NY and DC

rimrocker · Jun 2, 2006

So, DC and NY Homeland Security funds are cut. Iis this incompetence or cronyism or both or more? As the commentator at Tapped (see below) makes clear, why are we arguing about such negligible amounts? This is almost in the category of "budget dust." We should be able to fund NY and DC and other cities. Problem is, we have a huge deficit and more tax cuts were just passed. It's hard to argue that this administration's highest priority is tax cuts, even if those tax cuts will eventually make the country less safe. This whole thing is incomprehensible to me.

Flash: DHS Disputes Al-Qaeda's 5-Star Rating of Two U.S. Cities

By Dana Milbank
Friday, June 2, 2006; A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/01/AR2006060101722_pf.html

Homeland Security Undersecretary George Foresman was leaving the Chamber of Commerce on H Street yesterday morning when he met one of his subordinates, Tracy Henke, arriving to deliver a speech.

"It's gonna get better," Foresman told Henke, consolingly.

Henke shrugged. "You just roll with it," she said.

Or, more likely, get rolled. Henke, who is in charge of Homeland Security's grant-making, has become a target of ridicule since she announced plans Wednesday to cut counterterrorism money for New York City and the Washington area -- which together have been the targets of 100 percent of al-Qaeda's terrorist attacks on American soil -- by 40 percent each.

Adding insult to this injury, Henke's department judged that the nation's capital is a "low-risk" city and that the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge and Empire State Building are not worthy of "national icon" status. By contrast, those terrorism magnets of Kansas City and St. Louis -- both by happenstance in Henke's home state of Missouri -- received boosts in funds. Other winners: the horses of Louisville, the cattle of Omaha and five cities in Jeb Bush's Florida.

Sounds dubious? Sorry, you can't see the data Henke used. Classified.

To nobody's surprise, the actions at DHS have brought furious condemnations, most notably from Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, who wrote in Thursday's New York Post: "As far as I'm concerned, the Department of Homeland Security has declared war on New York City."

Henke seems rattled. Arriving for her speech yesterday to a DHS-backed group called the Citizen Corps, she was a bit out of breath and hurried to the stage, saying "I'm up again." She immediately brought up the controversial grant announcement and appealed to her audience for some love.

"Needless to say, not everybody has nice things to say about me," she said, so "anybody who wants to say something nice, please feel free to do so. You know, it's one of those things where it's occasionally important to have a little bit of that positive affirmation. If nothing else, then I'll have to call my parents, and the reality is they don't give it to me either."

In this time of torment over big-city terrorism funding, Henke opted to recall her small-town upbringing. "People come to Washington and they forget where they came from and they think all knowledge, all information, all good ideas generate in the marble buildings of Washington, D.C.," she argued. "Guess what? Not true. Not true at all. I'm very fortunate, I come from a very small town in Missouri." She said she keeps a sign in her desk that says "Remember where you came from."

Henke has. St. Louis, not far from her hometown of Moscow Mills, gets a 31 percent boost in counterterrorism money under the new formula.

The new DHS plan is advertised as a "risk-based" model, but it came up with almost the opposite conclusions to a Rand Corp. study last year that calculated terrorism risk to 47 cities. Seven of the 10 highest-risk cities in the Rand study will lose funding under the DHS plan; six of the 10 lowest-risk cities in the Rand study will see increases in funds, including such hot spots as Milwaukee and Tampa.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff tried to tamp down the controversy in a speech later at the Brookings Institution, arguing that "it's only a reduction if you choose to look at the highest year of funding" -- which happens to be last year. This explanation didn't satisfy, and Chertoff, barraged by questions on the subject, became petulant, saying that "threatening the secretary is not a way to drive funding decisions," and "there's a little bit of the quality of what-have-you-done-for-me-yesterday about some of the criticism."

Foresman, the undersecretary for preparedness and Henke's boss, avoided the controversy as he spoke to the Citizen Corps yesterday. "We have a moment in time where we've got sustained federal funding to states and communities," he told the group.

