Hey, Mike.
I hate to admit that I'm not the most qualified person to discuss whether Congressman Goss is the best person for the job. I don't know enough about him to have an opinion, but am looking forward to learning more. From what I've read this morning his record does not seem to be as black and white as some are saying. It looks to me like he has a good history of bipartisan cooperation going back to the 1980s in Florida. He certainly has Agency bona fides, and his record on the House Intelligence Committee also seems to reflect a measured approach to intelligence matters. I have also observed that he is being attacked strongly by the Democrats. Their reaction was immediate; I suspect it had been prepared in advance. I was struck especially by Nancy Pelosi coming out against Goss, after saying last June she would support him if he was nominated, because he had the ability to work free of political pressure. Did Goss change, or did the DNC talking points? This is symptomatic of my main complaint about the opposition, which makes politics central to our national-security policy debate. The Democrats pounced before Goss was even given a chance to make his case. I don't think this type of negativism will play well with the American people.
I am a strong supporter of the defense transformation concept, though admittedly some of its partisans outside of government can sound a bit goofy, promising wonders from technology while overlooking the fact that we are, alas, human, and all systems are subject to human factors. Mistakes can be made, bad guys can slip the net, and the fog of war can frustrate the best-laid plans. That being said, Operation Enduring Freedom was an amazing campaign, as was Operation Iraqi Freedom. I think the problem in the latter case was not that there weren't enough troops, but that they moved much too fast and were not able to consolidate the rear as they went. Still, the minor attacks by fedayeen Saddam with machine guns in trucks did not affect the outcome — did not even slow things down. Our troops reached Baghdad weeks ahead of schedule, and took the city without the anticipated grinding urban combat — the same prediction that stopped us from getting the job done in 1991, when we certainly should have. Our forces do not dominate battlefields because we have more troops, they do so because we fight in new and revolutionary ways. The idea that the number of boots on the ground is directly related to campaign effectiveness is fallacious, but a useful bullet point for those on the left who want to bring back the draft (the worst thing we could do to our armed forces). In my opinion the biggest mistake in Iraq was kicking so many Iraqis off the payroll so quickly. That and not helping Sadr realize his dreams of martyrdom. But these are minor things compared to the geostategic revolution the Administration is fomenting in the Middle East. Yes, I do think an aggressive approach is best, one that does not accept the parameters set by the opposition but seeks to reshape the terms of debate to our benefit.
Where's the outrage? That's a recurrent question in our wonderful city, though it seems to me that our politicians and pundits seek to keep us in a state of perpetual seething. I was intrigued to read that the arrests are continuing in Pakistan, even though the leak of Khan's arrest has hampered operations. The revelations about the detailed planning and the desire of al Qaeda to try to hit is in order to affect our presidential election are amazing. But this leads to a point about attempting to assess effectiveness in the war on terrorism — how do we measure an event that hasn't happened, that has been deterred or prevented? After all the most evident indicant of "victory" in the war will be when nothing happens for a long time. But that does not mean nothing can happen. It is a difficult analytical proposition. As I have said, I think we are much safer today than we were three years ago, and that the administration has done a great job at keeping us secure. This is in part because of all the things that have not happened, the scenarios that have not played out, the attacks that have been disrupted, many of which we probably have no idea about. The Khan laptop is apparently giving our intelligence community a great deal of insight into the way al Qaeda has been trying to reconstitute, and the extent of their planning for the next wave of attacks. Maybe they will pull off some of them still. I hope not. But if we make it to Election Day safely , I think the president should get credit for that too, especially now that we know what they had in store for us.
Jim
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CROWLEY
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Posted 08.11.04 | 8:50 AM
Good morning, Jim-
Why don't I begin today's exchange with the big homeland security news of the morning: George Bush's nomination of Porter Goss to lead the CIA.
I've never had a strong opinion of Goss, but with that said, let me start an argument: I think he's a bad choice, and one that typifies Bush's political approach to homeland security. Goss has made repeated public attacks on John Kerry's record over the past several months, and his relationship with Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have badly deteriorated. Bush had to know that nominating Goss would amount to picking a fight with Democrats, who are face the unpleasant choice of either swallowing their pride or blocking a nominee for an essential national-security post. I suspect you'll again accuse me of cynicism, but this move actually reminds me a lot of the Homeland Security fight in the run-up to the 2002 elections. The White House crafted a bill with strong anti-union provisions which forced Democrats to choose between opposing their union principles or seeming to obstruct the president's security agenda. Those who chose the latter — like Georgia Senator Max Cleland — paid dearly on Election Day. It sure looked like the Bush administration had planned it that way. And I have to wonder if the same Machiavellian strategy might be at play with the Goss nomination. Could Bush really not find anyone who enjoys more bipartisan goodwill — or at the very least someone who hasn't trashed the Democratic presidential nominee? I'm genuinely curious to know whether you think Goss is truly the best man for the job.
