“The Most Insidious of Traitors”
Evil Incarnate forced himself out of his undisclosed location to give a speech in which he threatens the US will take action against Iran.
Once again, the misAdministration proves that it only goes after o-i-l and countries that do not already have nuclear weapons. North Korea, anyone? China? Israel? Britain? Pakistan, where Mr. Bin Forgotten is getting his groove on and encouraging his Taliban buddies?
From the Associated Press:
The United States and other nations will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday.
[snip]
He said Iran’s efforts to pursue technology that would allow it to build a nuclear weapon are obvious and that “the regime continues to practice delay and deceit in an obvious effort to buy time.” [Not that the Big Dick would know anything about practicing delay and deceit … – Jenn]
If Iran continues on its current course, Cheney said the U.S. and other nations are prepared to take action. The vice president made no specific reference to military action.
“We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
Gee, Mr. Vice-President, wouldn’t that have been easier if you and your minions hadn’t decided that Valerie Plame was “fair game”?
From ThinkProgress:
PLAME: Our mission was to make sure that the bad guys, basically, did not get nuclear weapons.
COURIC: When senior administration officials leaked her name to reporters, they may have exposed other spies and damaged operations targeting Iran. CBS News has learned that she was involved in one highly classified mission to deliver fake nuclear weapons blueprints to Tehran. It was called Operation Merlin, and it was first revealed in a book by investigative reporter James Risen. [my emphasis]
We Are Doomed
The Kyl-Lieberman amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill passed 76-22.
Why is this bad?
From ThinkProgress:
The legislation accuses Iran of fighting “a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq” and threatens to “combat, contain and [stop]” Iran. The right wing has quickly latched onto the amendment, claiming it “unflinchingly…calls on America to win” against Iran.
[snip]
(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and [stop] the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;
(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies. [emphasis TP]
Dear sweet gods and goddesses!
Senator Jim Webb called the amendment “Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream,” also saying: “At best, it’s a deliberate attempt to divert attention from a failed diplomatic policy,” said Webb. “At worst, it could be read as a backdoor method of gaining Congressional validation for military action, without one hearing and without serious debate.”
Why not just pass a “Let’s Bomb Iran and Other Places That Piss Us Off” resolution?
Who were the 29 Democratic senators stupid enough to vote for this?
Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Conrad (D-ND)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Levin (D-MI)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Whitehouse (D-RI)Obama and McCain decided not to bother voting.
– – –
Shall we start a 50-50 pool now? $5 donation per guess.
On what day will El Chimperor announce to the American people that he’s ordered the US military (any branch) to strike targets in Iran?
Closest to the right date and year wins 50% of the pot. The other 50% will be donated to the United Nations Children’s Fund.
Like I Said…
Remember the whole ‘nukes over America’ mess?
Remember me saying there was no way in hell this was an accident because just getting a nuke out of storage took layers of paperwork and dealing with special procedures?
Of course, I also said, at the end of this post, that this wasn’t just a fuck-up, but a chain of them.
Turns out Minot (and perhaps the Air Force, in general) are so fucked up that nuclear missiles are actually stored with conventional ones.
At least, that’s the story now: The airmen who started this whole nightmare simply grabbed the wrong ones. Oopsie!
Well, not simply. According to the WaPo, speaking to unnamed sources, no one followed procedure – not until a sharp-eyed airman at Barksdale happened to notice these weren’t normal missiles and called a supervisor.
From the Washington Post:
Just after 9 a.m. on Aug. 29, a group of U.S. airmen entered a sod-covered bunker on North Dakota’s Minot Air Force Base with orders to collect a set of unarmed cruise missiles bound for a weapons graveyard. They quickly pulled out a dozen cylinders, all of which appeared identical from a cursory glance, and hauled them along Bomber Boulevard to a waiting B-52 bomber.
The airmen attached the gray missiles to the plane’s wings, six on each side. After eyeballing the missiles on the right side, a flight officer signed a manifest that listed a dozen unarmed AGM-129 missiles. The officer did not notice that the six on the left contained nuclear warheads, each with the destructive power of up to 10 Hiroshima bombs.
That detail would escape notice for an astounding 36 hours […]
[snip]
A simple error in a missile storage room led to missteps at every turn, as ground crews failed to notice the warheads, and as security teams and flight crew members failed to provide adequate oversight and check the cargo thoroughly. An elaborate nuclear safeguard system, nurtured during the Cold War and infused with rigorous accounting and command procedures, was utterly debased, the investigation’s early results show.