Sustained? The urban terrorism funds are to be cut 14 percent overall.

Approached by reporters after his speech, Foresman allowed that the new formula isn't just about a city's risk; he said there's also an "effectiveness" score, rating each city on "how well are they able to articulate the application of resources." Washington and New York were, evidently, not as "articulate" as DHS desired. Never mind that the urban grants were supposed to balance out other counterterrorism programs that, under a formula imposed by Congress, give disproportionate money to such strategic hubs as Vermont, North Dakota and Wyoming.

A reporter asked Foresman how he can be sure the new criteria are valid. "Good question," he allowed.

The lady from Missouri entertained no such uncertainty. "I'm happy to defend it," Henke said before her speech, in which she boasted that "we have accomplished a tremendous amount."

Asked later if she expected the uproar, she replied: "There's no getting around the outburst coming. Risk exists elsewhere in the nation and we have done a much better job at identifying, calculating and analyzing that risk."

And besides, she added, "you have sites in Wyoming that have risks associated with them."

It's true: The bison of Grand Teton have lived in fear of al-Qaeda long enough.
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What's strange and unsettling, though, is how small the dollar amounts truly are. DC and New York shouldn't need their funds slashed so Montana can have theirs increased. A couple months back, we passed $70 billion worth of tax cuts. That money could have ticked off every item on the counterterrorism community's wishlist. And now we want to repeal the estate tax, at a time when every public health and nuclear preparedness expert says we're woefully unprepared for a WMD attack? It is, quite literally, insane. This administration's spending priorities are criminal, and when we buy into the DHS's rationales over "landmarks" and unimpressive applications (one of the reasons DC got little money -- as if this were college admissions rather than terrorism), we're missing the forest for the trees.
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/
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Calculating risk is a complicated business, but, fortunately, America has a lot of very smart people studying the problem. Rand, in particular, argues that treating assets equally without considering the threat environment is likely to give a false picture of risk. The Department of Homeland Security, in an effort to beat back some of the criticism it's receiving, issued a statement yesterday asserting that it had, in fact, adequately taken New York's iconic stuctures into consideration:

The Empire State Building was reviewed as a tall office building and the Brooklyn Bridge was reviewed as a bridge in the analysis for New York City. They were not including as “national monuments” as this would have unfairly counted both structures twice.

This is precisely the problem with the Department of Homeland Security risk assessment instrument. Not all tall office buildings are equal, and if you fail to consider the symbolic or strategic value of assets -- as well as the threat environment in which certain symbolic or strategic assets are demonstrably at higher risk of attack by the actual enemies we're girding ourselves against -- and consider all assets equally, you're going to come up with a risk analysis model that over-selects for sending homeland preparedness funds to lower-risk communities that appear to have many vulnerable assets. The Brooklyn Bridge is not just any bridge, just as the three bridges around the port of Los Angeles, through which 40 percent of foreign goods come into the U.S., are not any old bridges. Those California bridges may look like plenty of other ugly highway overpasses, and it may cost just as much to fortify them as some random stretches of concrete in Wyoming, but they are much, much, much more important, and consequently deserve special consideration.

Not all assets are created equal, and that's the main reason I'm not nearly as worried about terrorists attacking the skywalks of Des Moines as I am about the bridges around the Port of Los Angeles, which James Verini described in this magazine in 2005 as "the single most attractive target for economic terrorism in the country" and which remained, "more than three years after 9-11, after hundreds of millions of dollars spent on risk assessments and plans...essentially, an open bull's-eye."
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/
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rimrocker · Jun 2, 2006

Ugh. Blame the locals for crappy or venal administration decisions. Where have we seen this before?

City Has Itself to Blame for Terror Cuts, U.S. Says
By AL BAKER and DIANE CARDWELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/n...=1149307200&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

The federal agency distributing $711 million in antiterrorism money to cities around the nation found numerous flaws in New York City's application and gave poor grades to many of its proposals.

