Chicago Sun Times Editorial - Bush needs to rally all Americans to protect our nation
Chicago Sun Times Editorial - Bush needs to rally all Americans to protect our nation
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
September 10, 2006
Monday is the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Newspapers, magazines and TV news operations are again looking back at the tragedy. ABC will present a six-hour dramatic miniseries built around it, beginning tonight. We will see those planes fly into those buildings yet again, and again, and look in anger and sorrow at other images that made this one of the darkest and most heartbreaking days in U.S. history. We will remember where we were on that fateful morning. Some of us will remember where we could have been.
But even as 9/11 is treated as history, as something that happened in the past, it continues to have a profound impact on Americans -- not only in making us feel less safe in our homes and places of work, but also, for those of us still suffering from the physical and psychological effects of the attacks, in affecting us on a daily basis. Among the sufferers are some 40,000 rescue workers whose exposure to toxic materials at Ground Zero left them with respiratory problems a new study says are far more serious and long-lasting than anticipated. Many of them are still awaiting treatment, thanks to a system that was woefully unprepared and understaffed -- and, until now, underfunded -- to deal with 9/11 health issues.
If and when there is another terrorist attack on U.S. soil -- many experts see one as inevitable -- will we be any better prepared to take care of our walking casualties? Even more crucially, in our efforts to prevent such an attack, have we sufficiently raised the level of our security and the efficiency of our intelligence?
Whatever cracks in our defenses there appear to be, we shouldn't downplay the government's success these past five years in keeping Americans safe on their home turf. Say what you will about the immediacy of the threat or lack thereof of the thwarted Sears Tower plot and the planned subway attack in New York. Say what you will about the sometimes ludicrous measures taken by our airport security. But with rival intelligence agencies that once had refused to share information now cooperating, at least most of the time, there have been no terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11. Nor, thanks to a dramatic assist from British intelligence, have there been any attacks on U.S. planes. Having had our lives disrupted in 2001, we are mostly back to normal as consumers and air travelers and investors. A new poll shows two-thirds of New Yorkers still feel apprehensive about another attack in their city, but half of Americans think they are safer from terrorism than they were before 9/11.
Still, some of the decisive steps we had counted on to make us safer still have not been taken. Spending on domestic security will approach $60 billion in fiscal 2007, up from $16.8 billion in 2001. But the state-of-the-art radiation detectors and streamlined computer system promised to improve our screening of incoming cargo -- admittedly, a daunting task considering the sheer volume -- are not close to being in place. Only about 6 percent of containers at land ports are physically inspected, leaving our No. 1 fear -- jihadists smuggling a nuclear weapon into one of our ports -- unchecked.
For all its promises, the Department of Homeland Security has never gotten up to speed, adding rather than cutting through an overload of bureaucracy. Thanks to Congress prioritizing pork over protection, high-risk cities such as New York, Washington and Chicago have seen major portions of their anti-terrorism funding go to low-risk areas such as Tennessee and Kentucky. The agency's epic failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina augur the possibility of an inadequate response to an act of terror.
Though it is generally thought that our intelligence abroad has improved since 9/11, there are still far too few foreign service personnel at work there -- and too few FBI and CIA agents conversant in Arabic, meaning information that may need quick processing is unlikely to get it. As well as we may have adjusted in some ways to the enormous complexities of fighting the war on terror, the enemy has adjusted also in spreading its evil to new outposts and inspiring new associated movements. Who would ever have thought that London would be attacked by homegrown terrorists? If we once thought killing Osama bin Laden would bring al-Qaida to its knees, we now know that killing a dozen of his henchmen won't be enough, what with a deep supply of determined followers popping up in their stead.
All of which means that on Sept. 11, 2006, we have to be better at and more committed to fighting this war than ever. Our representatives in Washington may think they can afford to allow the issue of national security to bog down in partisan election-year politics. But that kind of thinking is dangerously counterproductive. President Bush needs to be the unifier he once said he was in rallying Americans of all political stripes to a cause that, five years on, is more urgent than ever.