The incident came on the heels of multiple warnings — some of which went to the highest levels of the Bush administration, including the National Security Council — of security problems at Air Force installations where nuclear weapons are kept. The risks are not that warheads might be accidentally detonated, but that sloppy procedures could leave room for theft or damage to a warhead, disseminating its toxic nuclear materials. [emphasis mine]
Read the whole article here.
The whole system collapsed, and why? Because the first step was making sure you were grabbing conventional missiles. From the moment those airmen reached for the wrong ones, everyone involved simply assumed they were not nuclear-equipped.
And what happens when we assume, boys and girls?
Okay, you can sort of see how it could happen. I mean, we’ve all grabbed the can of spinach off a shelf, thinking we were grabbing the green beans, so… okay.
Except for one thing, pointed out by sjm12561 in the comments at the WaPo: [sorry, WaPo apparently doesn’t know how to link individual comments… *sigh*]
Let’s say Minot does store conventional and nuclear munitions together which I don’t believe as the career fields supporting the two are different and the security requirements are completely mismatched.
Anyway, if the two are stored together whenever you access an igloo you would follow the procedures you have for nuclear weapons, not conventional. Two man rule would always be in effect until that igloo was closed and it had been clearly shown all nuclear weapons accounted for. [my emphasis]
A special security detail would have been set up; the fire department would have been on scene, the wing leadership would have been briefed that conventional weapons were being removed for shipment and told how the nuclear weapons would be protected.
The answer given to the Post stinks.
DoD, DHS Fail Audits
Anyone surprised?
From the AP:
Ten years after Congress ordered federal agencies to have outside auditors review their books, neither the Defense Department nor the newer Department of Homeland Security has met even basic accounting requirements, leaving them vulnerable to waste, fraud and abuse.
An Associated Press review shows that the two departments’ financial records are so disorganized and inconsistent that they have repeatedly earned “disclaimer” opinions, meaning that they simply cannot be fully audited.
“It means we really can’t put any faith in the numbers they use,” said Ross Rubenstein, who teaches public administration at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School. [my emphasis]
[snip]
The entire Homeland Security Department with a $35 billion budget this fiscal year, passed its first audit in 2003 with strong stipulations but has failed every one since.
And the Defense Department, with a $460 billion budget this fiscal year, has never even come close to passing. Because that department makes up at least 20 percent of all federal spending, the entire federal government also has failed its audits since the congressional mandate took effect.
IG Report: Move Faster When Firefighters Die
In response to an MSNBC.com investigation in February, Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) asked for an investigation by the federal inspector general, who issued his report this week.
From Bill Dedman at MSNBC.com:
Federal investigators should respond quickly when a firefighter is killed on the job, should spread the word promptly about equipment safety issues and may need increased legal authority to compel fire departments and unions to cooperate with investigations, according to a report this week by a federal inspector general.
The report was prompted by an MSNBC.com investigation, which revealed in February that 15 firefighters have died since 1998 in fires where a motion sensor called a PASS alarm, or Personal Alert Safety System, either didn’t sound or was so quiet that rescuers couldn’t find a downed firefighter quickly. Nine of those deaths came after managers at the Centers for Disease Control blocked an investigation by their own fire safety engineer into possible failures of firefighting equipment. Documents showed that the engineer was told by his manager in 2000 to “minimize your fact gathering during investigations.” [emphasis mine]
[snip]
The inspector general did not contradict any of MSNBC.com’s findings: The CDC usually takes more than a month to send investigators to the scene of a fatality; doesn’t investigate if the firefighters union or fire department refuses to cooperate; has cut back on the number of firefighter deaths it looks into, and destroys information that could help identify patterns of problems with safety equipment, training or tactics.
These problems are caused by a lack of resources and oversight, not by any wrongdoing or desire to cover up problems, said the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Daniel R. Levinson.
Read the entire article here.
Also read: Bill Dedman’s earlier reports on the No Go Team and the failure of PASS alarms.
As I wrote in Firefighters Die, No One Cares in February, this issue matters to me as the mother, ex-wife, and sister of volunteer firefighters. Our firefighters, especially the volunteers, deserve better than a shrug from the agency tasked with investigating their deaths and preventing future ones.
Jenn’s Sunday Sermon
No one’s shocked to discover even more proof of incompetence from the Bush misAdministration, are they?
