Subject:  He is trying to put the spin on it that a cabinet level post was his idea. But it wasn't. |
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The Equalizer.
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Date Posted: 09:20:47 06/11/02 Tue
Author Host/IP: 168.143.113.118
In reply to:
YET HE IGNORED THE REPORT 1 1/2 years ago
's message, "A Year Later Bush Admits Bipartisan Committees Reccomendations on terror were Correct!" on 20:01:19 06/07/02 Fri
He rejected the findings of the bi partisan committee in 2001 because he is a partisan fool!
This is a great article Veeckster. Thanks for posting it.
Bush was more than a year late in executing this plan.
Totally irresponsible.
>Bush blew off the Hart/Rudman congressional committe
>recommendations a year ago! WHAT A FOOL AND LIAR!!!
>
>PATHETIC!
>
> June 7 — Give President Bush some credit. He said
>all the right things in his speech, and his government
>reorganization plan is necessary (though not
>sufficient) for improving the war on terrorism. But
>for the White House to say that Bush has always been
>“open-minded” about a Cabinet-level department of
>homeland security is pure spin.
>
>
> IN FACT, the president is more than a year
>late in executing an urgent reform that was clearly
>laid out for him by a presidential commission. The
>best that can be said for the plan now is: Better late
>than never.
> The reorganization outlined by Bush Thursday
>night — almost certain to be approved by Congress —
>will improve accountability by consolidating agencies
>from nine different Cabinet departments into a new
>major department. It closely resembles the plan
>recommended in early 2001 by the Hart-Rudman
>Commission on Homeland Security, co-chaired by former
>Sens. Gary Hart, a Colorado Democrat, and Warren
>Rudman, a New Hampshire Republican.
> But don’t expect the White House to admit that.
>According to Hart, it took Hart and Rudman five long
>months after September 11 even to get a meeting with
>Tom Ridge. How pathetic.
> Here’s a short and depressing history of the
>report, now the blueprint for the most important
>government reorganization in more than half a century:
> In 1995, Hart wrote President Clinton urging a
>reorganization of the national defense bureaucracy. “I
>used the analogy of 1946-47,” Hart told me this week,
>just hours before the president used the same
>post-World War II analogy in his speech. “I said,
>‘It’s now five years after the Cold War. Why not
>appoint a half dozen people to think about it?”
> Hart heard no reply from his fellow Democrat.
>In 1998, however, House Speaker Newt Gingrich had the
>same notion, and when Gingrich floated it, the Clinton
>White House jumped at the idea and appointed the
>Hart-Rudman Commission.
> In September of 1999, two years before the
>terrorist attacks, the commission offered a
>preliminary conclusion about the terror threat:
>Without dramatic bureaucratic changes, “Americans will
>die on American soil — possibly in large numbers.” The
>reaction from the Clinton administration? More
>meetings on terrorism, but no great urgency.
> The final report — recommending a Cabinet-level
>department — was delivered on January 31, 2001, eleven
>days after President Bush took the oath. Bush and his
>aides, especially Karl Rove, bore a grudge against
>Rudman, who had chaired John McCain’s presidential
>campaign in 2000. And Hart is a Democrat. So it was no
>surprise that they totally ignored the report.
>
> President Bush is proposing a Cabinet-level
>Department of Homeland Security with a $37.4 billion
>budget. Under the proposal, the department would be
>organized into four broad divisions, plus the Secret
>Service and an office for coordination with state,
>local and private-sector efforts. Here are the
>divisions, with the agencies to be brought under their
>umbrellas and where those agencies are now.
>Immigration and Naturalization Service: (Justice
>Department) Regulates immigration, travel into the
>country and provides border security.
>Customs Service: (Treasury Department)
>Regulates importation of goods and combats smuggling.
>Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service:
>(Agriculture Department)
>Monitors and manages animal and plant pests and
>diseases.
>Coast Guard: (Transportation Department) Provides
>coastline and waterway security and rescues.
>Federal Protective Service: (General Services
>Administration) Works to keep federal buildings safe.
>Transportation Security Administration:
>(Transportation Department) Ensure security for
>nation’s transportation systems.