Its criticism extended to some of the city's most highly publicized counterterrorism measures.

In a report that outlines why it cut back New York City's share of antiterrorism funds by roughly 40 percent, the Department of Homeland Security was so critical of some highly viewed local measures — like Operation Atlas, in which hundreds of extra police officers carry out counterterrorism duties around the city each day — that the Police Department and other city agencies must now seek further federal approval before drawing on the money they were given to pay for those programs.

Federal officials said yesterday that the city had not only done a poor job of articulating its needs in its application, but had also mishandled the application itself, failing to file it electronically as required, instead faxing its request to Washington.

City and state officials insisted that they had made no mistakes. And a state official provided a written acknowledgment from the federal government saying that the city's application for grant money had been "successfully submitted" and said that the city could "log in" any time to view the application.

New York City received $124.5 million from the Department of Homeland Security, about 40 percent less than the $207.5 million it received the year before. Many smaller cities around the country, like Charlotte, N.C., saw their shares increase sharply.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg questioned yesterday whether old-fashioned pork barrel politics was at play in doling out the money in an election year. He was one of several elected officials who moved on different tracks to uncover how the decisions were made, with an eye toward revising that process.

"We tried to do an analysis of some of the moneys and whether or not they were given out for political reasons, and in fact in many of the places where they got money — but arguably there's no threat — there are close elections either at the Senate level or the House level," the mayor said. "Now, whether that was their motive I have no idea."

The White House tried to minimize the effect on New York. The grants will be reconsidered each year and could change if "some grand and unforeseen need arises," said Tony Snow, the White House press secretary. "The point of homeland security, as I said before, is to provide security for the entire homeland," he said. "And certainly no disrespect meant to New York with $124 million for this coming year."

The report, obtained yesterday, pointed out opposing views held by cities and the federal government over how antiterrorism money should be spent and, as an extension of those views, how terrorism should be fought.

City officials have used federal money to subsidize continuing costs, like paying overtime to officers. The federal government, on the other hand, wants the grants to pay for semipermanent safeguards that can increase security over the long term, like improvements in communications systems, better gas masks and increased training.

The report faulted the city for not adequately explaining why the money being requested could reduce risks.

Though the report said the city was in the top 25 percent of urban areas at risk, it rated the city in the bottom 25 percent in the quality of its application. It rated the Police Department's counterterrorism program and Operation Atlas as below average in sustainability, a criticism of the continuing overtime costs.

Eight of the city's programs including the counterterrorism division and Operation Atlas, as well as some health and training programs — fell in the bottom 15 percent, meaning any federal money used toward them will need to be specifically approved.

Elected city officials were especially stunned that the report said New York had no national monuments or icons. The city's application was evaluated by so-called peer-review panels of five to seven people with varying backgrounds from 47 states and affirmed by government analysts at the Department of Homeland Security.

Angry officials in New York zeroed in on the peer review process yesterday, trying to determine who evaluated the programs and whether their judgments were clouded by a desire to steer security money to their own areas. City officials questioned whether the reviewers had expertise in antiterrorism efforts.

Members of New York's Congressional delegation presented a united front in pledging action to change the allocations. Representative Peter T. King, a Republican and chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said he would hold hearings to investigate the process, while Senators Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, both Democrats, wrote letters to Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, demanding a full explanation.

In Washington, Mayor Anthony A. Williams described the decision to cut his city's allocation by 40 percent as shortsighted.

A spokeswoman, Sharon Gang, said the Homeland Security Department did not give much of a rationale for the cuts and that their proposals rated average or above average on almost all counts.

"It sounds like they made a unilateral, gut decision not based on our application," Ms. Gang said. "And they scored other locations higher."

Officials in New York said the impact of the cash drain would be felt.