From the Washington Post:
As the winds and water of Hurricane Katrina were receding, presidential confidante Karen Hughes sent a cable from her State Department office to U.S. ambassadors worldwide.
Titled “Echo-Chamber Message” — a public relations term for talking points designed to be repeated again and again — the Sept. 7, 2005, directive was unmistakable: Assure the scores of countries that had pledged or donated aid at the height of the disaster that their largesse had provided Americans “practical help and moral support” and “highlight the concrete benefits hurricane victims are receiving.”
Many of the U.S. diplomats who received the message, however, were beginning to witness a more embarrassing reality. They knew the U.S. government was turning down many allies’ offers of manpower, supplies and expertise worth untold millions of dollars. Eventually the United States also would fail to collect most of the unprecedented outpouring of international cash assistance for Katrina’s victims.
[snip]
More than 10,000 pages of cables, telegraphs and e-mails from U.S. diplomats around the globe — released piecemeal since last fall under the Freedom of Information Act — provide a fuller account of problems that, at times, mystified generous allies and left U.S. representatives at a loss for an explanation. […]
In one exchange, State Department officials anguished over whether to tell Italy that its shipments of medicine, gauze and other medical supplies spoiled in the elements for weeks after Katrina’s landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and were destroyed. “Tell them we blew it,” one disgusted official wrote. But she hedged: “The flip side is just to dispose of it and not come clean. I could be persuaded.”
[snip]
And while television sets worldwide showed images of New Orleans residents begging to be rescued from rooftops as floodwaters rose, U.S. officials turned down countless offers of allied troops and search-and-rescue teams. The most common responses: “sent letter of thanks” and “will keep offer on hand,” the new documents show.
Overall, the United States declined 54 of 77 recorded aid offers from three of its staunchest allies: Canada, Britain and Israel, according to a 40-page State Department table of the offers that had been received as of January 2006. [all emphasis mine]
What’s new (or news) here – other than the fact that this is embarrassing on a scale I can’t even begin to describe?
The Bush regime – with its emphasis on “loyalty” and habit of rewarding the big fundraisers, with its continual placement of incompetent, inexperienced personnel in key agencies (and driving out the career staffs of those agencies) – was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the damage and death and incapable of responding in a timely and appropriate manner to the disaster in New Orleans and around the Gulf Coast. And when other countries offered aid, in every manner possible, they were turned down or – even worse – had their aid packages left to rot.
What’s newsworthy is that this is a warning to every other major city in America: if something happens, you’re on your own. Not that the feds don’t want to help, but that they are hog-tied with politically-wired appointees who’ve turned everything they’ve touched to dust.
The “No Go Team” – Firefighters Die, No One Cares
Incompetence, lack of funds, poor management – who knows what the exact cause is. But the agency given the charge of investigating firefighter deaths is failing to do its job.
What follows are several excerpts from Bill Dedman’s very long report on MSNBC, on the Centers for Disease Control’s National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and their failure to properly investigate every death of a firefighter in the line of duty.
But first, here’s why this is important to me:
That’s my son. He’s 17 and a junior volunteer firefighter. I also have a brother and an ex-husband who are volunteer firefighters. And you can bet your life that if something happens to any of them while on a scene, I will be raising a hue and cry the likes of which have never been seen before until I get an answer on how and why it happened, and what could be done to keep it from happening to others.
So, raise a ruckus with your CongressCritters and tell them to do what it takes to make sure the CDC is properly funded and staffed and motivated to investigate EVERY. SINGLE. DEATH. of EVERY. SINGLE. FIREFIGHTER.
From MSNBC.com: [all emphasis mine]
The CDC didn’t ask for the job of investigating firefighter fatalities. That job was handed to it, after a union boss got a seat next to President Clinton on Air Force One. They were talking blue windbreakers.
After a plane or train crash, the National Transportation Safety Board dispatches its experts within two hours. The investigators in their familiar jackets take charge of the scene, secure evidence, follow leads.
[snip]
After a decade and more than 300 investigations, how is the CDC doing?
Call it the “No Go Team.”
An investigation by MSNBC.com shows that the CDC routinely takes as long as a month — and sometimes as long as nine months — to visit the scene of firefighter deaths. The CDC also:
- Doesn’t investigate a death at all if the fire department or fire union raises an objection.
- Has cut back in the past three years on the number of investigations.
- Destroys information that could help identify patterns of hazards with firefighting equipment, training and tactics.