Back to a point you made yesterday about Bush's leadership in the war on terror generally. You argued that a President Gore might not have shown as "aggressive" a responded to September 11 as Bush has. But let me suggest that, given what we know now about our great Iraqi adventure, it might have been good if we'd had a less aggressive president in office. Also, you hail Donald Rumsfeld's "transformational" approach to the war in Afghanistan. Would this be the same approach that outsourced the hunt for Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora to Afghani fighters — perhaps at the cost of letting him slip away? And is it the same approach that led us to invade and occupy Iraq with what now appears to have been far too few troops? I'll admit that I'm no military expert, and second-guessing is all too easy. But even some hardy conservatives are saying similar things these days.
Meanwhile, I still find the level of outrage over the disclosure of Mohammed Khan's name to be surprisingly low. If a Democratic administration had done such a thing, Tom DeLay would be calling for the electric chair. I hear your frustration with liberals who first demand details and then complain they've been given too many details. But this mistake is in a league of its own. There's simply no excuse for it, and I hope GOP leaders in Congress give it the serious scrutiny it deserves. But I'm not holding my breath.
Mike
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ROBBINS
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Posted 08.10.04 | 5:20 PM
Mike,
I have tried to approach this from a policy, not partisan, point of view. So I do not feel dug into a particular trench, and feel free to be critical when it is warranted. Yet, I believe the president should get credit for the things he has done, whether "no brainers" or not. Perhaps some of them seem obvious only in retrospect. Many great ideas and revolutionary inventions seem obvious once they are explained — this is why we have patent protection. And I reject the construct that the president should not receive praise for his good works just because they came in the wake of 9/11, the implication being that anyone who happened to have been in office would have done the same thing. I disbelieve that. I think President Bush has taken a much more aggressive stance in the wake of the attacks than a President Gore would have — I know it is a counter-factual and thus moot; but it is a fact that when planning went ahead for Operation Enduring Freedom, all the Clinton-era contingency plans for operations in Afghanistan were reviewed and thrown out in favor of Secretary Rumsfeld's "transformational" approach. The campaign in Afghanistan was bold, innovative, and stunningly effective, achieving in three months what the Soviet Union could not do in ten years. Definitely a "brainer," and one of the most important reasons why we are safer today than three years ago.
With respect to the Singapore stats, I read you as saying that the inspectors were only able to check under a third, not that they missed a third. Sorry about that, but glad I clarified it for myself, because I had no idea we were checking as many as 63 percent of Singaporese shipping manifests. That makes me feel better about that situation than I had. Since the CSI is going to double in size, maybe we will get up to 100 percent, which hopefully will be enough.
As for North Korea, I suppose we could get back to the negotiating table with Kim Jong Il and conclude another agreement, perhaps just like the much heralded 1994 Agreed Framework under which the DPRK developed its nuclear capability in the first place. The Bush administration is taking the right approach in this case; pursuing multilateral negotiations with regional powers, combined with the threat of sanctions backed by the unstated prospect of armed intervention. It is not obvious to me that North Korea's nuclear arsenal is growing — the number I have heard for the past several years is that they possess two nuclear weapons, and have tested none, so it is unclear whether or not they are operational. I hope the administration will hold the line against those who think that appeasing Kim will lead to anything favorable for our country.
