NYC TERROR AID SLASHED--next 9/11 in Kentucky?

[al-Canine]

Of the 46 cities that got special grants, New York City ranks 23rd per capita, getting $16 per person.
But residents of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., got $67 per person, and residents of Atlanta got $45.

D.C.'S STUPID SCROOGES SLASH NYC TERROR AID AND SPLURGE ON THE STICKS

By GEOFF EARLE Post Correspondent

June 1, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - Less than five years after the murder of 2,749 people in the Twin Towers on 9/11, the feds yesterday shockingly slashed anti-terror funds needed to protect New York City against future attacks.

The Homeland Security Department announced it was hacking funds distributed to the city by 40 percent compared with last year, while pouring hundreds of millions into unlikely terror targets like Kentucky and Wyoming.

The shocking stinginess from Washington comes just one week after a Pakistani national was convicted of a plot to blow up the Herald Square subway station.

New York City will get its vital anti-terror funding chain-sawed from $208 million this year to $124 million next year - even though security experts agree it is vastly more threatened than any other city in the country.

The unexpected move set New York lawmakers in both parties fuming - especially since Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, a native of the region, vowed to dole out money based on risk.

Two cities in Chertoff's home state, New Jersey, made out like bandits - Jersey City and Newark will receive a total of $34.3 million, a 79 percent increase from the previous year.

"As far as I'm concerned, the Department of Homeland Security and the administration have declared war on New York," said Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

"It's a knife in the back to New York and I'm going to do everything I can to make them very sorry they made this decision."

King said he would launch "rigorous investigations" of the Homeland Security Department - including a $21 million DHS contract with a Virginia limousine service accused of arranging hotel trysts between lawmakers and prostitutes.

"They have cut $80 million in funding to New York City," King said. "Meanwhile, they gave a $21 million limousine contract to the company that was driving pimps and prostitutes around."

Sen. Charles Schumer had a more personal message for President Bush.

"I don't think the president should come back to New York and stand in solidarity with us without changing this formula," said Schumer (D-N.Y.).

"This is unfair. This is wrong. This is an outrage. This is basically abandoning New York."

Even though the feds had less money to hand out this year because of spending cuts, New York's massive drop was far out of proportion to the overall reduction.

In fact, New York City absorbed more than half of the nationwide cut of $119 million in money for urban areas. The city reduction amounted to $66 million below the prior year.

Federal officials said they based the new funding on a "two-by-two matrix" based on "risk" and "effectiveness" - but offered no specific justification for why New York's share plummeted.

"We have to look at the risk of New York City in relation to the rest of the country as well," said Tracy Henke, a DHS assistant secretary. "You're only as strong as your weakest link."

New York leaders weren't buying it.

"There's no question, they should have given us a lot more," said Mayor Bloomberg.

"When you stop a terrorist, they have a map of New York City in their pocket. They don't have a map of any of the other 46 places" that got money yesterday from the feds.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said city funding cuts and a big cut for Buffalo "demonstrates a pre-9/11 mentality that we should not tolerate" and called for Senate hearings on the issue.

"There's something seriously flawed with a process that results in a 40 percent cut to the city highest on the terrorists' target list," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

"We lost almost 3,000 people that day," said Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.), who held a press conference with Rep. Vito Fossella (R-S.I.) at Ground Zero. "Yet Washington is blind to what happened."

While New York got more than any other city - $124 million - it has twice been hit by al Qaeda attacks, and major plots have been uncovered for attacks on the Brooklyn Bridge, tunnels, Wall Street, and numerous other targets.

Even as New York braced for massive cuts, several small-city mayors were poised to bask in a security bonanza. Seven cities that got big increases have populations smaller than Staten Island.

Louisville, Ky. - home to Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), who chairs a powerful Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee - got almost $9 million.

Memphis, in the home state of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), got $4 million.

"Political considerations played no part in the allocation process - none whatsoever," said George Foresman, DHS undersecretary for preparedness.

But security experts were at a loss to explain the funding decisions.