[snip]
About 100 firefighters each year die on the job in the U.S. The number had been declining until the early 1990s, when it flattened out. It has stayed at 100 (not counting the 343 firefighters who died on Sept. 11, 2001), which means that the death rate per fire has climbed sharply, because fire safety efforts and smoke detectors have substantially reduced the number of fires. The number of structure fires fell by about one-eighth just in the past decade.
Last year was typical, with 104 firefighters dying in the line of duty, according to the memorial list kept by the U.S. Fire Administration.
[snip]
MSNBC.com found that the CDC delays sending investigators to the scene of firefighter fatalities. Although its investigation manual calls for a site visit within three weeks, the typical or median delay is actually 33 days, according to investigative reports studied by MSNBC.com. The longest delay was 266 days, or just about nine months.
[snip]
In St. Louis, after two firefighters died on May 3, 2002, the CDC team traveled from Morgantown on June 24, a delay of 52 days.
[snip]
Even in Worcester, Mass., where six firefighters died on Dec. 3, 1999, the CDC managers didn’t want to send anyone immediately to investigate, said Schmidt, the former CDC fire prevention engineer. He said he called a CDC manager at home.
“And his comment to me was, ‘Well, that’s not what we do. We’ll get up there in a couple of weeks,’” Schmidt said. “But the next day, I see that they’d all left to go up there.”
Castillo confirmed that the CDC went to Worcester immediately, only because the firefighter union called.
[snip]
Although the CDC told the association of five firefighter deaths that occurred where PASS alarms weren’t heard, MSNBC.com found 15 in its review of the agency’s reports.
The CDC didn’t identify the manufacturers, say when the alarms were made, or how they were maintained.
The CDC didn’t say, because it didn’t know.
The CDC investigators don’t collect the same information in every fire about firefighter equipment or clothing. Castillo said it is left to individual investigators to judge which information to collect on each case.
And once the information is collected, the CDC often destroys it.
[snip]
Castillo confirmed that the program keeps only the information in the reports it issues on firefighter deaths and the information in the CDC’s investigations database. But MSNBC.com found that neither of those repositories has information on the make or model of PASS devices, or boots, hose lines, fire engines or any other gear that firefighters rely on — except for air supplies, for which the CDC is the certifying agency.
Please read the entire story here.
Also read Bill Dedman’s previous report on the same agency’s ignoring a warning in 2000 about the failure of PASS alarms, meant to sound when a firefighter falls and/or fails to move for more than 30 seconds, allowing other personnel to locate and rescue them.
Some alarms are apparently malfunctioning when exposed to – you won’t believe this – heat and water.
UPDATE: 2/6/07 – 11:01pm EST
Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) is calling on the Dept. of Health and Human Services to investigate criticisms that the CDC ignored a 2000 warning that PASS systems were not working properly.
From MSNBC.com:
“It is completely unacceptable that our first responders don’t have the proper safety equipment, and if these allegations prove true, it’s unfathomable that the CDC would cover up something so detrimental to our firefighters’ safety,” Kerry told MSNBC.com. “I have asked the Department of Health and Human Services to launch a full investigation into these allegations. Nearly 1 million brave men and women risk their lives every day; we owe it to them and to the families of the deceased firefighters to get answers and hold the negligent parties accountable.”
Within hours of the story’s publication, Kerry’s office issued a press release stating that the Massachusetts Democrat had written to HHS Inspector General Daniel Levinson requesting the investigation of the unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention charged with investigating firefighters’ deaths.
Is It A Civil War Yet?
I decided to cut the last post in two. Going from my post-holiday trauma to the mess in Iraq was kind of a train of thought thing, and while most intelligent readers would know I wasn’t comparing them, I wouldn’t want the last remaining dregs of Bush supporters to become confused.
* * *
I read this morning that Chimpy McFlightSuit called 10 servicemembers to wish them a Happy Holiday. I guess the zookeepers decided it might just be a little dangerous to pull another ‘Eat and Run’ visit in Iraq this year.
Not that Chimpy’s aware of the danger going to Iraq might pose to his life. After all things are going great! Really. Democracy, freedom, blah blah 9/11 blah, win if we don’t quit, blah blah support the troops blah, we were attacked, blah blah hate our freedoms blah, terr’ists, blah blah blah, ……. ad nauseum.
It was a great day in Iraq. As we sat on our (over-sized) behinds watching football or “It’s a Wonderful Life” more than 215 Iraqis died in the worst violence since the start of the war.
