UPDATED: Sept. 11th: Four Years Later
Posted by StormWarning on 23 Sep 2005 at 06:53 pm | Tagged as: Federal Policy
This post provides a continuation and follow-up to a previous post, that reports on the results of the panel discussion sponsored by the Counterterrorism Blog. I’m not going to "editorialize" alot here since the words of the individuals who participated should stand on their own.
The question: September 11th, Four Years Later…Are We Safer?
On Thursday, the Counterterrorism Blog held a live panel discussion titled, "Four Years Later: Are We Safer?" Rep. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, gave the opening remarks, and Rep. Bennie Thompson, ranking Member of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, provided written remarks for the event. On the fourth anniversary of the deadly attacks which changed the world, Contributing Experts Dennis Lormel, Michael Cutler, Michael Kraft, Victor Comras, Douglas Farah, and Zachary Abuza share their written statements on the subject…
..Concerning the question, "are we safer today then we were prior to 9/11?, my response is…we are safer in certain respects but are a country at risk, at significant risk. We are safer in terms of the investigative and intelligence gathering capabilities of our investigative, intelligence and regulatory agencies…
…From an immigration perspective, I regret that in my judgment, our nation is no safer today than it was on September 10, 2001.
We are not as safe as we could be - partly because of the evolving nature of the international terrorism threat, and partly because we do not pay enough attention to the nuts and bolts of our counterterrorism efforts.
Considerable mystery and intrigue still surrounds the whole issue of terrorism financing. We know more today than we did four years ago, but there is still so much that we don’t know. Before 9/11 Al Qaeda’s budget was estimated by the CIA at around $30 – 34 million. We haven’t the faintest notion now of what al Qaeda and other salafist terrorist groups need or spend today.
What is clear is that al Qaeda, the Taliban, and those associated with them still get the money they need. And there is still considerable money flowing in to support radical Jihad indoctrination, recruitment, and training…
Sadly, I believe that if you closely read the complete statements of the CT Bloggers who participated in the September 8, 2005 panel discussion, objectively, you cannot conclude that we are safe four years later…are we "safer" than we were on September 10, 2001…more than likely, the answer is yes. Among the evidence is that we’ve not had another terrorist attack in the U.S., despite the aborted efforts of people like Lyman Ferris who supposedly wanted to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. Are we safer? Sure we are. Despite the hand wringing about the Patriot Act(s), surveillance and scrutiny of suspicious activites has increaed and expanded. Are we safer?
The mission of the Department of Homeland Security is to:
- Prevent terrorist attacks within the United States,
- Reduce America’s vulnerability to terrorism, and
- Minimize the damage from potential attacks and natural disasters.
When you look at the response to Katrina, you’d have to question about ability to react to a potential attack or natural disaster. If you watch the response to Rita, you’ve got to conclude that everyone has either learned from the Katrina debacle, or simply, don’t want to get raked over the coals like Nagin and Blanco did (all oversimplified).
Federal Policy
