Anyone feel safer now?

Lieberman says DHS needs more money. Seems to me that would just mean more money for Bush cronies, since DHS was never wanted by the Bush Team and has since become a dumping ground for Bush cronies who are not qualified to be dog catcher, let alone for the jobs they are given.

Helluva job, Bushie

GAO Criticizes Homeland Security's Efforts to Fulfill Its Mission
By Spencer S. Hsu
The Washington Post

Thursday 06 September 2007

Hobbled by inadequate funding, unclear priorities, continuing reorganizations and the absence of an overarching strategy, the Department of Homeland Security is failing to achieve its mission of preventing and responding to terrorist attacks or natural disasters, according to a comprehensive report by the Government Accountability Office.

The highly critical report disputes recent upbeat assessments by the Bush administration by concluding that the DHS has failed to make even moderate progress toward eight of 14 internal government benchmarks more than four years after its creation.

The report is to be released to lawmakers today, as the Democratic Congress, Republican White House and presidential candidates from both parties are beginning to debate the administration's record of accomplishments since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, whose sixth anniversary will be on Tuesday.

It echoes a sober report card issued by the former Sept. 11 commission in December 2005, which awarded mostly failing and mediocre grades to the administration's efforts to prevent another terrorist attack.

The GAO states that after the largest government merger in more than half a century, the DHS met fewer than half of its performance objectives, or 78 of 171 directives identified by President Bush, Congress and the department's own strategic plans. The department strongly disputed the report.

In one of its harshest conclusions, the 320-page document states that the DHS has made the least progress toward some of the fundamental goals identified after the 2001 attacks and again after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005: improving emergency preparedness; capitalizing on the nation's wealth and scientific prowess through "Manhattan project"-style research initiatives; and eliminating bureaucratic and technical barriers to information-sharing.

Yesterday, Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) said that although the DHS "has made important progress," it requires more focused attention and money. "Clearly, we have a long way to go before the department achieves the goals we set out for it four and a half years ago," said Lieberman, who will chair a hearing on the matter this afternoon.

The panel's ranking Republican, Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), who faces a reelection race next year, also called on the DHS to "pick up the pace. . . . With so much at stake and so many areas where progress is still required, America cannot settle for a mixed report card."

At a hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee yesterday, Secretary Michael Chertoff sought to preempt the GAO's findings, saying the Bush administration has "unequivocally" made the nation safer since 2001 and deserves credit for the absence of another strike on U.S. soil.

At the time, "no one would have been bold enough to predict that six years would pass without a further successful attack on the homeland," Chertoff said. He also complained that Congress itself has failed to streamline its oversight of the DHS.

Analysts from across the political spectrum have complained that the DHS has spent $241 billion over four years without performing a disciplined analysis of threats and implications.

The GAO report is the most exhaustive and independent look at the department since its creation, drawing on more than 400 earlier reviews and 700 recommendations by congressional investigators and the department's inspector general, as well as the goals set by the Sept.11 commission, the Century Foundation, congressional legislation and spending bills, and the administration's own plans and internal strategic documents, such as the White House's National Strategy for Homeland Security from July 2002.

GAO analysts acknowledged that DHS's enormous size and complexity - spanning 220,000 employees and 22 component agencies - make the challenge "especially daunting and important." They also said they do not intend to suggest that the DHS should have already met all expectations. "Successful transformations of large organizations, even those faced with less strenuous reorganizations than DHS, can take at least 5 to 7 years to achieve," the GAO stated.

Still, although prior studies focused on the DHS's many organizational problems - leading Chertoff to direct the department to sharpen its focus after he took office in February 2005 - the report indicates that it still has difficulty carrying out policy decisions and setting priorities.

The DHS met only five of 24 criteria for emergency preparedness, failing to implement a national response plan or develop a program to improve emergency radio communications. The department met just one of six science and technology goals, such as developing research and development plans and assessing emerging threats; and two of 15 computer integration targets, the report says.

Moderate progress, which the GAO defined as taking action on more than half of identified goals, was made in only five of 14 areas - immigration enforcement; aviation, land and transportation security; securing critical facilities such as bridges, power plants and computer networks; and property management - and substantial progress in just one, maritime and port security.

DHS Undersecretary for Management Paul A. Schneider said that the GAO should have graded the department higher on 42 of 171 directives. The GAO relied on a flawed methodology that "fails to accurately reflect the Department's progress in many specific program areas," he said in a formal 42-page response.

Schneider also said investigators relied on outdated reports, applied vague, shifting and inconsistent grading standards, and set up an unfair, "pass-fail" approach to assessing a spectrum of progress that should be expected to take many years.

"The GAO Report treats all of the performance expectations as if they were of equal significance," Schneider said. "In contrast, the Department uses a risk-based approach to consider its overall priorities," adding that the DHS has met 37 of 50 objectives in securing transportation modes, which were targeted in the 2001 attacks.

"It's a very damning report," said Michael Greenberger, director of the University of Maryland's Center for Health and Homeland Security and a Justice Department official in the Clinton administration. "If you look at these grades, nearly one-third fall into the lowest category, and among those third are critically important, almost foundational tasks upon which the others rest."

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.