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Wed 24 Mar, 2004 12:01 pm
Two former senators, the bipartisan co-chairs of a Defense Department-chartered commission on national security, spoke with something between frustration and regret about how White House officials failed to embrace any of the recommendations to prevent acts of domestic terrorism delivered earlier this year.
Bush administration officials told former Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., that they preferred instead to put aside the recommendations issued in the January report by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Instead, the White House announced in May that it would have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism -- which the bipartisan group had already spent two and a half years studying -- while assigning responsibility for dealing with the issue to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh.
The Hart-Rudman Commission had specifically recommended that the issue of terrorism was such a threat it needed far more than FEMA's attention.
Before the White House decided to go in its own direction, Congress seemed to be taking the commission's suggestions seriously, according to Hart and Rudman. "Frankly, the White House shut it down," Hart says. "The president said 'Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president. We believe FEMA is competent to coordinate this effort.' And so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day." "We predicted it," Hart says of Tuesday's horrific events. "We said Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers -- that's a quote (from the commission's Phase One Report) from the fall of 1999."
Quote:CSBA Claims Hart-Rudman Report Misses Opportunity to Chart New Security Strategy
April 19, 2000
Today, the US Commission on National Security 21st Century released its report, Seeking A National Strategy: A Concert for Preserving Security and Promoting Freedom. The commission, chaired by former US Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, is an independent panel created by Congress to conduct "the most comprehensive review of American Security since the National Security Act of 1947 was signed into law over 50 years ago." Specifically, the goal of this report was to "design a national security strategy" appropriate for the changed world of the 21st Century.
In response, The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) has released its assessment of the effort titled "Hart-Rudman Commission: A Critique." CSBA acknowledges that the commission's task was an enormously difficult and ambitious one. Moreover, the commission's task was made all the more difficult by the decision to limit the report's recommendations and findings to areas where consensus could be reached among the panel's 14 members.
"The result is a report that raises a number of important issues that bear on the crafting of a US national security strategy," states CSBA Executive Director Andrew Krepinevich, "but does not fulfill the commission's mandate to design such a strategy."
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There's an opposing viewpoint. I make no representation as to which viewpoint has merit, just pointing out that some question(ed) the value of the Hart-Rudman report. If I have time, I'll try to familiarize myself with the details thereof. Some--creating a department of Homeland Security, at least--seem to have come to pass in the aftermath of 9/11. (Whether these would have seemed necessary or prudent before 9/11 is a question for people with powers and a view of the playing field that I lack.)
There can be no consensus until the commision has finished interviewing everyone involved; including, I hope, Condoleeza Rice.
I too am not familiar with the Hart-Rudman report and plan to read it, but for Cheney to arbitrarily dismiss it is unconscionable. IMO.
Diane wrote:I too am not familiar with the Hart-Rudman report and plan to read it, but for Cheney to arbitrarily dismiss it is unconscionable. IMO.
I would not take it for granted that he did so, just because one source states that he did.
You're right, Scrat. I'll keep reading and listening.
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