"Omaha is not target No. 1 for Osama bin Laden - it's New York. What is the administration thinking?" asked Scott Bates of the Center for National Policy.

Of the $1.7 billion in security funds being awarded, $1.3 billion goes out based on risk. Another $400 million goes to states by a formula that guarantees something even to states with tiny populations like Idaho and Wyoming.

The feds say funds were awarded through a secret peer-reviewed process. But each peer group of five to seven people included at least one rural or small-state representative - giving small towns an edge.

DHS officials hinted that New York's paperwork wasn't up to par. That led King to respond: "What they're trying to do is take a cheap shot here by saying the application wasn't filled out right. That can result in thousands of people being killed."

Of the 46 cities that got special grants, New York City ranks 23rd per capita, getting $16 per person.

But residents of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., got $67 per person, and residents of Atlanta got $45.

Additional reporting by Stephanie Gaskell, Murray Weiss and Tom Topousis

NEW YORK POST (http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/66878.htm)

[al-Canine]

Omaha, Nebraska: watch out for exploding cows!

OMAHA REAPS $WEET CORN

By NILES LATHEM Post Correspondent

June 1, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - Sleepy Omaha, Neb., known more as a cow-and-corn town than a terror target, is due to receive a whopping increase in anti-terrorism funding in this year's Department of Homeland Security budget, it was revealed yesterday.

The yawner city of 390,000 - home of the Florence Mill Historic Center, the birthplaces of Gerald Ford and Malcolm X and little else - got a staggering 62 percent increase in federal urban-security grants this year, from $5.1 million to $8.3 million. The increase in counter-terror funds in an area where cows outnumber people by a 4-1 ratio, while grants for New York are being slashed by a drastic 40 percent, has raised eyebrows among counter-terrorism experts.

"Omaha doesn't come close to New York City when you think about what kinds of terrorist targets are out there. I'd like to hear what the rationale is because I don't understand it," said Dennis Lormel, a former FBI counter-terrorism official.

Omaha city officials are unapologetic about their sudden security windfall and claim that the money is well deserved and will be well spent.

"We submitted a good, solid proposal and it was well received by the Department of Homeland Security," said Joe Godenrath, spokesman for Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey.

In a telephone interview with The Post, Louisville, Ky., Mayor Jerry Abramson also offered no apologies for the 70 percent increase his city of 256,000 people received in urban-security grants even though he admitted it is in the bottom third of 60 to 70 major urban areas in terms of risk of terrorist attacks.

THE NEW YORK POST (http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/66865.htm)

[al-Canine]

They're making a monumental error

Thursday, June 1st, 2006

The federal Homeland Security Department has this to say about the home of the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the Empire State Building, the New York Stock Exchange, the Brooklyn Bridge, the United Nations, Yankee Stadium, the country's biggest subway system, Grant's Tomb, Grand Central Terminal, the Federal Reserve Bank and Federal Hall.

"NATIONAL MONUMENTS AND ICONS: 0"

Meaning the New York area has nada, zilch, zippo, not a one, a zero that dismisses even Ground Zero. The assertion is made on page 4 of an eight-page Homeland Security Department document that seeks to justify a 40% cut in our federal anti-terrorism funding.

"This is a very sophisticated formula for developing a risk-based approach," a Homeland Security spokesman said yesterday.

He was asked why this same formula set the number of major financial institutions in New York at four when there are, at a minimum, 20, including the federal depository in downtown Manhattan that has more gold than Fort Knox has. He seemed manifestly untroubled by the error and declined to comment any further.

"We're simply not going to provide the specifics to the bad guys," he said.

Which is only understandable, for the Islamic fundamentalists think New York has numerous icons and have actively targeted at least five of them. One early plot involved bombing the United Nations along with the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels. The federal government called this "the Landmark Case."

The terrorists were so convinced the World Trade Center was an icon that they attacked it twice. The second attack led to the creation of the Homeland Security Department, which seems to be happiest giving shiny new rescue vehicles to places no terrorist would think of attacking.