On chemical plants: Yes, if an attack were pulled off and we had a Bhopal-type situation in this country, that would be a major disaster. Nevertheless, it has not happened yet. That doesn't mean it can't, but there are many other types of attacks that would be equally disastrous, such as a chemical attack in the D.C. Metro similar to the 1995 AUM Shinrikyo attack in Japan. (I am sure we could come up with many more such troubling scenarios, but I never write about hypothetical plans because I choose not to give the bad guys ideas.) Can we guard against that, beyond having periodic announcements to ask, "Is that your bag?" Maybe the Metro police could inspect people as they enter the Metro? Or have detectors at every entrance? We would be safer, but what cost are we willing to bear? No one says there is zero potential for a chemical-plant attack, it all comes down to balancing the risks. You argue that robust chemical-plant security will be low cost, I think it will be higher cost. That's the gist of it. If we can get it, that would be great. But if we are going to divert resources to chemical plant security, what sector are we going to take them from, and what happens if an attack comes there? I know it is a rhetorical question, but the point is that the targets that needed hardening the most, those that were under direct threat, such as airports, public buildings, military bases and so forth, have been given attention proportionate with the evident threat. In my opinion, the greatest risk we face is an attack on our financial markets, which are very soft targets, and have been explicitly threatened by al Qaeda. That is an area we should definitely pay more attention to.
Finally, let me be clear on the Khan issue — I do not blame the critics directly for the release of information, I blame them for playing politics with our national security. The White House obviously should not have told journalists any such details, but on the other hand, I understand why they might think they needed to, given the relentless, unfounded charges being leveled against them in the wake of the Orange Alert. I would like to see the critics of the alert system admit that they had been wrong all along, but I am not holding my breath. The sudden switch to charging that the Bush team gave out too much info when they first said they hadn't been given enough reminds me of when John P. Roche referred to the supporters of the Vietnam War who became instant peaceniks as "Hawks who turned dove in mid-flight."
Jim
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CROWLEY
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Posted 08.10.04 | 3:20 PM
Jim -
Perhaps we're dug into partisan trenches, but it seems to me that you keep giving the president unearned credit. First it was for his alleged boldness in creating the Department of Homeland Security, an idea that Bush ridiculed until it looked like it was going to happen without him. Yesterday you also praised Bush for his hard line against North Korea — even though we've made no progress in getting Kim Jong Il to give up his nuclear arsenal which, to the contrary, appears to be growing steadily. And today you pat Bush on the back for kicking off the Container Security Initiative (CSI) in 2002, as if to suggest this was an innovative policy that only a man of his vision could have implemented. Now I'll admit that, as far as I know, Bill Clinton never stationed cargo inspectors at foreign ports. But Clinton wasn't president after September 11, either. And without 9/11 I doubt Bush would have done this. Creating CSI after the 9/11 attacks strikes me as a no-brainer. The real test is whether Bush has implemented the program as fast and as effectively as possible. I'm glad his latest budget calls for an expansion of CSI, but I wonder why, three years after September 11, it's taken so long.
(One footnote: I don't think I misstated the Singapore megaport inspection stats. I wrote that inspectors "aren't even able to check the cargo manifests of a third of those containers." That's consistent with your formulation that the team reviewed "almost two thirds" of the manifests; we're saying the same thing using opposite formulations. And while the staff report I cited does say that 400,000 containers were shipped between March 2003 and January 2004, for simplicity's sake I extrapolated to say that Singapore ships more than 500,000 containers per year; I considered it a harmless shorthand in the name of
readability.)
When it comes to chemical plant security, you accuse me of hyperbole. But I'd turn the charge back at you. First you compare the adding of more guards, stronger fences and the like to a few of the most threatening chemical plants in the country — probably less than 100 — to giving everybody "an anthrax-proof house." Talk about a straw man. And while you talk about "a multibillion-dollar burden on the chemical industry," the CRS report to which you link says that basic security measures can "be implemented at relatively low cost." Furthermore, the notion expressed in the report's passage you cite — that because terrorists haven't attacked chemical plants, the threat of chemical plant attacks appears to be low — strikes me as serious folly. Before 9/11, terrorists had never crashed big jets into skyscrapers, and so few people seemed to take the idea seriously; look where that got us. And even if one were to concede that the risk of a chemical plant attack is low compared to, say, a truck bomb, a major toxic chemical release near urban areas would be so catastrophic (readers may want to brush up on the horrors of Bhopal here) that, as with nuclear weapons and power, some considerable expense is worth preventing it. So, yes, I do think it's an outrageous scandal. And I think that if a chemical plant disaster were successfully pulled off, it'd be awfully hard to explain to the public that a few million — or perhaps even a few billion, although as I said it's not clear that's necessary — dollars for upgraded security was deemed too expensive
Jim, I'm glad you concede that the release of Mohammed Khan's name appears to have been a debacle. But I'm puzzled that your first reaction is to blame the president's "cynical" critics for this fiasco. Strong and competent government officials would have resisted the impulse to divulge a vital secret simply because they were having a bad news cycle. Who's more cynical, after all? Critics who idly carp about the administration's motives — or officials who undermine the war on terror to rebuke those critics?
