by DemFromCT
So you think national security is why Bush got elected in 2004 despite everything that people don't like about him? Well, this will really thrill you, then.
The Bush administration and Congress are "moving at a crawl" against nimble terrorists, leaving the country vulnerable more than four years after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the former September 11 Commission said in a scathing final report on Monday.
The former commissioners -- who wrote the seminal 2004 analysis of what went wrong before and after the hijacked plane attacks -- criticized anti-terrorism efforts in a range of areas from emergency communications and disaster response to keeping weapons of mass destruction out of militants' hands.
"We believe that the terrorists will strike again. So does every responsible expert that we have talked to," Thomas Kean, who chaired the commission, said at a news conference.
"We are safer but we are not yet safe. Four years after 9/11, we are not as safe as we could be. And that is unacceptable," said Kean, a Republican and former governor of New Jersey. "While the terrorists are learning and adapting, our government is still moving at a crawl."
The former commissioners issued a "report card" reviewing how the commission's 41 recommendations have been implemented, and gave the government five failing grades of F -- including one for not providing adequate emergency communications.
Thomas Kean is, of course a Republican, in an era when 'moderate Republican' actually meant something (now it just means Chris Shays, Mike Bloomberg and Jody Rell, Republicans from NY/NJ/CT who win by running like Democrats). But if you really believe in this national security thing, listen to what the 9/11 commissioners have to say.
Commission member Timothy Roemer, a Democratic former congressman, expressed concern the administration and Congress were not up to the task.
"When will our government wake up to this challenge? Al Qaeda is quickly changing and we are not," Roemer said. "We are skating on thin ice. That ice is getting thinner and about to crack."
Kean said it was scandalous that airline passengers were not fully screened against watch lists and that homeland security funding was assigned according to pork-barrel political priorities rather than risk.
McClellan said more work "needs to be done there to make sure that the funding is prioritized and the resources are dedicated to the greatest risks. And that's something we will continue to do."
The commission's vice chair, former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton, said controlling weapons of mass destruction had to be the top national security priority.
"Given the potential for catastrophic destruction, our current efforts fall far short of what we need to do," he said.
One of the F's is for Homeland Security allocation of funds. That would be Mike Chertoff, Mike Brown's boss and ultimately responsible for the Katrina fiasco. Oh, and he's supposed to be in charge of birsd flu prep, too. Great.
As a former New Yorker, allocating funds to fix communications with first resonders should have been attended to years ago. Guess what? It hasn't.
Not only is the Bush Administration and the Republicans responsible for the K Street fiasco, and the absence of good government (pick your area), the can't even get their fundamental job done. let them keep making Bush TV spots with cutsy slogans and screened audiences. The bubble is disgraceful, but not nearly as much as their dereliction of duty. Aside from looting the Treasury, what can these people do right?
The report was too kind. Gentle.
In the event of disaster, BushCo will leave us to die. That isn't "safer." That's unsafe.
Americans are dying because of BushCo's decisions, BushCo's crimes, BushCo's unchristian greed.
Posted by: aquart | December 05, 2005 at 17:53
This issue is what Bush considers to be his trump card. I don't. Apparently the commission agrees with me.
Posted by: DemFromCT | December 05, 2005 at 18:11
I loved Jamie Gorelick's reading of some of the Fs and Ds grades the former commissioners awarded the Administration. Made me remember Sister Joseph Marie, my elementary teacher who used to read each student's grade aloud after every test, except most of her students did better than Bushco.
Overall g.p.a. if you count all 41 grades equally and ignore the incompletes given by the commissioners: 1.7. Not even the "gentleman's" C-average Bush managed to wangle out of Yale.
Posted by: Meteor Blades | December 05, 2005 at 18:27
As long as the Mayberry Machiavellis are in power and the areas that need the most anti-terrorism funds are all in blue states, the funding problem will remain. There is no policy, only politics, and it's much better politically for them to be tough guys and kick butt overseas than to direct funds to the real enemy (the Democrats.) Even if it doesn't work. They're only gambling with our lives, and they know they're right, so what's the worry?
Posted by: Redshift | December 05, 2005 at 20:10
Off topic, but firedoglake is not on blogspot. Anyone know what's up with that?
Posted by: LindyH | December 05, 2005 at 20:46
don't know... they were down when i checked, too. server issues at their end, i suppose.
Posted by: DemFromCT | December 05, 2005 at 20:51
I can get to blogspot.com. But it says there's no such blog on the server. I wonder if reddhead's excellent interview on the Air America Phoenix station pissed someone off.
Signed,
Lil ole paranoid me.
Posted by: LindyH | December 05, 2005 at 20:56
Wow! What'll it take? Do terrorists have to fly airplanes into buildings before we'll take this stuff seriously?
Oh, wait...
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