"We have a counterterrorism center that would deal with all of the potential scenarios that we have been studying that we have to be prepared for that could be dramatically affected by any cut in funding," said Fire Commissioner Nicholas A. Scoppetta. "It's as though Washington is not going to be convinced of the need until they have another terrible incident in a place like New York or Washington."

Paul J. Browne, a senior aide to Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and the department's chief spokesman, said: "The N.Y.P.D. will continue to do what it needs to do to keep the city safe," he said. "We'll just be doing it without D.H.S. stepping up to the level expected of it."

He said the department's counterterrorism work had been essential in defending the city since 9/11 "What more evidence do they need?" he said.

Stephen C. King, a lawyer who specializes in emergency-response and domestic security issues at Hunton & Williams in New York, said he could not understand the 40 percent cut to the city. "I'll have to look at it closer," he said, "but I can't wrap my arms around that one."

Though the federal officials said the city did not file properly, the city said state officials filed its package, and a state official said its package of applications was filed electronically on March 2, the deadline.

In an interview, George W. Foresman, under secretary for preparedness as the Department of Homeland Security, applauded some of the security work being done by New York, while raising the question of just what is the proper use of the federal funds.

"Do you pay for what are viewed as basic capabilities; law enforcement, fire, E.M.S., public health, emergency management?" he asked. "Whose role is it to pay for that, versus whose role is it to pay for specialized training and equipment for fire, E.M.S. and law enforcement?"

Mr. Chertoff said yesterday: "There was no suggestion about anything we did that New York is not the No. 1 terror target. But I do think it's fair to ask this question: After a city gets $500 million, more than twice as much as the next-largest city, is it correct to assume they should continue to get the same amount of money year after year after year after year with everybody else dividing up what remains?"

Still, Mr. Schumer called the episode an "absurdity," saying the grading system did not make sense.

"It would be as if you got 800's on your boards and Stanford Law School rejected you because you put the stamp on upside down," he said.
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rimrocker · Jun 2, 2006

I'm glad DC is at a low risk of attack... this means that of the 57 states and territories, at least 42 or 43 of them graded out as having a higher risk to terrorism than Washington, DC. Assuming the 6 territories are at the bottom of the list, it means that at most, only 7-8 states are graded below DC. Let's see, that would be... Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Wait, that's 33 states. I must have miscounted, because what are the odds that DHS is wrong? What are the odds our capital could be targeted again?

D.C. at Low Risk Of Attack, Says Federal Agency

By Mary Beth Sheridan and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 2, 2006; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/01/AR2006060102012_pf.html

The Department of Homeland Security has ranked the District in a low-risk category of terrorist attack or catastrophe, putting it in the bottom 25 percent of U.S. states and territories, as part of a decision that will cost the city millions in anti-terror funds, according to city and federal officials.

The news came as irate officials from New York and Washington demanded explanations for why the department slashed funds in a separate urban anti-terrorism program by 40 percent for the metropolitan areas hit hardest by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out these are two cities still at risk," said D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey.

Homeland Security officials said the District had far fewer potential targets than the larger jurisdictions, such as California, it competed against. They said the decisions came after an elaborate process aimed at fairly dividing anti-terror funds.

"From a risk perspective, even with all the things that the District of Columbia has versus a New York or a Florida or a California, it's a much different case," said Tracy A. Henke, assistant secretary for grants and training at DHS.

The department adopted new, risk-based procedures this year to divide $1.7 billion in 2006 anti-terror funding for states and cities. Officials announced Wednesday that under the biggest program -- involving urban areas -- the capital region's allocation of about $77 million last year would be cut to $46.5 million.

D.C. officials, stunned to lose so much money, then got another jolt: Under a smaller program, tailored for states, the District's grant shrank to $4.3 million, from $9.2 million last year. City officials had expected a reduction because funding for the entire program had been halved. But they were shocked by the department's rationale.

"They said relative to the other states, the District is not high risk," said Edward D. Reiskin, D.C. deputy mayor for public safety. "It was pretty surprising."