Best,
Mike
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ROBBINS
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Posted 08.10.04 | 10:50 AM
Mike,
I don't think of this debate is a win-lose situation. If we can help the U.S. be a safer place to live we all win.
Port inspection is a critical issue, no doubt. But let's give credit where it is due. The inspectors in Singapore are there as part of a program called the Container Security Initiative (CSI). There are 17 five-person teams deployed worldwide, including the team in Singapore. One might ask how many CSI personnel were in Singapore in the previous administration. The answer is none, because the CSI is a Bush program, announced in 2002. This is another example of the offensive strategy against terrorism, pushing inspections out globally instead of waiting for the threat to come here. (If a nuclear warhead made it all the way to a U.S. harbor, it might be too late even to inspect it.) One quibble — according to the staff report you linked, the team in Singapore reviewed almost two thirds of 400,000 cargo manifests (in the words of the staff, "only 63%", c.f. p. 8) not less than a third of 500,000. It also notes that the FY 2005 budget calls for 98 more inspectors to be deployed worldwide, more than doubling the size of the program. One can say this is not enough, and maybe it is not in the long run, but the administration deserves credit for starting the program in the first place, and reinforcing success with more resources. I do call that working smarter.
With respect to chemical-plant security, it would be great if every plant were locked down solidly — just like it would be great if everybody had an anthrax-proof house. But this is another case of where costs and benefits must be weighed. If the terrorists were hell-bent on attacking chemical plants, if we had serious threat warnings that chemical facilities were in their target group, then yes, we should bear those costs. But according to a 2003 Congressional Research Service study, though chemical plants may be a terrorist target in theory, in fact that odds are low. The report says, "because few terrorist attacks have been attempted on U.S. chemical facilities, the estimated risk of death and injury in the near future is low, relative to the likelihood of accidents or attacks on other targets using conventional weapons." It gets back to my risk-balancing argument. You can't do everything everywhere, you have to pick and choose. The government could impose a multibillion-dollar burden on the chemical industry to harden their plants in the same way nuclear plants are, but this would have negative ripple effects throughout the economy. Is it worth it? This is the kind of trade-off our leaders have to grapple with. The president has proposed security legislation that emphasizes voluntary compliance, so he isn't completely tuned out on the issue. I do not consider it an "outrageous scandal" — doesn't that sound hyperbolic? My threshold of outrage might be higher.
With respect to not raising taxes, I think the president remembers the last time a member of his family made a deal to raise some taxes during wartime, and look what happened! In any case his relentless supply-side policies are the very thing that is keeping our economy robust and ensuring that we are the richest nation in history. This is one of the clearest choices in the election, an issue (unlike the war) in which there are important differences. I think it shows that George Bush stands for something, and I admire him for it.
Finally, on the matter of Mohammed Khan, I wish the president's critics would make up their minds — either the Orange Alert was a politically motivated exploitation of the alert system based on outdated intelligence, or the information that generated it was too important to even be discussed because the intelligence was red hot. I'm afraid you are making my point from yesterday — the climate of cynicism among the opposition, who see every measure in the fight against terrorism as political, drove the administration to release more information than they should have. The constant and baseless carping of people like Howard Dean and most of the news media pushed circumstances to where sensitive information got out. (And someone should explain to Ms. Rice that "on background" only means she cannot be identified.) As I said yesterday — the opposition has to place a little more trust in our intelligence professionals and keep politics out of the alert system. Their continual and reflexive criticism is irresponsible and, as this episode illustrates, has potential to bring harm to ongoing intelligence operations.
Jim
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CROWLEY
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Posted 08.10.04 | 8:40 AM
Jim
Well-argued, once again. I'm happy to say that in many respects you're right — I would prefer to lose this duel than to see another catastrophic terror attack. However, I still find much to object to.
Let's start with the question of budgets as a metric of safety. You're right that money isn't everything, and that spending has to be accompanied by smart thinking. But that doesn't mean money is nothing. In fact, money has a lot to do with "refining and focusing search techniques," as you suggest. More money could mean, for instance, more manpower to help decide which shipping containers we should inspect. According to the Democratic staff of the House Homeland Security Committee, as of January the U.S. had only five cargo inspectors stationed in the Singapore megaport, which ships more than 500,000 containers here every year. Those inspectors aren't even able to check the cargo manifests of a third of those containers. That's hardly working "smarter," if you ask me.