From the Washington Post:
A barrage of car bombs, mortar attacks and missiles battered the Shiite Muslim slum of Sadr City on Thursday afternoon, killing around 200 people and injuring as many more in the single deadliest assault on Iraqi civilians since the start of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003.
The highly orchestrated attacks on the stronghold of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened to unleash yet another cycle of reprisal killings and push the country closer to all-out civil war. The attacks, targeting the heart of Baghdad’s Shiite community, seem designed to stoke the sectarian rage gripping Iraq.
Even as mourners gathered Friday for a heavily guarded funeral procession the attacks continued. Local authorities reported that 17 people died when a car bomb exploded near an auto dealership in Tal Afar, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad. The Associated Press reported that several mortar rounds exploded near the Abu Hanifa mosque, a site important to Sunni Muslims.
Following Thursday’s bombings, plumes of black smoke, and anguished screams, rose above a chaotic landscape of flames and charred cars, witnesses said. Bodies littered the streets and the smell of burned flesh filled the air. Relatives searched for loved ones as strangers helped the wounded reach hospitals overflowing with victims.
Meanwhile, angry Shiite residents and men from Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, wielding guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, roamed the streets, hurling curses and vowing revenge against Sunni Arabs.
“Our bellies are full of blood,” declared Ibrahim Tabour, a resident. “We’re going to fight the terrorists until the last breath.”
[…]
Shiite and Sunni leaders delivered statements on state television Thursday night, with some urging Iraq’s two main sects to leash their fury.
[…]
The dead included women and children, witnesses said. “I saw a child who was totally burned,” Abu Mohammed said. “I saw another child who was carried by an old man.”
The carnage spoke of the deepening sectarian divide and the dread that has engulfed the capital. “No one believes that any Shiite would kill their Shiite brothers. It’s the Sunnis and the Americans who did this,” said Kareem Hendul Miyahem, 40, a driver.
Tabour, like so many other Shiites, was thinking about revenge.
“If I catch a terrorist, I will not kill him with a weapon. I will not turn him over to the government,” he said. “I’ll catch him and cut him to pieces and drink his blood until the last drop.” [emphasis mine]
Okay…so now the Sunni and Shia factions have picked up the “War on Terror” theme. Great. Can we call it a civil war yet?
Meanwhile, Bob Novak – *snort* – tells us Rummy’s firing indicates something being terribly wrong with Chimpy’s presidency:
Donald Rumsfeld, one week after his sacking as secretary of defense, was treated as a conquering hero, accorded one standing ovation after another at the conservative American Spectator magazine’s annual dinner in Washington. The enthusiasm may have indicated less total support for Rumsfeld’s six-year record at the Pentagon than resentment over the way President Bush fired him.
[…]
In the two weeks since the election, I have asked a wide assortment of Republican notables their opinion of the Rumsfeld sacking. Only one went on the record: Rep. Duncan Hunter, the House Armed Services Committee chairman. A rare undeviating supporter of Rumsfeld, Hunter told me that “it was a mistake for him to resign.” The others, less supportive of Rumsfeld, said they were “appalled” — the most common descriptive word — by the president’s performance.
The treatment of his war minister connotes something deeply wrong with George W. Bush’s presidency in its sixth year. Apart from Rumsfeld’s failures in personal relations, he never has been anything short of loyal in executing the president’s wishes. But loyalty appears to be a one-way street for Bush. His shrouded decision to sack Rumsfeld after declaring that he would serve out the second term fits the pattern of a president who is secretive and impersonal.
[…]
Bush is no malevolent tyrant who concocts unpleasant surprises for his Cabinet members. Rather, letting the terminated official be one of the last to know of his imminent removal derives from congenital phobia over White House leaks that I have seen exhibited by Republicans dating to President Dwight Eisenhower (and leading to President Richard Nixon’s fateful use of “plumbers” to plug leaks).
News flash, Bob: Bush being elected president was terribly wrong. Everything was downhill from there.
Personally, I think Rummy should go to the Hague and face charges. Not just for being part of the marching band that drummed us into this war, but for thinking it could be done on the cheap. For allowing the military – which he was responsible for – to be ill-equiped for the terrain, the insurgency, for failing to plan for an occupation.
And, let’s not forget this:
This photo has probably gone around the world a hundred million times, but it’s always worth another look.
Yep, that is Donald Rumsfeld and yep, that guy he’s shaking hands with is indeed Saddam Hussein at a meeting on December 20th, 1983. Which would have been around the time that Saddam was busy killing, maiming, and torturing people for whom he would later go on trial.