Ramsey expressed even more outrage, noting that the District received among the smallest allocations in the country.

"Are you going to tell me Rhode Island should get more money than the District of Columbia?" the chief sputtered in an interview on Washington Post Radio.

Although the District is home to the White House, the Capitol, FBI headquarters and many national monuments, it received a smaller state grant than Montana, Hawaii and Utah. Each of them received $4.5 million, as did Rhode Island.

Henke said the nation's capital ranked in the lowest 25 percent of states and territories in part because it competes with much larger jurisdictions, which have much higher numbers of "critical infrastructure" targets.

"When you look at the District of Columbia, you have to look at its scale," she said.

In contrast, the Washington region -- including the Virginia and Maryland suburbs -- ranked in the top 25 percent of metropolitan areas for risk, she and other officials said.

Henke said she could not provide exact details of how the District's low-risk score was calculated but said it includes factors such as population, vulnerable assets and intelligence information. When asked whether the score included consideration of the Sept. 11 attacks, which included plans to strike either the Capitol or White House, Henke said, "We're looking at the most recent information."

Department officials have declined to release a list of risk scores for the jurisdictions vying for funding under its grant programs. The department has also declined to release information about the review panels, made up of law enforcement and homeland security officials from 47 states, whose recommendations were used in making decisions.

The risk of attack was not the only factor that went into the grant allocations. States and localities were also judged on the effectiveness of the plans outlined in their applications. And those from the District and the capital region received low marks compared with plans from other jurisdictions, officials said.

"They said everything [in the applications] was at or above average, but that it was not as good as most other urban areas' submissions," said Reiskin, who as deputy mayor helped coordinate the process for the District. "So there seems to be an inconsistency there. But the detail is what we haven't really received."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, under fire for the government's response last year to Hurricane Katrina, is facing sharp criticism in the wake of the grant announcements, including resignation demands from the New York Daily News and Rep. John E. Sweeney (R-N.Y.).

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), chairman of the Committee on Government Reform, announced yesterday that he will hold a hearing on the grants.

"We have to understand how this formula spit out numbers that give less money to the National Capital Region," said Robert White, a Davis spokesman. "On the surface, it doesn't make a lot of sense to us."

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said she was asking for a meeting next week with DHS officials to review the reasons for the cuts. And, in a move led by Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), the Washington area's congressional delegation plans to send a letter to Chertoff today decrying the 40 percent reduction in grant funds for the region, according to a draft copy of the letter.

"DHS' conclusion that the [Washington region] can absorb such a cut and still provide adequate protection for millions of citizens and visitors is both shortsighted and unacceptable," the letter says.

Appearing last night on PBS's "The News Hour With Jim Lehrer," Chertoff said he believed that New York and Washington got "a fair shake." New York and Washington may have been hurt by their relative success in securing potential targets; officials want to "spread the money to other places," Chertoff said. He said New York has received more than $500 million in grants since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Washington region, meanwhile, has received more than $213 million in urban anti-terror grants, records show.

Stung by an $83 million cut this year to the city, politicians in New York were fuming.

A DHS risk assessment sheet for New York said the home of the Statue of Liberty and other landmarks had zero "national monuments and icons. " The assessment also tallied only four banking and finance institutions worth more than $8 billion. Republican Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's office says there are at least 20.

"Maybe the secretary will come meet us at the Empire State Building so we can show him the many national icons in New York," said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-New York).

Henke said the Statue of Liberty was included in the state risk rating but was not counted in the city rankings at all, in part because the statue is federal property. She also said other landmarks, such as the Brooklyn Bridge or Empire State Building, were counted in other categories, such as bridges or tall buildings.
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rimrocker · Jun 3, 2006

The problem I see is that we are still in a Cold War groupthink here... what are the targets the Soviets would try to hit vs. what's going to give the terrorists the biggest emotional bang for the buck? That DHS cannot make that transition (and I would argue the Cons running our govt have yet to make that transition) means we're in much worse shape then we should be at this stage.

