National Security Disappointment Alerts

Chertoff Seeks to Improve Chemical Plants' Security

As anyone that reads this blog can tell, I am not a big fan of the way our government DOES NOT PLAN for national security. I believe that creating a Department of Homeland Security was merely a political tactic that made it appear we were doing something in response to the events of 9-11... What we needed was greater coordination between existing agencies and structures, as well as revamping the civil defense system to make it work for the post-9/11 realities... but we have needed to do that since 1975.

So the issues of our national security remain a major disappointment. And the response of the Bush administration to any and all security issues is nothing more than blowing smoke and waving mirrors.... None of the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission have been fully implemented... Our airports are still gaping holes of security problems (lost luggage amounts to over 10,000 bags per DAY!!!!)... and our ports are controlled by the mob, foreign corporations and/or security forces that don't have the tools or manpower to really do the job.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday that the time has come for the federal government to regulate security at chemical plants, but that it should rely on the industry to devise its own way to meet targets and use private contractors to audit compliance.

Addressing an American Chemistry Council forum, Chertoff stopped short of endorsing a Senate bill that would authorize his department to shut down high-risk plants that fail to submit adequate security plans. But he backed its approach of assigning 15,000 U.S. plants to one of four risk groups, setting performance goals for each category and leaving details up to operators.

"Congress can pass a balanced, risk-based security measure for the chemical industry this year" that "relies ultimately on the expertise and the knowledge of the chemical sector itself," Chertoff said.

In speeches to industry leaders and the Senate this month, Chertoff has led a carefully choreographed election-year push to close one of the most lethal security gaps that experts say the Bush administration has neglected since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

With national security a concern in Congress and industry motivated to head off a patchwork of state laws and crack down on companies that have evaded costly security changes, analysts say a deal on new legislation is possible.

"The public sector should set and enforce the homeland security standards that the private sector must meet," said the American Chemistry Council's president and chief executive, Jack N. Gerard, echoing Chertoff's call for federal standards for all industry members.

Chertoff signaled nearly a year ago that the administration was reversing course and supporting congressional legislation, but he offered few specifics. Yesterday, he said government should not "micromanage" the private sector by mandating the use of guards, gates or guns and should reward voluntary security improvements, which Gerard's group said have totaled $3 billion since the terrorist attacks.

On top of the physical security problems, we have information technology security problems that plague the FBI, DHS, FEMA and the White House.

DHS Earns another “F” on Cybersecurity Report Card

For the third straight year, the Department of Homeland Security has earned an “F” from the government in its annual computer security report card released late last week.

In an article on the CNET News.com website, Anne Broache says the House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform handed out the failing grade to the DHS, the agency that has principal responsibility for the nation’s cybersecurity.

But the DHS isn’t alone in its dismal performance, Broache says. “Of the 24 departments on the scorecard, seven others, including Energy, Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, State, and Defense, also received failing marks for 2005,” she says. “The scores for both Defense and State had hovered above passing – at D and D+, respectively – in 2004. The overall grade across all government agencies was D+, unchanged from last year.”

While the grades aren’t exactly a surprise, they are still “appalling,” Gene Spafford, a Purdue University computer science professor told Broache. “Despite all the rhetoric from government officials about preparedness and defense against those who would harm the U.S., it is clear that they still don't ‘get it’ about IT security,” he told her. To read the full article, click here

Deadly Sins Of E-Mail

Former FEMA chief Michael Brown was practically brought down by it: An e-mail faux-pas. We all like to share information via e-mail, but during a crisis, one e-mail mistake could do your business irreparable damage.

Then there is the problem that some of our federal law enforcement folks cannot even get e-mail... What good does the USA Patriot Act do to help agencies coordinate and cooperate if the basic communication tools don't exist?

FBI, 'You've Got Mail' -- NOT!: FBI Official Says Budget Doesn't Cover Accounts For All Agents

Budget constraints are forcing some FBI agents to operate without e-mail accounts, according to the agency's top official in New York.

"As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dot-gov accounts," Mark Mershon said when asked about the gap at a New York Daily News editorial board meeting.

"We just don't have the money, and that is an endless stream of complaints that come from the field," he said. (Watch how running short affects catching terrorists -- 2:00)

FBI officials in Washington denied that cost-cutting was putting agents at a disadvantage.

Spokeswoman Cathy Milhoan said e-mail addresses are still being assigned, adding that the city bureau's 2,000 employees would all have accounts by the end of the year.

Mershon, the assistant director in charge of the agency's New York City office, also said that 100 city agents have been given Internet-ready phones such as BlackBerry devices.

Christine Monaco, a spokeswoman for the FBI in New York, said Monday that all FBI agents can communicate with each other via a secure internal e-mail system, and about 75 percent of the New York office's employees have outside e-mail accounts.

"The outside e-mail accounts have to be separately funded," she said.

Senator Charles Schumer called for better access to technology for agents.

Then of course, if no one in the higher echelon of the federal government will listen, what good would it do to have communication tools anyway?