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
September 10, 2006
Monday is the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Newspapers, magazines and TV news operations are again looking back at the tragedy. ABC will present a six-hour dramatic miniseries built around it, beginning tonight. We will see those planes fly into those buildings yet again, and again, and look in anger and sorrow at other images that made this one of the darkest and most heartbreaking days in U.S. history. We will remember where we were on that fateful morning. Some of us will remember where we could have been.
But even as 9/11 is treated as history, as something that happened in the past, it continues to have a profound impact on Americans -- not only in making us feel less safe in our homes and places of work, but also, for those of us still suffering from the physical and psychological effects of the attacks, in affecting us on a daily basis. Among the sufferers are some 40,000 rescue workers whose exposure to toxic materials at Ground Zero left them with respiratory problems a new study says are far more serious and long-lasting than anticipated. Many of them are still awaiting treatment, thanks to a system that was woefully unprepared and understaffed -- and, until now, underfunded -- to deal with 9/11 health issues.
If and when there is another terrorist attack on U.S. soil -- many experts see one as inevitable -- will we be any better prepared to take care of our walking casualties? Even more crucially, in our efforts to prevent such an attack, have we sufficiently raised the level of our security and the efficiency of our intelligence?
Whatever cracks in our defenses there appear to be, we shouldn't downplay the government's success these past five years in keeping Americans safe on their home turf. Say what you will about the immediacy of the threat or lack thereof of the thwarted Sears Tower plot and the planned subway attack in New York. Say what you will about the sometimes ludicrous measures taken by our airport security. But with rival intelligence agencies that once had refused to share information now cooperating, at least most of the time, there have been no terrorist attacks in the United States since 9/11. Nor, thanks to a dramatic assist from British intelligence, have there been any attacks on U.S. planes. Having had our lives disrupted in 2001, we are mostly back to normal as consumers and air travelers and investors. A new poll shows two-thirds of New Yorkers still feel apprehensive about another attack in their city, but half of Americans think they are safer from terrorism than they were before 9/11.
Still, some of the decisive steps we had counted on to make us safer still have not been taken. Spending on domestic security will approach $60 billion in fiscal 2007, up from $16.8 billion in 2001. But the state-of-the-art radiation detectors and streamlined computer system promised to improve our screening of incoming cargo -- admittedly, a daunting task considering the sheer volume -- are not close to being in place. Only about 6 percent of containers at land ports are physically inspected, leaving our No. 1 fear -- jihadists smuggling a nuclear weapon into one of our ports -- unchecked.
For all its promises, the Department of Homeland Security has never gotten up to speed, adding rather than cutting through an overload of bureaucracy. Thanks to Congress prioritizing pork over protection, high-risk cities such as New York, Washington and Chicago have seen major portions of their anti-terrorism funding go to low-risk areas such as Tennessee and Kentucky. The agency's epic failures in responding to Hurricane Katrina augur the possibility of an inadequate response to an act of terror.
Though it is generally thought that our intelligence abroad has improved since 9/11, there are still far too few foreign service personnel at work there -- and too few FBI and CIA agents conversant in Arabic, meaning information that may need quick processing is unlikely to get it. As well as we may have adjusted in some ways to the enormous complexities of fighting the war on terror, the enemy has adjusted also in spreading its evil to new outposts and inspiring new associated movements. Who would ever have thought that London would be attacked by homegrown terrorists? If we once thought killing Osama bin Laden would bring al-Qaida to its knees, we now know that killing a dozen of his henchmen won't be enough, what with a deep supply of determined followers popping up in their stead.
All of which means that on Sept. 11, 2006, we have to be better at and more committed to fighting this war than ever. Our representatives in Washington may think they can afford to allow the issue of national security to bog down in partisan election-year politics. But that kind of thinking is dangerously counterproductive. President Bush needs to be the unifier he once said he was in rallying Americans of all political stripes to a cause that, five years on, is more urgent than ever.
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 7:01 AM
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