Political Heavyweights Talk Homeland Security

Political Heavyweights Talk Homeland Security

"'It's a disgrace and should not have happened.' That's what former FEMA Director James Lee Witt says about how the government handled its response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

While serving under President Clinton, Witt says FEMA helped states be more prepared for catastrophic natural disasters. Now, he says there's too much red tape and FEMA can't make fast decisions because it's part of the Department of Homeland Security. Witt says progress he made is now gone. 'They took preparedness and training out of FEMA and put it under Homeland Security,' says Witt. 'If you don't plan together, train together and exercise together, you're not going to be able to respond together.' Witt says FEMA needs to be separate again because lack of planning for natural disasters is our nation’s biggest threat. 'What you have now is dysfunctional, it's too big. They can't seem to figure out their mission," says Witt.'"

"Hours later in a separate room in the same building, Karl Rove spoke at a Republican fundraiser. The advisor to President Bush took no questions from the press, but did take shots at Democrats on the issues of court judges, terrorism and the economy. 'When the sun shines and it rains, they believe every day is a good day and every occasion a good occasion to raise your taxes,' says Rove. Rove says America’s biggest homeland security threat is terrorism."

It's a simple comparison: Compare the number of natural disasters, industrial accidents, major traffic accidents, power plant incidents and transportation crashes to the number of terrorist attacks over the course of the last 10 years and see which one is the biggest threat. If we make that same comparison over the past 20 years, what do we find? If we take that comparison over the last 30 years, what conclusions do we draw?

We have had two major terrorist attacks in thirty years, both focused on the World Trade Towers, with second one having secondary targets as well. The threat of terrorism is real, as we saw in the arrest of three Arab Muslims from Ohio. However, there is an underlying issue that makes Witt's assessment of the realities more on the money than that made by Rove: Being prepared for natural disasters is also being prepared for terrorist attacks. Building the emrgency response infrastructure, communication systems and cooperative plans for a natural disaster will also provide the very same infrastructure for a terrorist attack. (see the attached chart)

So, while Rove continues to push only the ideas George Bush wants on the agenda, we see yet another reason why FEMA and DHS are not effective.