I also don't buy your suggestion that the Nunn-Lugar program needs less money because it has less work to do. In fact, more than half of Russia's nuclear material has yet to receive security upgrades. Even the program's architects, Democrat Sam Nunn and Republican Richard Lugar, continually insist that more money is needed — urgently — to get the job done.
You say more money isn't the answer to homeland security, but you also imply that maybe spending more would be a good thing, if only we weren't struggling along with "scarce resources." But it's hardly that our resources are scarce — we're the richest nation in history. Unfortunately we're living under a president who refuses to raise taxes — and in fact continues to push for more tax cuts — to help pay for domestic security during wartime. After September the cliché held that "everything changed." But not George W. Bush's relentless supply-side tax policies. (For a thorough examination of Bush's preference for tax cuts over compelling security needs, see my colleague Jonathan Chait's excellent piece on the subject.)
Meanwhile, I notice that you haven't responded to my goading about chemical plant security. To reiterate, there are still no federal standards for security at plants with chemicals that could conceivably kill tens of thousands of people if released. Thanks to some mighty lobbying on Capitol Hill, the chemical industry has been allowed to set its own security standards — something the nuclear industry could never get away with (even though the consequences of certain chemical-plant attacks might well rival those of a major nuclear accident). Even if one concedes that there are hundreds of homeland security priorities and limited resources with which to address them, I would think securing chemical plants would have to rank near the very top of the to-do list. If you don't consider this an outrageous scandal, I'd love to know why.
I'll finish this entry with a return to where we started: the latest terror alert. It's beginning to look as though the Bush administration committed a boner of titanic proportions when it released the name of Mohammed Kahn, the al Qaeda computer geek arrested in Pakistan last month. As my colleague Spencer Ackerman and others have shown, Kahn continued to email with other al Qaeda operatives — including some inside the United States — even after he was captured, offering a potential goldmine of information about organization. But the revelation of his name has alerted his compatriots, and now there's no hope of using his email account for intelligence purposes. This strikes me as an act of shockingly gross incompetence. Not that, coming from this ever-bumbling administration, that's such a surprise.
Mike
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ROBBINS
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Posted 08.09.04 | 5:35 PM
Mike,
I am certain we are much safer. The 9/11 attacks could not have encouraged prospective terrorists more than all the attacks that came before 9/11. The difference is the response. The previous attacks were largely consequence-free. 9/11 was not. It demonstrated what can happen when the sleeping giant is awakened and filled with a terrible resolve (to paraphrase Yamamoto). Nor do I think there are more outraged Muslims out there now than there used to be. I never bought the argument that all Muslims respond mechanistically to actions taken against any of them. Osama bin Laden predicted that when the U.S. went into Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 there would be demonstrations and riots across the Muslim world, a revolution in Pakistan, and other signs of "street" support for him and his cause. But none of it happened. The U.S. may not be beloved in the Mideast, but that is nothing new. Yet we now have cooperative regimes in Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Egypt, Libya (imagine that!), Central Asia, and elsewhere — not to mention free people in Afghanistan and Iraq. The outraged minority has always been outraged, but now they understand that if they try to translate outrage into action, there will be an aftermath.
With respect to the size of the budget as a metric of safety, I am very skeptical. I was amused at Senator Clinton's recent attempt to raise the issue of per-capita HLS spending in a bid to get more federal money for the public service unions in New York. You can barely tell this is a presidential election year. Likewise with counting the number of container ships searched. John Kerry seems to want to inspect every ship, which would cost billions of dollars in direct costs, and more billions to the economy. However, the key is not how many ships are searched, but that the right ones are. This requires refining and focusing detection and search techniques. This is true of all our transportation security. We have to balance antiterrorism measures against economic effects and scarce funds. As the 9/11 report stated, "hard choices must be made in allocating limited resources." It makes much more sense to improve our procedures rather than doing more of the same on a larger scale. In other words, to work smarter, not harder.
