Printable Version
Instead Of Mock Disaster, Region Needs Real Security
By Scott Bates, New London Day
March 20, 2005
Southeastern Connecticut is about to become the center of America's homeland security efforts with the arrival of the TOPOFF 3 training exercises. While the region has America's leading homeland security officials as its guests, it's timely to ask some important questions about how serious they truly are about protecting us from terrorist attack. More than three years after the attacks of September 11, America remains vulnerable to attack from sea, land and air. Further, officials in Washington are not taking the basic steps needed to prepare for potential attacks or provide security inside America.
On the sea, the United States Coast Guard has been charged with, in addition to carrying out its traditional roles, assuming the frontline maritime defense of America's ports and coastline. To meet this challenge, the Coast Guard is using a fleet of ships that are often older than the crews serving on them. The current plan to modernize the fleet, “Project Deepwater,” is behind schedule and will not be completed until 2024. For the cost of a few months of the operational budget in Iraq, we could provide the Coast Guard with the 21st-century fleet it needs years ahead of schedule. Meanwhile, of the seven million cargo containers entering America's harbors and ports each year from overseas, only five percent are screened for the presence of radiation or weapons of mass destruction.
On the land, terrorists can literally walk across our borders at will. Just last year, more than 24,000 people from countries other than Mexico were caught crossing the U.S. border and then released because of a shortage of bed space and manpower at detention facilities.
Some of these people were from nations designated as state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran and Syria. Others were from places such as Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
While most of these thousands may be economic migrants in search of a better life, it is deeply troubling to note that recent reports indicate al-Qaeda has been talking with Central American gangs and Mexican smugglers about taking their operatives across the U.S. border.
Under our current security conditions, the best strategy for al-Qaeda infiltration of America would be to walk across the border, turn yourself in to the authorities, then get released and never show up for your hearing date.
Recent legislation was passed on Capitol Hill that authorized the hiring of 2,000 new border patrol agents this year to close the security gap on our land borders. The Bush administration has budgeted for just 240 new agents. Barely enough to keep numbers steady after attrition. Surely, we can do better.
In the air, commercial aircraft still remain vulnerable to terrorist attack. While all passengers are screened for security at the airport, the cargo placed in holds beneath their feet is not. We know that terrorists have attempted to shoot down passenger planes with readily available surface-to-air missiles, yet years after these incidents we have not deployed existing technology to protect planes from missile attack.
In our communities we remain at risk and unprepared in case of a terrorist strike. Across America there are 123 chemical plants that, if targeted in a terrorist attack, could each release chemicals that would threaten the lives and health of at least a million people. The nonpartisan Brookings Institution has concluded that an attack on a chemical facility ranked second only to a biological or nuclear attack in terms of fatalities. The FBI has described such a threat as “both credible and real.” Yet the Bush administration has not conducted a comprehensive assessment of chemical-plant vulnerabilities and has relied almost exclusively on voluntary industry efforts to improve security.
Our police, firefighters and health-care workers will be called on to respond to any and all kinds of terrorist attacks in our communities. Yet there are still first responders whose communications equipment is so outdated that they cannot talk to each other at the scene of a disaster. Is it any wonder that first responders do not get the tools they need to do their jobs when the federal homeland security grants are distributed not on the basis of risk, but on pork barrel politics? Because of the broken grant system, Wyoming receives $38 per person in homeland security grants, while New York receives only $5.
We can and we must do better. All of these security gaps mentioned above can be closed with leadership and resources. The president must place as large a priority on strengthening our defenses as he does launching wars in the Middle East. To do otherwise is the equivalent of hitting a hornet's nest with a baseball bat while standing in shorts and a t-shirt. Best to protect ourselves while we are attacking something that will try to bite back.
The attacks of September 11 were not a one time event, but were in fact the opening shots on our soil of a war with al-Qaeda that is far from over. While our brave troops fight this war overseas, it is our duty to do all we can to protect our neighbors and our families here at home.
Scott Bates, a Stonington native, is senior policy advisor to the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee and served on the Center for Strategic and International Studies / Heritage Foundation Task Force on Restructuring the Department of Homeland Security.