The problem of protecting actual targets has been more daunting, particularly when it comes to the city that is at the top of every Islamic terrorist's hit list. The Homeland Security folks now seem to have come up with a plan they can execute to protect New York's monuments and icons: They simply declare that there are none.

At the same time, the document describes assembling 100 unnamed "reviewers" to issue "objective, consistent and defensible effectiveness scores" for the local anti-terrorism programs it helps fund.

With the same sort of "sophisticated" analysis that determined the Statue of Liberty to be no icon, the Homeland Security reviewers placed the NYPD counterterrorism bureau and its Operation Atlas at the bottom 15% nationwide.

The reviewers apparently do not like all the overtime that is paid to the cops in Operation Atlas, which happens to be aimed at safeguarding the landmarks that the document says do not exist.

True experts consider the NYPD anti-terrorism effort to be the gold standard. Some officials suspect that Homeland Security is acting out of jealousy or seeking to exact a payback for some perceived slight in the past.

Whatever the motivation, the department has issued a bizarre document that cuts our funding by 40%, says there are no icons to protect and slams the Police Department that has taken the lead in the fight against terrorism. The top of the document might as well read Homeland Security to New York: Drop Dead.

This is all the more shameful when you consider that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff once worked in New York. His tenure in his present position is finite and he should forget ever coming back here. His department's sophisticated formula says there isn't much to see here, anyway.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/422678p-356715c.html

[NYer]

http://www.nypost.com/img/animatedc.gif

http://www.nydailynews.com/ips_rich_content/712-FRONT_LARGE.jpg

[NYer]

Rich Lowry points out the following: (http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2Y3MDk0YTkzZjAxZTY2NjdjYjA5N2Y1NDI2OGZmZDE=)

NYC has received more than $528 million through the Urban Areas Security Initiative since 2003, approximately 19% of all funds provided through that program since its inception; NYC's 2006 allocation is consistent with historical allocations as a percentage of total funds awarded through the program.

—In 2006, the New York Urban Area received $124.5 million, or nearly 18% of the total.

—In 2005, the New York Urban Area received $207.6 million, or approximately 25% of the total.

—In 2004, the New York Urban Area received $46.7 million, or approximately 7% of the total.

—In 2003, the New York Urban Area received $149.7 million, or approximately 25% of the total.

It's interesting to note the lack of weeping and gnashing of teeth in 2004 - an election year no less.

[NYer]

Chertoff apparently has dug himself a deeper hole, concluding that the city has no national icons worth protecting. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton teamed up with Rep. Peter King yesterday to mail Chertoff the first of an expected avalanche of picture postcards of New York landmarks. (http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/64574.htm)

[NYer]

Ray Kelly in today's NY Post (http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/64504.htm) -

FEDS' ANTI-TERROR FOUL: JUST ASK AL QAEDA

By RAYMOND W. KELLY

June 2, 2006 -- THE Department of Homeland Security may want to consult with al Qaeda before it makes another retreat from support of New York's counterterrorism efforts. While DHS found zero "national monuments and icons" in New York to help rationalize its 40 percent cut in counterterrorism assistance to the city, the terrorists have had no such problem in finding iconic targets. Granted, as The Post's editors noted yesterday, they won't be able to find the Twin Towers anymore - New York remains a target-rich environment nonetheless, as a cursory review of terrorist acts here would indicate

The iconic Brooklyn Bridge caught al Qaeda's eye after 9/11 when its operative Iyman Faris was tasked to see if it could be taken down. Another Islamic radical, Rashad Baz, was drawn to the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994 to shoot up a van with Hasidim occupants, including 16-year-old Ari Halberstam, who was killed. A like-minded radical picked the Empire State Building to spray the observation deck with gunfire, killing one tourist and wounding six others there in 1997.

The terrorists' first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center resulted in the deaths of six innocent people in 1993. Al Qaeda returned in 2001 to finish the job.

