Let's see if the Republicans can be consistent

[mburbank]

Hmmmm. Republican president... Republican Congress... How did this happen?


February 27, 2003
White House Concedes That Counterterror Budget Is Meager
By PHILIP SHENON, NY Times

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 — Responding to criticism from Democrats and to the mounting concern of state and local governments, the White House is now saying that the long delayed government spending plan for the year does not provide enough money to protect against terrorist attacks on American soil.

After initially praising the giant spending package that was shaped by Congressional Republicans, the White House has reversed itself in recent days, conceding in a series of public statements that a closer reading of the 3,000-page spending bill shows that domestic counterterrorism programs were shortchanged. President Bush signed the bill into law earlier this month.

The latest acknowledgment came this week from the president himself.

In a speech here to the National Governors Association, where governors expressed deep concern about their ability to pay for the equipment and training needed to prepare for a terrorist attack, Mr. Bush said he was "disappointed" with the Republican-authored spending package because it had failed to provide adequate money for local counterterrorism programs. And he said that Congress was to blame.

In remarks that struck some in the audience as unusually sharp given that both houses of Congress are controlled by the president's party, Mr. Bush said that Congress "did not respond to the $3.5 billion we asked for — they not only reduced the budget that we asked for, they earmarked a lot of the money."

He was referring to the $3.5 billion that the White House requested more than a year ago for state and local governments to pay for counterterrorism equipment and training, a centerpiece of the administration's domestic security program.

"That's a disappointment," he said, "a disappointment when the executive branch gets micro-managed by the legislative branch."

White House officials say they believe the $397.4 billion spending bill, which will finance the government through September, contains only about $1.3 billion in counterterrorism money for local governments.

Congressional leaders have insisted that they provided the full $3.5 billion sought by President Bush for so-called first responders, like local fire and police departments.

But White House officials say most of that money went to emergency-response programs that had little to do with counterterrorism, a view shared by some private budget specialists who have reviewed the bill.

"We wanted specific counterterrorism funding," said a White House official. "We weren't talking about community policing programs. We weren't talking about grants to buy bulletproof vests for police officers."

The president's remarks, which came two weeks after the White House raised the color-coded national terrorist alert to "orange," signifying a "high risk" of terrorist attack, have infuriated Republicans in Congress, who say they closely consulted with the White House in preparing the spending deal.

[BombsBurstingInAir]

Same way it happens with a dem president and dem congress.

[mburbank]

Ah, but the order of events is key here! The Whitehouse made no comment about their 'disapointment' until after the bill had been signed! And the President is blaming... Republicans!

Simillarly, and I'll need to find a source for this, they FORGOT to include any money at all for rebuilding Afghanistan in the budget the Whitehouse submitted! The oversight had to be brought to their attention by congress!

I guess their arms are all pretty tired from beating the war drums.

[BombsBurstingInAir]

Maybe Bush put too much faith in the reps in congress.

Maybe the bill was praised before it was passed, and then changed, and then signed. Then Bush said it sucked.

[mburbank]

If Bush put too much faith in the congress to read the bill they sent back to him, or have it read for him, then he's a bad President. Honestly, I think the whole administration is so focused in on Iraq they aren't paying attention to anything else.

[BombsBurstingInAir]

I think he was misled. As with most modern presidents, details are not thoroughly looked at, especially when we are talking 3,000 + pages. This is something for his staff to do. But the buck stops with him.

Without a doubt his attention is focused on Iraq, as well it should.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by BombsBurstingInAir

Without a doubt his attention is focused on Iraq, as well it should.

Isn't domestic security and the war on terrorism interconnected with the war in Iraq? This is ALL about fighting terrorism and protecting Americans, right?

[BombsBurstingInAir]

I'm too tired to comment right now. Remind me about it tomorrow.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

Will do, buddy.

[mburbank]

The administration took it's eye off the ball. Congressional republicans asd well as democrats (but please recall who's in charge) loaded the bill with pork. The Whitehouse is supposed to ride heard on this, but they weren't even watching. Why is anybodies guess, but I think they re all lip service on 'homeland defnece' and only pay attention when it gives them more power. Cops on the beat, bettter equipped hospitals and more firemen don't give this administration a boner the way increased surveillance power and waging war do.

[KevinTheOmnivore]

REMINDER FOR BOMBS

[KevinTheOmnivore]

REMINDER FOR BOMBS

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory...l/iraq/1802999


March 4, 2003, 10:21AM

Ridge admits war likely to increase terrorist attacks

By PHILIP SHENON
New York Times

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration Monday offered its bluntest warning that a war with Iraq could bring new terrorist attacks within the United States. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge acknowledged that "there may be more threats, there have been more threats, if we go to war."

Al-Qaida and other terrorist groups have vowed to carry out strikes within U.S. borders in the event of a war against Iraq. On Monday, Ridge made clear that the administration is taking the threats seriously.

"I think we can anticipate more noise in the system, more threats, because of a potential invasion," Ridge said. "I mean, it's fairly predictable, and we see some of that now.

"Our job at Homeland Security is to be prepared, regardless," said Ridge, who took formal control last weekend of several large law enforcement and security agencies, including the Customs Service, the Secret Service and the Coast Guard.

Administration officials said Ridge's comments Monday -- which came as he and other officials continued to express their delight over the weekend capture of a senior al-Qaida operative, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed -- were an effort to lay the groundwork for a decision soon to put the nation on a higher level of alert and take other action to prepare for a domestic terrorist strike.

Last week, the administration lowered the alert level to "elevated risk," or yellow on its color-coded scale, after a jittery 20-day period during which the nation was at "high risk," or orange.

The officials said that while there is no solid evidence of an imminent domestic terrorist threat, intelligence agencies are reporting from a variety of sources -- including interviews with captured al-Qaida terrorists and electronic surveillance -- that terror groups hope to time an attack to the beginning of a military campaign against Iraq.

In a classified intelligence bulletin last month, the FBI offered a similar warning to state and local law enforcement agencies, alerting them to the possibility that a war with Iraq could unleash acts of anti-American violence by extremists who do not belong to al-Qaida or other Middle Eastern terrorist groups but sympathize with their grievances against the United States.

When the administration raised the terror alert last month, Ridge's office urged the public to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting to prepare to deal with a chemical or biological attack, setting off a wave of public anxiety rarely seen since Sept. 11.

Ridge spoke Monday as if war is a certainty and the public needs to prepare itself for the possibility of a new terrorist strike.

Even while acknowledging that the domestic terror threat might grow, Ridge insisted that a war to oust Saddam Hussein and disarm Iraq is a necessary step in combating terrorism.

"The war on Iraq is clearly a critical piece of the war on terrorism," he said.

"The war in Iraq is involved in the disarmament of Saddam Hussein, who has chemical and biological and, we believe, is building the capacity to develop nuclear weapons," Ridge said.
-30-

[Protoclown]

REMINDER FOR BOMBS

[mburbank]

WHAT?!? But we caught that hairy Al-Quaeda guy I thought we were out of the woods! Attacking Iraq might RAISE the terrorist threat?!? Why didn't anybody SAY anything about this.


Wow. Thank God those North Koreans would never give their Pakistani Nuclear Technology to terrorists.