Are We Safer Today?

Beats me.

Bush has taken a page from Sharon's play book. When everything is on fire, poor gasoline on it and call it fighting terror.

Intel Officials Have Bleak View for Iraq

By KATHERINE PFLEGER SHRADER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The National Intelligence Council presented President Bush (news - web sites) this summer with several pessimistic scenarios regarding the security situation in Iraq (news - web sites), including the possibility of a civil war there before the end of 2005.

In a highly classified National Intelligence Estimate, the council looked at the political, economic and security situation in the war-torn country and determined that ?- at best ?- stability in Iraq would be tenuous, a U.S. official said late Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

At worst, the official said, were "trend lines that would point to a civil war." The official said it "would be fair" to call the ocument "pessimistic."


Hagel, Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and other committee members have long argued ?- even before the war ?- that administration plans for rebuilding Iraq were inadequate and based on overly optimistic assumptions that Americans would be greeted as liberators.

But the criticism from the panel's top Republicans had an extra sting coming less than seven weeks before the U.S. presidential election in which Bush's handling of the war is a top issue.

"Our committee heard blindly optimistic people from the administration prior to the war and people outside the administration ?- what I call the 'dancing in the street crowd' ?- that we just simply will be greeted with open arms," Lugar said. "The nonsense of all of that is apparent. The lack of planning is apparent."


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&e=3&u=/ap/20040916/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq

Yes.

No attacks on our homeland since 2001.

Creation of Homeboy Security Dept has helped somewhat

More effective CIA and FBI and local intel gathering.

Are we as safe as we can be? NO!

Joe Conason
The New York Observer
09.15.04

A misbegotten diversion; a monumental tragedy
Three years on, Bush still hasn't caught bin Laden


"Dead or alive."
Those were the three words that came to mind on the evening of Sept. 11, as I looked south from my block at the spectral shafts of light memorializing the lost Twin Towers and the people who died when they fell. That old cliché, which merely sounded callow and theatrical when uttered by George W. Bush, has since taken on deeper significance. In a nation fearful of terror and facing a fateful election, the President's forgotten vow now stands for terrible mistakes that will continue to endanger us, even if he someday fulfills it.

Although the atrocities perpetrated by Osama bin Laden three years ago were denounced repeatedly from the podium of the Republican National Convention, the name of the perpetrator whom the President had promised to bring to justice dead or alive was mentioned just once. (Governor George Pataki made that sole reference, in a fatuous attempt to blame the prior administration.) Perhaps the convention's producers didn't wish to spoil the October surprise. More likely they prefer not to draw attention to the fact that the Saudi mass murderer remains at large, planning to strike us again and rebuilding his organization as it slaughters innocents from Madrid to Istanbul to Baghdad.

The President has never explained why he allowed Mr. bin Laden to escape from Afghanistan. There may be no self-flattering explanation. For despite his characteristic bravado -- and indeed, despite a quite inspiring speech to a joint session of Congress the week after the 9/11 attacks -- Mr. Bush flinched from decisive action when he had the opportunity to destroy the leadership of Al Qaeda.

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=17669

What kinda thinking is that? There were no attacks on our homeland between 1993 and 2001, either. Did that make us safer? Did it prevent 9/11, which happened on GW's watch? That argument, which I have seen elsewhere many times so I am not attacking you, strikes me as the weakest argument of all for why we are safer. Why does that make you feel safer?

"...Another undercovered money story: what is happening to the money doled out for "first responders?" After 9/11, people inside and outside government recognized the need to bolster the capabilities of the police, firefighters, emergency workers, and public health officials who are the first responders when disaster strikes. The government addressed the problem by shoveling huge sums of money toward the nooks and crannies of America. From 1999 to 2003 funding for first responders increased 2,375 percent; by 2003 the federal treasury was ponying up more than $2 billion for local jurisdictions to buy equipment, pay for training, and conduct preparedness exercises.

But curiously, much of that money has not been used, according to a recent report by the Homeland Security department's own auditor. The report offered some puzzling statistics: as of February 2004, fifty-six states and territories had drawn down only 36 percent of the 2002 grant money and 23 percent of the 2003 money. For 2002, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, and Wyoming had not used any of the money. For 2003, that list included Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, New Mexico, and South Dakota.

Homeland Security Funding Report, a newsletter published by CD Publications, ran several stories showing how the money is often caught in a labyrinth of paperwork that almost guarantees that it doesn't flow easily. Yet CJR found very few stories published or aired in those states that had not spent their chunk of the first-responder money.