Then there was the al Qaeda "landmark" plot of 1993 to destroy the George Washington Bridge, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and the United Nations. The New York Stock Exchange and the Citigroup Center in Midtown made al Qaeda's list of inviting targets in another plot exposed after 9/11.

More recently, a federal grand jury convicted the suspect in a plot, foiled by the NYPD, to bomb the Herald Square subway station in 2004. A terrorist bombing of the Atlantic Avenue subway complex in Brooklyn was narrowly averted by police intervention in 1997.

Then there were the anthrax attacks against The Post and NBC in New York. Yes, New York is the financial capital of the world, but it's also the media capital.

Does the DHS's bizarre retreat mean the NYPD is right behind them? No, not at all. From the outset, Mayor Bloomberg has made certain he'll do all it takes to safeguard the city, regardless of where the money's coming from. Ironically, his frequent trips to Washington to persuade lawmakers and others on the wisdom of threat-based aid were beginning to pay off. That's what makes DHS's latest aid allocation as disappointing as it was baffling.

Each day the NYPD dedicates the equivalent of a thousand police officers to counterterrorism duties. We have created a Counter Terrorism Bureau that does nothing else. We have restructured our Intelligence Division to address the terrorist threat, and we have increased by eightfold the number of detectives assigned to the Joint Terrorist Task Force with the FBI.

All of this and more, including a massive training and equipment undertakings, costs about $200 million a year, nearly all of it on our own dime.

The NYPD isn't looking for a handout. It's looking for the federal government to step up and provide serious support in the protection of the nation's biggest and most important city. In addition to the horrific loss of life, we saw what the 9/11 attack did to the city's and the nation's economy. We don't want to contemplate what another successful attack would do.

We had hoped that DHS would rely on the intelligence community to assess the threat and make funding decisions accordingly. Instead, DHS abdicated its responsibility and shifted the decision-making burden to a "peer review" process comprised of anonymous individuals from 48 states. The geographic reach may be politically correct, but it's shortsighted in putting the money where the threat is.

Raymond W. Kelly is New York City's police commissioner.

[al-Canine]

HOW'S THIS FOR A TERROR THREAT, CHERTOFF

By HASANI GITTENS

June 3, 2006 -- The feds may not consider the Big Apple much of a terror target - but al Qaeda begs to differ.

The NYPD yesterday released pictures from a jihadist Web site that show, among other things, a huge mushroom cloud spreading over the Manhattan skyline after a nuclear attack.

The image - accompanied by two pictures of terror lord Osama Bin Laden - also features a chilling message written in Arabic.

The NYPD says the translated text reads: "The first picture of New York City of [sic] a nuclear explosion, the total death is 2,500,000 people. Al Qaeda had delivered the ultimate promise."

Meanwhile, the NYPD continued its efforts to protect the city yesterday by conducting a terror drill in the Financial District.

The exercise - scheduled prior to the Department of Homeland Security funding snafu - was to measure the NYPD's communication capabilities in the event of a terrorist attack.

The New York Post (http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/69569.htm)

[NYer]

Watch for Chertoff to start channeling this man:

http://www.tvacres.com/honeymooners.jpg

"Haminah Haminah Haminah"

[al-Canine]

Sour grapes, anyone?

New York City officials and the Bush administration have repeatedly clashed over national security issues. Here are some incidents:

Homeland Security got annoyed when the city created its own anti-terror task force, complete with its own intelligence operation.

After the London subway attack, Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff said the city was on its own when it came to upgrading subway security because Homeland was more interested in protecting airliners.

Last October, New York City police flooded the subways on a tip that terrorists might try to set off bombs in baby strollers. Chertoff's office scoffed at the terror tip.

In February, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.) led the charge against administration plans to allow a company from Dubai to take charge of the nation's ports.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/423228p-357145c.html

[al-Canine]

Or... perhaps you would prefer some corn?

The Homeland Security bureaucrat who shortchanged New Yorkers' safety by $80 million implied yesterday that guarding a Nebraska cornfield from an Al Qaeda attack is the same as putting a cop with a gun on the Brooklyn Bridge.