Nuclear terrorism is definitely a challenge, one with the potential of being the most deadly. The administration has taken on this challenge with the same offensive posture it has met others in the War on Terrorism. Non-proliferation has been replaced with counter-proliferation. The multinational Proliferation Security Initiative, which in one year has attracted 60 signatory nations, is a worthy successor to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement and the post-Cold War Nunn-Lugar program (which needed much more money when there were many more Soviet missiles to destroy — again, one can't equate dollars spent with security assured). The administration has also taken a refreshingly hard line with nuclear scofflaw North Korea, has prompted renewed international inspections in Iran, and ended the proliferation threat that Iraq posed. Libya has ended its quest for WMDs, and helped the U.S. break up the Pakistani nuclear black market of Abdul Qadeer Khan. We also have worked with many countries in the Mid East and Central Asia on border control procedures for nuclear detection, especially installing detection devices which seek to prevent such materials from being loaded into cargo containers in the first place. Let me ask, do you really think it is easier today for terrorists to smuggle nuclear or other WMD material than it was three years ago?
With respect to the president first opposing then supporting HLS reorganization, that is politics. Sometimes policy makers have to execute programs the Congress thinks they need. (Bill Clinton takes a lot of credit these days for a Republican balanced budget plan he said was impossible to implement.) Citing the initial opposition does not in any way critique the execution of the plan since its passage. And just because the execution does not have the hallmarks of bureaucratic centralization that some folks feel is necessary in a government program does not mean the Department is ineffective.
But getting back to my conclusion we are safer — which again is not to say there is not still a threat — the most important shift since 9/11 has nothing to do with budgets, government reorganization, or anything of that nature. It is the paradigm shift that attended the 9/11 attacks. It was the realization that we were at war, and in fact had been at war for many years. We were less safe before 9/11 because we did not understand that, and did not use our full capacity to project power against the terrorists and their state sponsors. We had the capabilities, but lacked the orientation. Now we are fully employing all of our national assets towards the goal of defeating the global terrorist network. The terrorists no longer have safe havens; no longer have training camps; have fewer state sponsors, and no overt ones; and know that they are being hunted ruthlessly every single day. They have much less time to think about new ways to hit the U.S. when they have to change location three times a day and wonder who around them will decide the $25 million reward is more attractive than a life in the cross hairs.
-Jim
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CROWLEY
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Posted 08.09.04 | 4:15 PM
Jim -
You raise a fundamental question: are we safer than we were on September 10? You say we are "much safer." I'm not so sure. Yes, the country has mobilized against terrorism both here and abroad, and both our defense and offense is stronger. But I think the threat we face has also escalated. September 11 may have encouraged would-be terrorists by showing them how much glory there can be in a well-placed hit. And the Iraq war may well be motivating enraged Muslims to attack the west. Do these increased threats outweigh our increased defenses? They might not, if the Bush administration was doing all it could to defend us. But it isn't. Bush and his allies in Congress have consistently blocked efforts to increase spending for priorities like port and rail security, and have been bizarrely obstinate about imposing security requirements on chemical plants whose lethal contents threaten millions of people.
Or let's take another example — the one I had in mind when I mentioned a nuclear fireball. I've done a fair amount of reporting on nuclear terrorism, and I can tell you no credible expert I've encountered thinks we're doing nearly enough to lock down nuclear material around the world that terrorists could buy or steal and turn into a bomb. In fact, shortly after 9/11 the White House inexplicably proposed a cut in spending for the widely-admired Nunn-Lugar program, which secures and destroys nuclear material in the former Soviet Union. Meanwhile, reports of attempted nuclear smuggling in Russia and Eastern Europe continue to roll in. Given al Qaeda's stated determination to acquire a nuke, rising worldwide anger at the U.S., a potential desire by terrorists to trump 9/11, and the paltry number of shipping containers we currently inspect in our ports, I would argue that the threat of nuclear terrorism has only grown since September 11. (This is why I hope Bush understands the destructive power of a nuke on American soil — not because I long for an amateur physicist in the White House.)
Regarding the Department of Homeland Security, I was a bit puzzled by your defense of that chaotic monstrosity:
the fact that the Bush administration was willing to take on this long-overdue challenge is emblematic of the conceptual scope of the current leadership. The administration has consistently devised and executed innovative solutions to vital security challenges that had been ignored for years.