The Buffalo News is one news outlet that did examine the slow spending in its region, in a 1,500-word piece that also looked at the other side of the ledger ?- some of the oddities of what was purchased with money that authorities did manage to spend. Among the paper's findings: the administration of Governor George Pataki had sent 1,800 escape masks to Erie and Niagara Counties, which weighed ten pounds each and contained five minutes worth of oxygen. The paper noted that a spokesman for the state Task Force on Weapons of Mass Destruction declined to discuss any aspect of the procurement. "

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/5/lieberman-homeland.asp

Who are you defining as "we"?

"...Chemical Plants In the months after 9/11, Carl Prine, a reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, owned by the conservative philanthropist Richard Mellon Scaife, walked into sixty-two chemical plants in Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, and Pittsburgh. He found lax security; easy access to sites; unguarded rail lines; and employees, customers, and neighbors who allowed a stranger to walk in, some giving directions, to the most sensitive valves and control rooms in the place. At one steel plant, near Pittsburgh, mill workers tipped their hats to Prine as he wandered "toward 100,000 pounds of acid that could kill, injure, trap, or displace 16,000 people" living within a mile of the plant.

The paper continued with coverage of the lobbying efforts of the American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, to defeat legislation that would require stronger security at the nation's 15,000 chemical plants. That legislation, championed by Senator Jon Corzin of New Jersey, remains stalled.

Those stories stand as a model of dogged reporting for the rest of the press. Says Steven Aftergood, a senior research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists: "Chemical plant security has been inadequately reported. Chances are that wherever you are, there's a call for journalistic oversight of your local facility." After 9/11, and in 2002 and 2003, many media outlets did briefly note that chemical plants might be vulnerable, and some mentioned Corzine's mission to make them safer. But none came close to rivaling the Pittsburgh stories for thoroughness, enterprise, and insight.

By 2004 most of the press seemed to lose interest. Much of this year's coverage of the subject has centered on an address by John Kerry to the National Conference of Black Mayors, accusing the Bush administration of leaving chemical plants open to attack. Even when the General Accounting Office released a second report in February reiterating the same points it made a year earlier ?- about plant vulnerability and the inadequacy of a voluntary approach to security ?- only a handful of papers saw this as news.

One bright exception, though, was a 60 Minutes investigation, first aired last November, in which reporters followed Prine's map and visited dozens of chemical sites across the country. They found the same kind of security lapses that Prine had found two years earlier, including unlocked gates, dilapidated fences, and unprotected tanks filled with deadly chemicals. 60 Minutes noted the same legislative barriers to greater security that Prine had written about. The segment ran again in June, after which correspondent Steve Kroft pointed out that almost nothing had changed ?- including the lobbying by the chemical industry to defeat Corzine's bill. "

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/5/lieberman-homeland.asp

Bush is the best friend the terrorists have and the terrorists return the favor by giving him the issue to stand on for his reelection. Are we safer today absolutely not?

Good point.

Squinny says - What kinda thinking is that? There were no attacks on our homeland between 1993 and 2001, either. Did that make us safer? Did it prevent 9/11, which happened on GW's watch? That argument, which I have seen elsewhere many times so I am not attacking you, strikes me as the weakest argument of all for why we are safer. Why does that make you feel safer? "

That thinking is simple logic. Is there another way to measure SAFE other than the facts as presented today?

The US Govt was "asleep at the wheel" during the years prior to 9-11. The 9-11 comission report reflected those facts. Many of the recommendations by the Commission have been put in place as well as other measures as I described in my prior post.

Yet as I said prior, we are not as safe as we should be.


"

That's on the order of my elephant repellant. I keep a jar of my patented elephant repellant on my desk, here in the heart of Ohio. I've never seen any peritpatetic elephants in this area--ipso fatso, sozyeroldman, this repellant is 100% effective . . .


(Goofy emoticon for the comprehension impaired:)

Eh, a good point? More like ridiculous rhetoric.

I think we are safer today than we were sept. 10th. If nothing else, we are more alert to possible attacks and we have done many things to ensure an event like 9-11 does not catch us by surprise. In that sense, we are indeed safer today.

We are not safer.

Setanta



I am afraid it was wasted on McG

Yeah, AU, and it seems the goofy emoticon didn't help, either . . .

au, I am very familiar with Set's elephant repellant as I keep a small sachet of Klingon repellant in my desk.

Now, two things to be aware of;

One, Set posted as I was replying.
Two, What I said has nothing to do with what Set said. Please keep your patronising directed towards those that desire it.

I think we are not safer...and I think we are much LESS safe.

But while I place some of that at the feet of this incompetent administration with its counterproductive efforts, the fact is that no matter who was in charge...the threat simply has to get much, much worse before it has any chance of getting better.

In any case, I think this is an appropriate time to mention something that seems blatantly obvious to me:

When the time comes for our troops to evacuate Iraq...the situation will make the evacuation of Saigon look like a cake walk!!!!!

Which is my way of saying that our troops (a part of the "we" in Squinney's question) are much, much less safe.