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/

Tooling around the Office of Grants and Training Site, I also found this "Discussion of the FY 2006 Risk Methodology and the Urban Areas Security Initiative", which is really quite fascinating. Apparently, the DHS risk evaluations have gotten so complex and multi-factoral that they are leading to outcomes, such as the present one, that defy common sense. Just look at the level of mathematical calculation that went into the 2006 decisions:

in FY 2003, three primary equations were used in the risk analysis; in FY 2006, over 4,100 equations were used. For FY 2003, approximately 1,500 calculations were made, in contrast to more than 3 billion calculations in FY 2006. FY 2005 UASI formulations were represented within a spreadsheet of about 72,000 cells; if the FY 2006 UASI calculations could be included in a spreadsheet, it would contain more than 20 million cells.

What's also interesting is that so many different potential components of cities were included in the risk evaluations that a city like Washington, D.C., which is clearly a high-risk environment, was officially designated a low-risk one. How could that be possible? Well, if you look at the list of "ASSET TYPES USED IN ASSET-BASED RISK CALCULATIONS" (scroll to page 7), it's pretty obvious that metropolitan D.C. is an asset-poor environment for DHS risk calculating purposes, in that it lacks, among other things: dams, nuclear power plants, tall commercial buildings, commercial airports, levees, hotel casinos, maritime port facilities, theme parks, or petroleum refineries. It also has a small population, and is not an international port of entry.

That it's the seat of the national government, however, and that even its non-iconic, short, non-commercial buildings (think of the squat monstrosity that is the FBI building) have unique roles to play in national life somehow got lost in this complicated matrix.
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http://www.tpmcafe.com/node/30384

The Weakest Link
anrig's picture
By Greg Anrig, Jr. | bio

In defending the decisions about the allocation of DHS grant money, assistant secretary of the office of grants and training Tracy Henke kept repeating the obtuse soundbite: “We’re only as strong as our weakest link.” Unfortunately for all of us, DHS itself continues to demonstrate that it is a damned lousy link in its own right, providing yet another round of fodder for Letterman. Remember that Henke herself gained her job only through a recess appointment after a variety of concerns were raised. One of those issues was that she was involved in watering down a press release about a Justice Department racial profiling report when she worked for John Ashcroft. Another cause for concern, as Congressional Quarterly quoted an unnamed representative of the first responder community: “I don’t know anybody who ever worked with her with any kind of success.”

Taking at face value what Henke and other DHS people have said about the process for allocating the grant money, the reason for the perplexing outcomes may not be politics so much as a reliance on the kinds of elaborate matrices and opaque groupthink that business consultants love so much. In fact, Henke mentioned organizational guru Stephen Covey (speaking fee: $45,000) as the inspiration for the approach DHS used: they assembled 17 teams, each with 5 to 7 anonymous peer reviewers with different backgrounds. Each of the teams assessed grant applications on a 2 X 2 matrix focused on risk (counting for 2/3 of the grade) and “effectiveness” (counting for the other third).

Here’s the full DHS explanation about the scoring process:

Initially, peer reviewers worked independently to determine a preliminary score of applicants’ proposed solutions to address identified needs. In the second phase, reviewers convened in panels to discuss the findings of their review, develop final scores, and comment on each “investment justification.” Each panel was responsible for scoring six Investment Justifications. Each reviewer was responsible for submitting a final score as consensus among panel members was not necessary. The Investment Justifications were scored in two ways. First, an Individual Investment Score was based on 17 questions, each with detailed criteria, addressing issues such as:

• Relevance of the proposed solution • Regionalization • Anticipated impact • Sustainability of the proposed Investment • Implementation approach