>
>Federal Emergency Management Agency: (Independent
>agency) Provides assistance before, during and after
>disasters
>Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear
>response assets: Various agencies and groups respond
>to specific disasters and threats.
>Domestic Emergency Support Team: (Interagency group)
>Interagency team responds to domestic terrorism.
>Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response:
>(Energy Department) Sets nuclear security policy and
>regulates handling of nuclear materials.
>Office for Domestic Preparedness: (Justice Department)
>Works with state and local jurisdictions to prepare
>for and respond to terrorism.
>National Domestic Preparedness Office: (FBI)
>Clearinghouse for information on weapons of mass
>destruction.
>
>Civilian biodefense research programs: (Health and
>Human Services Department) Oversees research into
>defenses against biological weapons.
>Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: (Energy
>Department) Scientific and engineering research
>targeted toward national security.
>Plum Island Animal Disease Center: (Agriculture
>Department) Research and diagnosis to help stop
>foreign animal diseases.
>National Biowarfare Defense Analysis Center (new)
>Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office: (Commerce
>Department) Coordinates federal initiatives to protect
>U.S. infrastructure.
>Federal Computer Incident Response Center: (General
>Services Administration) Coordinates response and
>analysis of computer security threats for federal
>agencies.
>National Communications System: (Defense Department)
>Prepares for and coordinates communications in
>national emergencies.
>National Infrastructure Protection Center: (FBI)
>Assesses and coordinates response to threats to
>critical infrastructure.
>National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis
>Center: (Energy Department) Studies U.S.
>infrastructure systems for interdependence and
>vulnerabilities.
>
>
>WE’LL GET BACK TO YOU
> One far-sighted member of Congress, Rep. Mac
>Thornberry, Republican of Texas, took Hart-Rudman
>seriously. He offered legislation proposing a
>Cabinet-level department of homeland security. But in
>May 2001, Bush said that reorganization was
>“premature” and asked Vice President Cheney to report
>back to him on the matter. “This was a de facto
>statement to Congress — ‘Don’t do anything until you
>hear from us,’ ” Hart recalls.
> They never did hear back. Over the summer, the
>Bush White House did nothing. Today, Cheney claims he
>was just about to act when the terrorists struck on
>September 11. The best evidence that this is untrue is
>that the administration barely even acted afterward.
>
> Instead of a Cabinet-level department, Bush
>established a White House Office of Homeland Security,
>with Ridge as the chief. From the start, Democrats and
>a few Republicans complained that without a budget and
>some accountability on Capitol Hill, Ridge could do
>nothing significant to reshape the government’s
>anti-terrorism efforts. This has proven to be true.
> But the conservative wing of the GOP was
>against a new Cabinet department, and politics-even
>after September 11 — trumped reform in the Bush White
>House. Bush said repeatedly that he opposed a
>Cabinet-level agency, and he opted for a tepid
>homeland security plan recommended by Virginia Gov.
>Jim Gilmore, a GOP loyalist. The results were
>predictable. While the war in Afghanistan went well,
>the effort to secure American borders fell short.
> As for finding out what went wrong before 9/11,
>the policy here was to stonewall. Bush now says he
>supports the inquiry by the Joint Committee on
>Intelligence, but as recently as two months ago he was
>dead-set against it. And he continues to oppose the
>kind of independent outside commission established
>after Pearl Harbor.
>
>
>DAMAGE CONTROL
> The White House says today that it has been
>planning this announcement for weeks, and simply moved
>it up from July. Perhaps so, but it looks more like
>old-fashioned damage control. If this had been in the
>works so long, why was FBI Director Robert Mueller
>allowed to step out last week with an FBI reform plan?
>Normally, the president speaks first when it comes to
>sweeping reorganization of this kind. More likely,
>Bush finally recognized that he made a mistake, and
>moved this week to correct it.
> The next big bureaucratic question — perhaps
>requiring its own commission — is painfully clear: Is
>the culture of the FBI so entrenched that the bureau
>should be abolished, renamed and reconstituted? When
>Mueller says, as he did Thursday, that it will take
>two to three years just to install a new computer
>system, the answer may be yes.
> The president has begun the reorganization of
>the federal government. That’s good. But let the
>lesson be — think harder, bolder and earlier about the
>tough choices.
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