FBI Was Warned About Moussaoui:
Agent Tells Court Of Repeated Efforts Before 9/11 Attacks

An FBI agent who interrogated Zacarias Moussaoui before Sept. 11, 2001, warned his supervisors more than 70 times that Moussaoui was a terrorist and spelled out his suspicions that the al-Qaeda operative was plotting to hijack an airplane, according to federal court testimony yesterday.

Agent Harry Samit told jurors at Moussaoui's death penalty trial that his efforts to secure a warrant to search Moussaoui's belongings were frustrated at every turn by FBI officials he accused of "criminal negligence." Samit said he had sought help from a colleague, writing that he was "so desperate to get into Moussaoui's computer I'll take anything."

That was on Sept. 10, 2001.

Samit's testimony added striking detail to the voluminous public record on the FBI's bungling of the Moussaoui case. It also could help Moussaoui's defense. Samit is a prosecution witness who had earlier backed the government's central theory of the case: that the FBI would have raised "alarm bells" and could have stopped the Sept. 11 attacks if Moussaoui had not lied to agents. But under cross-examination by the defense yesterday, Samit said that he did raise those alarms -- repeatedly -- but that his bosses impeded his efforts.

Of course, if we don't follow proper procedure, due process and a decent prosecution plan when we do have a bit of success, we might as well not bother with any type of security.

Witness Flap Casts Doubt on Call for Death in Moussaoui Case

Almost from the beginning, the goal was clear: Zacarias Moussaoui must die.

This was the government's first, and likely only, chance to prosecute a suspect in the Sept. 11 plot in a U.S. court. And from the start, doing so would present a monumental challenge to federal prosecutors. With the world watching, the pressure would be enormous.

Pursuing a death sentence meant raising the stakes in what already was considered the highest-profile criminal case ever in the United States. For the team of three federal prosecutors it meant facing an unprecedented task: convincing a jury that Moussaoui should be executed even though -- by their own admission -- he wasn't directly involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

While I cannot support the death penalty, I do see something telling in the way the prosecution has handled this case... including the fact that if things were handled correctly ab initio there might not have been any 9-11 attacks at all.

And if our intelligence systems are unreliable and our data is not verified, and we don't work with the people we have doing the intelligence, what good is our intelligence?

Iraqi Official, Paid by C.I.A., Gave Account of Weapons

Saddam Hussein's foreign minister was paid for information he supplied to the Central Intelligence Agency, through the French intelligence agency, that raised questions about the scale of Iraq's weapons programs, former intelligence officials said Tuesday.

The role of Naji Sabri, Iraq's foreign minister from 2001 until the America-led invasion began in 2003, was first described publicly in a 2004 speech by George J. Tenet, the former director of central intelligence, but Mr. Tenet did not give the Iraqi's name.

NBC News reported on Monday night that Mr. Sabri had been the man Mr. Tenet described as "a source who had direct access to Saddam and his inner circle," and two former intelligence officials confirmed the identification.

Mr. Sabri did not meet directly with C.I.A. officers, but spoke with intermediaries in meetings arranged by the French intelligence agency, which passed the information on, the officials said.

One official said Mr. Sabri may not have known for certain that his information was going to the United States government or that the money he received — reported by NBC as more than $100,000 — came from the C.I.A.

The officials were granted anonymity because of the importance of the secret intelligence relationship they had described. Mr. Sabri, who is teaching at a university in the Middle East outside Iraq, declined to discuss the report, NBC reported. A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment Tuesday.

According to Mr. Tenet's account, which is generally in accord with that of NBC and the former intelligence officials, the source now identified as Mr. Sabri gave a mixed account of Iraq's weapons programs when he spoke with French intelligence officers in the fall of 2002.

And if we insist on policy analyses that are required to conform to a pre-determined sense of manifest destiny for democracy and world domination, our plans are dooned to fail...

There Is Some Deus ex Machina In Our International Actions

So whatever happens with the Iraq experiment--but especially if it fails--we need Dubai to succeed." These words have been rattling around in my mind ever since I read them in The New York Times last Wednesday, March 15. (Sorry I got to this so late.) These are Tom Friedman's words. You may have surmised this because Tom's signature thought is that there is some deus ex machina for everything, even apparently for an American failure in Iraq. But this is actually a relatively modest thought of his. He is usually more ambitious. Like when he worries about the destiny of civilization or for a peaceful planet. For these you can count, rest assured, says the wise man, on the Internet and on McDonald's. Both of these are also harbingers of democracy in the world. In any case, it's good that we have in Dubai a pillar of American policy in the Middle East. Or had--until the "dunces" (Tom's word) told Dubai "to go to hell." (I am one of the dunces.) That is, until some folk raised doubts about transferring actual control of six American ports to a company owned by one of the only three countries (the other two being Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) that had actual diplomatic relations with Taliban Afghanistan. The port of Dubai is, by the way, a center for smuggling all sorts of contraband, including drugs and weapons. Its banks have notoriously been cover for financial transactions to terrorist actions and actors, including the two 9/11 "martyrs" who came from the UAE.