Second, the Overall Investment Justification Score was based on these criteria: • Relevance to the Interim National Preparedness Goal • Connection to the spirit and scope of the Program and Capability Enhancement Plan • Extent to which individual Investments related to each other • Innovativeness in approaching identified needs • Feasibility and reasonableness of the proposed Investments

So how do New York City and DC end up getting screwed after all that rationality? Based on what little we know on the outside about the Rube Goldbergian inner workings of this enterprise, here are some likely contributing factors:

* The “garbage in” problem. If the teams were assessing risk based on such clueless raw information as the absence of national monuments or icons in New York City, then its conclusions won’t make any sense either.
* The meaning of “effectiveness.” Without transparent explanations of what constitutes an effective investment, applicants had little to guide them besides the cryptic kind of info above in speculating about how they could please DHS. Since the peer review teams were making their judgments independently and in secrecy, there was no such transparency. It’s revealing that apparently New York City was penalized for asking for support to pay for police overtime because it isn’t “sustainable.” But I’m hard pressed to think of a single more effective way for a locality to prevent terrorism than having more law enforcement personnel around to deter attacks in crowded places. George Foresman of DHS told the Times, “Do you pay for what are viewed as basic capabilities: law enforcement, fire, EMS, public health, emergency management? Whose role is it to pay for that, versus whose role is it to pay for specialized training and equipment for fire, EMS, and law enforcement?” Presumably that means localities will be rewarded for asking for hazmat gear but not police OT, when the latter seems far more likely to be “effective” against terrorism. For that matter, the whole idea that anti-terrorism efforts need to be fundamentally distinct from everything else first responders do gets it exactly backwards. The more the terrorism challenge is viewed as interrelated to the everyday activities of emergency personnel, the more likely it is that they will be effective in handling those responsibilities.
* Secrecy. Pitting localities against each other through a secretive review process like this is counterproductive. They should be sharing best practices with each other, and DHS should set up its grant-making process in a way that encourages that kind of information sharing. It would be much more logical to set standards based on approaches that seem to be working in particular places, and then award grants proportionate to the size of localities that propose emulating a similar approach.

Yeah, I’m a biased New Yorker. But the country as a whole won’t be better protected against terrorism until this administration (more realistically, the next one) figures out that government secrecy is Al Qaeda’s best friend.
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mc mark · Jun 3, 2006

I am sure we all agree this is a bonehead move!

Pork 1, Antiterrorism 0
The New York Times | Editorial

Friday 02 June 2006

If Al Qaeda is planning on following up its 2001 attacks on New York and Washington with an assault on Nebraska, the Department of Homeland Security's new urban areas security grants are brilliant. But, of course, the White House, Wall Street and densely populated urban areas are the most likely terrorist targets, and these are precisely the places the department dangerously shortchanged this week. The new grants, which slash spending for New York and Washington by 40 percent - and shower money on Omaha and Louisville - are more about pork barrel politics than security. Given how important the stakes are in protecting the nation against terrorism, they are also a disgrace.

Scarce antiterrorism money should be rigorously aimed at the places most at risk of attack, but the Bush administration and Congress have consistently refused to do so. While efforts to protect subway riders in New York City and federal workers in downtown Washington are badly underfinanced, places that would be bizarre targets have been swimming in federal funds. The Northwest Arctic Borough, an Alaskan area of 7,300 people, spent $233,000 a while back to buy decontamination tents, night vision goggles and other equipment.

This week, the Department of Homeland Security has skewed things even further against Americans who live in the places that are most likely to be attacked. New York's share of the urban areas security program falls to $124 million from $207 million last year, and Washington's falls to $46 million from $77 million.

There appear to be serious problems with the department's evaluation process. Rather than having impartial antiterrorism experts make recommendations, it relied on anonymous "peer reviewers" recommended by governors, mayors and local homeland security departments. The panels appear to have been too focused on politics, and not enough on safety. The resistance to financing operating costs, like police overtime, ignores the fact that day-to-day groundwork does the most to combat terrorism.