Back then, you see, we hated the Iranians. And following the ‘an enemy of my enemy is my friend” policy of diplomacy, the US became buddies with Iraq and helped them in their war against Iran. Helped them by giving them all kinds of money and weapons that were not only used in the Iran-Iraq war, but were used by Saddam to kill his own people.
In effect, the United States is an unindicted co-conspirator in the murders for which Saddam was charged, convicted, and sentenced to death.
Doesn’t that just give you the warm fuzzies?
NYC: FU Chertoff
I would suggest that Michael Chertoff avoid going to New York City any time in the future without a very large and very well-armed Secret Service detail.
I'm sure someone at the Department of Homeland inSecurity is up for a promotion and a Medal of Freedom after writing a report that claims New York City has zero national monuments or icons, which caused the anti-terrorism budget to be slashed by 40%.
From ABC News' The Blotter: [emphasis mine]
New York has no national monuments or icons, according to the Department of Homeland Security form obtained by ABC News. That was a key factor used to determine that New York City should have its anti-terror funds slashed by 40 percent–from $207.5 million in 2005 to $124.4 million in 2006. "All I can tell you is if you look at their worksheets, and it says that New York City doesn't have any high visibility national icons … I mean, I don't have to list the Brooklyn Bridge, the United Nations, Rockefeller Center, the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building and the Stock Exchange," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in response to ABC News' questions.
[snip]
The form ignored that New York City is the capital of the world financial markets and merely stated the city had four significant bank assets.
Not that New York is a target or anything….
Zero national monuments or icons?! Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ!!
From the New York Daily News: [emphasis mine]
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff determined, however, that cities that have never been targeted by Al Qaeda — like Louisville, Atlanta and Omaha — deserve whopping increases. "This is a knife in the back," fumed a furious Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. "As far as I'm concerned, the Department of Homeland Security has declared war on New York." Mayor Bloomberg ridiculed Homeland Security's reasoning. "When you stop a terrorist, they have a map of New York City in their pocket. They don't have a map of any of the other 46 places or 45 places [that get funding]," he fumed.
[snip]
The fire chief of Charlotte, N.C., admits his city doesn't have any national monuments in danger of being bombed. And a spokesman for Omaha is "not aware" of a single credible threat against his municipality since 9/11.
Yet these cities are among 15 that received an increase in homeland security funding this year, while New York City's allotment was slashed. Most of the lucky localities are using their windfall to buy equipment, beef up training or create emergency response plans. In Louisville, Ky., for instance, the money will go toward creating a new communication system for first responders to a disaster. A spokeswoman drew on the failure of FDNY radios in the World Trade Center attack on 9/11 — even though the tallest building in Louisville tops out at 35 stories.
From Yahoo News:
Others, including Rep. Vito Fossella, … R-Staten Island, say Washington-New York relations were deteriorating steadily well before the funding cut, particularly after the disagreement about the seriousness of the stroller bomb warning.
"Chertoff has done a lot of damage when you think about the fact that his job exists because of Sept. 11 and a giant hole in Manhattan," said Fossella. "They need to immediately transform their responsibilities or pack up and go home."
Once again, the incompetence of the Bush mis-administration is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, but wait, there's more!
Washington, DC – our nation's capitol and scene of a terrorist attack on 9/11; home to the United States Government; 'hub of democracy' (though not lately…) – is also seeing it's anti-terrorism budget cut.
From the Washington Post: [emphasis mine]
The Department of Homeland Security yesterday slashed anti-terrorism money for Washington and New York, part of an immediately controversial decision to reduce grant funds for major urban areas in the Northeast while providing more to mid-size cities from Jacksonville to Sacramento.
The announcement that the two cities targeted on Sept. 11, 2001, would suffer 40 percent reductions in urban security funds prompted outrage from lawmakers and local officials in both areas, who questioned the wisdom of cutting funds so deeply for cities widely recognized as prime terrorist targets. The decision came less than five months after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff unveiled changes in the grants plan intended to focus funding on areas facing the gravest risk of attack.
Heckova job Chertie!
You Have Spoken
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“I don’t have an agenda, I don’t have a program. I’m not a communist or a socialist. I guess I’m a left-libertarian and a populist, and I believe in the Bill of Rights the way some folks believe in the Bible.”
– Molly Ivins, 1944-2007
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The Lady Speaks 