Surely you've forgotten that the White House's first reaction to this "innovative" solution, first proposed by Democrats in Congress in late 2001, was to ridicule it with comparisons to Hillary Clinton's Bynzantine health care plan! It was only after a DHS bill began gathering momentum in Congress — threatening to leave Bush on the losing side of the issue — that the White House finally championed it (and demagogically so, in the 2002 elections). Even then, as I noted in my last post, Bush never followed through with the funding or political support the department needed for a truly efficient launch.
Alas, I've not saved enough space to deal effectively with your best point, which is that we haven't been hit again since September 11. I'll concede that the administration deserves credit for that — although it could be that al Qaeda is bypasing smaller, more feasible attacks while it patiently prepares for another grand slam. (Do you really think DHS has been so excellent that even one committed suicide bomber couldn't have blown up a Starbucks by now?) Nor does that guarantee future success. I would breathe easier if I couldn't tick off so many lingering weak spots in our defenses.
Let me throw it back to you with a question: given the threadbare state of chemical plant, nuclear plant, port, and rail security, and our slow action on loose nukes, do you think Bush is really living up to his promise to do everything in his power to protect America from catastrophic terrorism?
Glumly yours,
Mike
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ROBBINS
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Posted 08.09.04 | 11:35 AM
Hi, Mike.
I am in a secure location as well, Alexandria, Virginia. I feel very much at ease, even noting the threats we face daily, because I am safer — much safer — today than I was on September 10, 2001. I can see right away that we may disagree on the definition of the word "fumbled." In football, of course, it means inadvertently giving the ball to the other team, and sacrificing the offense for the defense. Has the administration fumbled? I don't think we even need to go to the instant replay. Even acknowledging some of the p.r. problems, if we look at the big picture in Homeland Security, at home and abroad, we are on a roll.
The notion that the orange alert was based wholly on "old intelligence" has been so thoroughly discredited I am surprised you are bringing it up. Those who treated the recent orange alert as a cynical exercise were cynics to begin with, and I am sure they had their talking points ready to go in advance. Over the past few days, we have learned a great deal about the fresh intelligence from the recent apprehensions Pakistan that led to the alert. Thanks for acknowledging it — and let's not forget the hundreds of similar takedowns that have taken place over the past three years, resulting in over two-thirds of al Qaeda's original leadership being killed or captured. It is also worth pointing out that the alert had echoes in other countries, particularly Britain, where at least one active plot was broken up. (I do not think that can be linked to election-year politics, at least not our election.) Other new facts emerge daily. If Secretary Ridge chose not to release the freshest intelligence right away I am not surprised. The intelligence community will not give up hot intel on an ongoing investigation when older information exists that conveys the same thing, because doing so risks compromising the operation. This is why we have security classifications. Nosy folk who want to know everything right away might not understand that if they got what they wanted they would be endangering our security. A little more trust in our non-political intelligence professionals and a little less media speculation and political gamesmanship would help everyone. But I refer back to my original point about the professional cynics; if anyone was playing politics with the alert it was the opposition, to our country's detriment.
I am not going to debate whether Tom Ridge is an effective spokesman for his department, because I hardly feel that is the central issue in Homeland Security. He was not chosen to be a mouthpiece, but to oversee one of the most challenging reorganizations of the Federal bureaucracy in the last 50 years. True, it has been difficult merging 22 agencies each with their own institutional culture, but the fact that the Bush administration was willing to take on this long-overdue challenge is emblematic of the conceptual scope of the current leadership. The administration has consistently devised and executed innovative solutions to vital security challenges that had been ignored for years. Furthermore, I do not equate centralization of all our intelligence assets with success (how come liberals are so keen on this now but used to argue it would pose a threat to our civil liberties?) — rather, we need policies that let our existing foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement agencies do their jobs without political interference. Despite the 9/11 Commission's "big government" solutions to the terror threat, nothing they suggested would have changed the fact that the FBI was forbidden to surveil mosques before 9/11. We now have over 80 Joint Terrorism Task Forces working very well at the local level throughout this country, representing every agency, sharing intelligence and getting their jobs done at the tactical level, where the action is. We do not need a new layer of bureaucracy at the top. Likewise, it does not matter to me whether the President knows the temperature of a nuclear fireball or not. He has experts for that, and for the thousands of other details involved in executing strategy. His job is not to be "wonk in chief," it is to provide
strategic vision and leadership in the overall war effort.