"When you are protecting agriculture in the Midwest, you are protecting the citizens of New York City," Assistant Secretary Tracy Henke told C-Span's "Washington Journal."

Henke - a political appointee in charge of doling out $1.7 billion in security grants to cities under the highest threat of attack - cut funds to New York City and Washington by 40%, even though both are considered Al Qaeda's top terror targets.

Henke's claim that food stocks "risk" terror attack echoed comments this week by her boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. He had said New Yorkers are safer when "we protect agriculture in Wisconsin that is providing the food that New Yorkers eat."

But Mayor Bloomberg told WABC Radio yesterday, "We certainly eat food from other states, but they are kind of hard for terrorists to go after, I would argue."

A senior U.S. counterterrorism official in Washington also scoffed at the insinuation that Al Qaeda is targeting cornfields and grain stores.

"The whole DHS agro-terrorism theory doesn't hold," the official said. Asked if he had ever heard of a credible terrorist threat to the food supply, the official laughingly replied, "Never."

John Pike, a homeland security expert at GlobalSecurity.org, said Al Qaeda is purely interested in made-for-TV carnage.

"DHS may think that Wyoming is a more lucrative target than New York or Washington, but Al Qaeda seems to have a different view of the matter," Pike said. "Al Qaeda doesn't have a track record of attacking the food system." ............

Ah, or maybe it's some PORK...

Henke is a Republican political operative and protégé of former Attorney General John Ashcroft with no background in military or intelligence. She previously worked for two GOP senators from her home state of Missouri, which collected 25% more security cash from her office this year.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/423228p-357145c.html

[NYer]

http://www.nypost.com/img/front060306.gif

[booklover]

I didn't read all these articles but I don't have to to get that SOMEBODY is buying SOMETHING here...........WTF? Where does Pittsburgh stand in the line up. Gotta link? I mean....we got some stuff here that would make us a secondary target.

[booklover]

Here are the 2004 State Counter Terrorism Grants....best I could find so far.

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:WMazL5AgpfUJ:www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/Grants-ODP-04.pdf+Homeland+security+grants+for+Pittsburgh+PA&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

[Klaus]

Kentucky? Ft. Knox?
Consider the Goldfinger scenario... Make the gold radioactive, and it's worthless.



California, Florida, Texas, and Michigan got big grant money.

[al-Canine]

DHS attempts to clarify media's "misunderstandings" about NYC security grants:

Michael Chertoff: "We purposely placed these structures into other categories [other than national landmarks]: the Empire State Building into the large office building category and the Brooklyn Bridge into the bridges category. We did so because those categories generate a higher complete risk grade for New York's financing proposal than icons like Mount Rushmore that, while important symbolically, would have fewer human and economic consequences in case of an attack."


Op-Ed Contributor

New York, You're Still No. 1

By MICHAEL CHERTOFF | Washington

LAST week, the Department of Homeland Security announced $1.7 billion in new spending for state and local governments, including more than $700 million under our Urban Areas Security Initiative. Few readers may know it based on the news media reaction, but these 2006 grants continue a financing stream that places New York and Washington at the very top of the list in terms of money received.

The terrorists who struck us on Sept. 11, 2001, and their allies continue to view New York and Washington as among America's prime targets. Therefore we have put our money where the threat is. Since the creation of my department, the New York and Washington areas, along with Los Angeles, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area, have received 45 percent of overall financing from the urban areas initiative.

New York has received more than $528 million of this money, which is more than Los Angeles and Washington combined. The $124 million that New York will receive this year is 50 percent more than the next-highest area, Los Angeles, and represents almost a threefold increase over the $46 million the city received in 2004.

It is true that, in real dollar terms, New York is receiving less this year than in 2005, when it got more than $200 million. Why? In large part because Congress gave us about $600 million less for our grant programs, including approximately $125 million less for the urban areas initiative. Still, this year New York will receive just under 18 percent of the total funds in the urban areas initiative. This falls in line with the city's average over the last three years of receiving 19 percent of the program's funds.

