CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Friday, Sept. 12, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly Proof of the pudding: Response to "credible threat" of 9/11-related strikes in New York and/or D.C. underlines past decade's sweeping security changes . . . Shopping lists: Until now, no homeland security expenditure seemed too great, but "with a constricted economy and declining threats, priorities need re-examining" . . . Ace in the hole: 'President Obama's handling of terrorism has gone from being his big weakness to an area of policy strength." These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- The response this past weekend to a "credible threat" of 9/11-related strikes in New York and/or D.C. underlines how much has changed over the past decade, amidst a steady string of lower-level freelance threats, The Christian Science Monitor's Brad Knickerbocker analyzes. North Virginia officials are fretting over Mark Benjamin's Time Magazine report citing an internal Pentagon study acknowledging that a truck bomb would wipe out its new Mark Center, The Washington Times's David Sherfinski leads. Given 9/11 decennial jitters, Kansas City police went on alert after nine box-trucks were stolen from two different rental companies over the past week, KY3 News' Monica Evans notes. Feds: President Obama's handling of terrorism has gone from being his biggest weakness to an area of policy strength, The Washington Post's Peter Wallsten sees polls showing — while the Post's David Ignatius finds it an "interesting anomaly" that this liberal Dem "has been so comfortable running America's secret wars." The military and the CIA have never agreed on a key 9/11 Commission recommendation to give special operators the lead for all covert military action, The Washington Times' Bill Gertz relates — and see Danger Room's Spencer Ackerman on "how special ops copied al Qaeda to kill it." The ex-admiral overseeing the prosecution of 9/11 kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed is taking a go-slow approach that would delay trial until "months, or perhaps years, from now," Rowan Scarborough recounts in, again, The Washington Times. Homies: Following attacks in last week's GOP prez debate, Janet Napolitano defends her agency's record while insisting she doesn't want to "get involved" in the politics, FOX News' Mike Levine relates — as the Post's Ed O'Keefe sees DHS issuing a "9/11 video thank you message" to its 230,000 employees, The Associated Press reports the DHS chief urging public vigilance, and Big Government's Nick R. Brown hears her tell us, in effect, "that we will never again have pre-9/11 freedom in the United States." For $75 billion in enhanced DHS expenditures to be cost-effective "they would have to deter, prevent, foil, or protect each year against 1,667 otherwise successful attacks," John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart calculate for Slate. Belt tightening: Until now, no homeland security expenditure seemed too great, but "with a constricted economy and declining threats, priorities need re-examining," BusinessWeek writes. "Huge [grant] cuts in Kentucky in recent years have made it increasingly difficult to determine what projects get funded," The Louisville Courier-Journal recounts. "Some Homeland Security regions [say] the dip in funding has come as communities have narrowed their focus for security projects anyway," The Fall River (Mass.) Herald News adds —while The Cape Cod Times sees local fire companies collaborating on regional initiatives to better their chances for DHS dollars. Opening "a window into Jewish organizational and political power," a Daily Forward analysis shows 73.7 percent of 995 Nonprofit Security Grants going to synagogues and such. State and local: "Local officials say the complexity of American infrastructure makes preparedness in the post-Sept. 11 era something that no community — no matter how small — can take for granted," The Cullman (Ala.) Times relates — as The Rockford (Ill.) Register Star sees 9/11 "changing the way communities looked at disaster plans." In the lead-up to yesterday's anniversary, "reporters have found that states have spent anti-terrorism funds on questionable items, some of which they can't even find," Stateline surveys. Four-fifths of Californians polled see the need to combat terrorism undiminished since the attacks, The Los Angeles Times relates — as The New York Times reports a survey depicting a Gotham "not fully recovered emotionally from the events of 9/11." Bugs 'n bombs: Emergency officials from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut teamed up in Providence on Saturday for a disaster drill involving a derailed train carrying hazardous chemicals, The Boston Globe curtain-raised. Watchdogs increasingly worry that the country's program for securing chemical facilities from terror and theft contains significant loopholes, the Times leads. The majority of smallpox vaccines Seoul has stockpiled in event of North Korean biological attack have either expired or failed to pass toxicity tests, The Korea Herald hears South Korea's government warning. "It took one routine smallpox vaccination to expose the holes in the United States' defenses against bioterrorism," Nature notes. Close air support: Flights to and from Kansas City International were thrown into disarray yesterday when TSA agents discovered a "suspicious item" in a passenger's carry-on, the Star says. A Southwest Airlines flight bound for Baltimore was diverted to Nashville on Saturday after a "suspicious passenger" twice visited a toilet in which a, yes, "suspicious item" was then found, The Tennessean tells — as the Post sees Dulles International gates shuttered that day after an erroneously IDed "suspicious item" was discovered during cargo loading. Since two of the planes hijacked 10 years back departed from Logan International, the airport "has become the front line of experimentation with new security measures," The Boston Globe highlights. "After the government spent $40 billion to overhaul airport security, critics say the system still has holes," NPR surveys. Border wars: Post-9/11, "the concept of immigration was suddenly viewed through the lens of 'homeland security,' and the debate swung heavily toward enforcement and prevention," U.S. News spotlights — while The Wall Street Journal sees the clamp-down having had the side effect of discouraging tourism to the United States. DHS has made but a small dent in dealing with the millions of immigrants who have illegally overstayed their visas, FOX News sees GAO reporting. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer welcomes a second extension, through year's end, in the retention of 500 National Guards on the Mexico border, The Tucson Sentinel says. A tiny Maine hamlet abutting New Brunswick claims victory after a proposed CBP building was dramatically downsized, CBC News notes — as another CBC report spots DHS agents having blocked more than a dozen Canadians from entry into the United States after accessing records citing their mental illness. Courts and rights: A military appeals court ruled Friday that Osama bin Laden's media secretary was properly convicted and deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison, The Miami Herald mentions. An Albanian American living in Brooklyn pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of sending $1,000 to radical jihadi fighters and seeking to travel to their base of operations in Pakistan, The New York Post reports. United Airlines and its security consultant Huntleigh USA may assume the burden of proof in the only remaining wrongful death lawsuit stemming from the Sept. 11 attacks, The Chicago Tribune hears a federal judge ruling. A London-based insurance syndicate has filed suit against Saudi Arabia in U.S. District Court alleging that its support of Islamist terrorists facilitated the 9/11 strikes, The Philadelphia Inquirer informs — and see The American Lawyer for more. A Washington State man pleaded guilty last week to a racist attempt to bomb Spokane's Martin Luther King Jr.march, the Spokesman-Review reports. Over there: With the United States entering the 11th year of its longest war, "a wave of anti-Americanism is rising in both Afghanistan and Pakistan," the Times relates. The number of potential Islamic terrorists currently living in Germany has jumped to around 1,000, according to new info from the Interior Ministry, Hudson New York notes. Police in Berlin, meantime, arrested two men of Middle Eastern origin, apparently unlinked to a terrorist organization, on suspicion of plotting a bomb attack, CNN notes — as The Guardian sees three Brits jailed for recruiting "vulnerable men to fight British soldiers" in an Afghan holy war. Police arrested four people on suspicion of preparing a terror attack and evacuated an arts center in Sweden's second largest city, The Daily Telegraph adds. A massive Taliban truck bomb detonated outside a U.S. military base in a restive eastern district of Afghanistan injured nearly 80 U.S. troops and killed five locals, the L.A. Times tells. Qaeda Qorner: "9/11 was the culminating point and the beginning of decline for al Qaeda in its sectarian warfare against established Islam, as much as against the West," Dominique Moisi maintains in a New York Times op-ed. "I find it hard to believe al-Qaeda is winning when it has not managed to topple a single government," Max Boot argues in Commentary Magazine. "We can't blame everything on the fight against terrorism: al Qaeda didn't trigger the sub-prime mortgage crisis, for example," Daveed Gartenstein-Ross declaims in The Atlantic. Terror experts are sharply divided over the size of al Qaeda's network, failing even to agree on whether the group's size matters in assessing the terrorism threat, The Wall Street Journal relates — as The Atlantic sees recovered documents portraying Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's replacement, "as diligent and more involved than we might have thought," and Maclean's leads: "Osama bin Laden enjoyed talking about his death." Gotterdammerung: "The Department of Homeland Security says it is studying several 'credible threats' made to the United States government in a two-hour broadcast Wednesday night from a location believed to be the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif.," The Borowitz Report reports. "Homeland Security spokesman Harland Dorinson said the department did not want to alarm the American people, 'but whenever you have a group of individuals threatening to dismantle the U.S. government piece by piece, it has to be taken seriously,'" Andy Borowitz writes. "In reviewing the two-hour tape, DHS officials said they found threats to some of the most essential functions of the U.S. government, from Social Security to the Federal Reserve. While stopping short of saying that the speakers were engaged in some sort of jihad, Dorinson did note that a tone of religious extremism dominated the video. 'One speaker in particular, seemed bent on rolling back the advances of science and plunging America back into the Dark Ages,' he added." Source: CQ Homeland Security --------------------------------- Other CQ Roll Call Products CQ Floor Video CQ.com CQ Weekly CQ Today CQ Amendment Text CQ BillTrack CQ Budget Tracker CQ Energy & Climate CQ HealthBeat CQ Homeland Security CQ Hot Docs CQ House Action Reports CQ LawTrack CQ MoneyLine CQ StateTrack CQ Politics Roll Call See all CQ Roll Call products Rob Margetta, CQ Homeland Security Editor Arwen Bicknell, Behind the Lines Editor Published by CQ Roll Call To sign up for CQ Roll Call's free newsletters, click here. Source: CQ Homeland Security Copyright © 2011 CQ Roll Call. All rights reserved.