My bottom line assessment of whether the Administration has fumbled would involve looking at tangibles that go to the heart of the question. For example, has the enemy been able to carry out attacks on the homeland since 9/11? Not significantly, if at all. This has been accomplished through aggressive actions inside our country (rounding up suspects, hardening targets, coordinating intelligence, adopting new analytical frameworks, and implementing the Patriot Act) and taking the offensive abroad, engaging the terror threat abroad in order to keep from having to do it at home. Your side of the argument would be much easier if we had spent the last three years facing periodic bombings, hijackings, attacks on our critical infrastructure, assassinations, WMD attacks, civil disturbances, cataclysmic internet disruptions and the like. But we haven't, and it is not for lack of trying on the part of the enemy. Fact is, the U.S. still has the ball, and we're moving it aggressively down the field.
Best, Jim
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CROWLEY
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Posted 08.09.04 | 9:45 AM
Dear James:
Greetings from my secure undisclosed location, where I am currently riding out Washington's latest terror alert with a roll of duct tape and plastic sheeting. Okay, not actually. But that seems a good way into the subject of the Bush administration's less-than-reassuring stewardship of our homeland security. Once again, administration warnings about an allegedly impending attack have managed to leave lots of Americans either confused or cynical, while accomplishing little of evidence. Now, unlike some of my more conspiratorial liberal brethren, I don't actually believe that this latest terror alert was a fiendish Rove-ian ploy to smother John Kerry's convention bounce. But I do think that Tom Ridge and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) gang may have conveniently downplayed the fact that almost all the surveillance conducted on financial buildings in New York and Washington was at least three years old; the hotter the threat, after all, the more heroic DHS seems.
I fully understand that al Qaeda spends years methodically planning its attacks, meaning that these are serious revelations. But Ridge initially left an impression that something rather more imminent was coming, and so when word leaked out that the sites had mostly been cased way back before 9/11, it was easy for people to think they'd had their chains jerked. And unfortunately, Ridge doesn't enjoy a surplus of credibility to begin with. Virtually every time Ridge appears in the news, he winds up slipping on a banana peel. Remember back in late 2001 when he assured us that the first anthrax victim had encountered the bacteria naturally, on a a fishing trip? Or the infamous duct-tape episode? Emergency-management experts always stress the need for public trust in authority figures, so that people will heed official instructions during a crisis. But with Ridge a staple of late night talk show monologues, how many people are going to listen to him if there's a true emergency? Thank goodness for the reports that, even if Bush wins in November, Ridge will be leaving his job.
Ridge's personal credibility may be a relatively narrow point with which to open our debate. But I think it's quite telling of a wider ineptitude that persists at DHS, and throughout the administration's homeland security policies generally. Take Ridge's department specifically. Earlier this year I wrote at length about the ramshackle state of DHS. Space prohibits much detail here, but in a nutshell, it was clear to me that Bush only grudgingly created the department under political pressure, and that he has never given it either the financial or political support necessary. To take one major example, DHS was intended to be a clearinghouse for anti-terror intelligence, fully independent of any other department's influence and turf claims. But it quickly became clear that DHS wasn't up to the task, and so the White House created a slapdash new office — the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) — and put it under the stewardship of the CIA director. According to dozens of experts, TTIC is a mess - staffed by second-tier analysts and a poor conduit of information to state and local officials. But don't take my word for it: just look at the report of the 9/11 commission, whose compelling list of major intelligence reforms, including a new national director of intelligence, highlights how inadequate George W. Bush's stewardship of the bureaucracy has been.
In the spirit of intellectual honesty (and to raise my gloves against what I suspect will be one of your strongest punches) let me give the administration credit for the recent arrests of key al Qaeda operatives like Muhammad Khan and Abu Issa al-Hindi. Even Richard Clarke — no friend of this administration — conceded on Meet the Press yesterday that last week had been the best in counterterrorism since December 1999. But Clarke made a distinction between counterterror efforts abroad and at home. He said that while the arrests are obviously great news, the administration still muffs its overseas successes with poor-follow through at home, by issuing confusing alerts and failing to communicate well at the state and local level and with the private sector.
I'm out of space and yet I don't think I've even begun the brief against the administration's stewardship of the homeland. Later this week I hope we can talk about the shocking state of chemical plant security, and our totally bewildering lassitude in safeguarding nuclear materials abroad. (Did you know that a nuclear fireball can reach temperatures of 10 million degrees? I sure hope George Bush does.) But I'm getting ahead of myself. I look forward to your response.
Mike
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