Some of the specifics of the decision process are downright bizarre. New York City's evaluation found that it had no "national monuments or icons." The department concedes that omitting the Statute of Liberty was an "oversight," but it still seems unaware that to many would-be terrorists, the biggest American icon of all is simply - New York.

The responsibility for the bad allocations lies with President Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. But Congress also has a poor record in this area. Representatives of high-population states like New York, California and Texas have continually lost out in their efforts to enact a more risk-based formula. Congressmen from the areas that have been shortchanged this week are vowing to fight. Representative Peter King, a New York Republican who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, says he wants New York to be "made whole," either by adjusting the most recent grants or finding money from other budgetary sources.

When President Bush and the Republican Party were looking for a backdrop for their 2004 national convention that symbolized America's war on terror, they came to New York City, not Omaha. Mr. Bush and Mr. Chertoff owe the American people a system that recognizes the vulnerability of places like New York and Washington not just when the television cameras are rolling, but when the money is being handed out.

-------
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/opinion/02fri1.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

nyquil82 · Jun 4, 2006

Yay, I live in both states! Maybe he's hoping for another attack to boost his popularity, which in turn will garner support for a war against Iran.

And the circle of life would be complete.

across110thstreet · Jun 4, 2006

apparantly, The Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, or the Empire State Building are not considered national icons...

wtf?

every one of those structures has been cased at some point by a terrorist group or Al Q

Sishir Chang · Jun 5, 2006

This looks like bureaucratic bumbling and pork barrel politics at its worst.

rimrocker · Jun 5, 2006

Sishir Chang said:

This looks like bureaucratic bumbling and pork barrel politics at its worst.
Click to expand...

It's worse than that... here we have something touted as a priority... indeed the whole rationale for our current administration and we're arguing over such relatively small amounts? Look at the budget, look at the tax cuts and you see the real priorities of this administration.

mc mark · Jun 5, 2006

Anti-terror aid cut may be payback, sez Mike

BY CELESTE KATZ, GREG WILSON and MICHAEL SAUL
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

The Department of Homeland Security's decision to slash the city's anti-terrorism funding by 40% may be payback for getting embarrassed during a terror alert last year, Mayor Bloomberg suggested yesterday.
Last October, Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly announced a massive security alert on the subways after receiving intelligence information that they described as a "specific threat" to New York City.

Officials at Homeland Security quickly - and publicly - cast doubt on the intelligence that prompted the alert, but were later humiliated when it was discovered that two department officials sent private e-mails warning their friends and family of a possible subway attack.

"Whether this is a little bit of getting even with us for embarrassing them, I don't know," Bloomberg said on his weekly WABC radio program. "I can't attribute motives. What I do know is that we are disappointed."

Bloomberg suggested again yesterday that politics unduly influenced how the department doled out funds. "Everything in Washington is driven by politics, that's one of the problems with our system," the mayor said.

A Bloomberg administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the city has still not received a clear explanation from Homeland Security for the decision.

"No one is articulating anything," the official said. "It's all very elusive and opaque."

The official suggested that the city's application met raised eyebrows because it emphasized training and personnel.

"This is not what they're about," the official said. "They like to fund things that come in a box and a ribbon - and there's the new fire truck!"

Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Eliot Spitzer said the decision points to how "completely and thoroughly incompetent these folks are."

Spitzer sent President Bush a letter of complaint yesterday, and said, "The conclusion that it was wrong is so overwhelmingly apparent that it is startling."

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem) said he has little doubt that politics played a role, saying his colleagues in Congress look at terror funding as a pie to be carved up.

"It is true that many of them look upon this as a pork barrel, and they wanted their share, even though they don't have their share of the risk," Rangel said. "They made a stupid mistake."

Bloomberg said he plans to talk again with Homeland Department Secretary Michael Chertoff next week.

"If we did something wrong, I want to make sure we don't repeat the mistake again," Bloomberg said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/423154p-357155c.html

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