There is a more fundamental point about these security grants. The Urban Areas Security Initiative awards are designed as capacity building investments. We are looking to pay for new equipment and projects that increase the nation's overall preparedness. They are not for routine and recurring operating expenses like salaries and overtime.

Therefore, while New York and Washington will continue to receive the majority of the money because of the heightened threat they face, future grants will also go to other, less populated areas that have not received much help in building even basic security capacities.

Besides, when we improve the overall level of security nationwide, it helps New York, too. The 2003 blackout clearly demonstrated that loss of critical infrastructure in parts of the country outside New York can have a direct impact on the safety of city residents.

Finally, I would like to clear up two other misunderstandings. First, contrary to news media reports, significant landmarks like the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge were included in our deliberation over where money would go. It is true that they were not classified as national monuments and icons. Why? To help New York's application.

We purposely placed these structures into other categories: the Empire State Building into the large office building category and the Brooklyn Bridge into the bridges category. We did so because those categories generate a higher complete risk grade for New York's financing proposal than icons like Mount Rushmore that, while important symbolically, would have fewer human and economic consequences in case of an attack.

Second, the Homeland Security Department has made every effort to rely on measurable facts and to take politics out of the process. State and local emergency management agencies — including those in New York — selected more than 100 local homeland security directors, fire chiefs, law enforcement officials and other experts to serve as peer reviewers of applicant-proposed solutions. When surveyed, 96 percent of the local and state agencies agreed that the panels that made the spending decisions included balanced representation, and 83 percent agreed that the peer review resulted in objective scores and results.

New York, Washington and a few other major urban centers face significant risks and rightly get most of the federal investment. But they are not the only cities at risk. Because the federal government cannot equally protect every single American at every moment in every place against every threat, we must manage the risk in the most effective way possible. And while we have significant resources, they are not unlimited. We have the obligation to ensure that those resources are invested wisely and fairly across the entire nation.

Michael Chertoff is the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

The New York Timers (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/07/opinion/07chertoff.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin)

[al-Canine]

Incompetence, Cronyism, and Boondoggles....

Politics As Usual Instead of Security

Joe Conason | The New York Observer

Michael Chertoff possesses the impressive résumé and aggressive bearing of a big-time official, but as Secretary of Homeland Security, he behaves more like a small-time hack. His feeble judgment in matters of policy, personnel and politics—first demonstrated in the wake of Hurricane Katrina last year—has proved that he was never qualified to protect the United States from terrorism and natural disaster.

Last week, he suddenly reminded the nation of his manifest incompetence, after his department released a bizarrely skewed list of security grants to cities and counties. Municipalities that confront the most significant threats will lose many millions in funding, while those least likely to face attack will receive additional millions.

Even more outrageous than the funding decisions were the explanations offered by Mr. Chertoff and his staff, who had promised to award money on the basis of actual need instead of political clout. To justify cutting New York City’s grant by nearly half, the department claimed that city officials had failed to fill out the grant application properly. They also asserted that the nation’s greatest city has no significant landmarks, and that the superb counterterrorism division of the New York City Police Department is somehow substandard.

While the firing of Mr. Chertoff certainly is overdue, as the tabloid headlines suggest, his dismissal will not solve the department’s problems. The priorities at D.H.S. have been badly distorted from the beginning, with partisan patronage and lobbyist influence taking precedence over efficiency and effectiveness. The controversial grants issued to municipalities are dwarfed by contracts awarded to private corporations, which amount to around $10 billion annually.

To observe the unsavory workings of that process is to wonder whether New York, Washington and other big cities lost funding simply because they failed to hire the most connected lobbyists. The big defense, electronics and communications firms gathered at the D.H.S. trough, along with their friends from K Street and the members of Congress whose campaigns they finance, never suffer the same difficulties as the struggling cities.

Whether the tens of billions awarded by D.H.S. have been well spent, however, is in grave doubt. Shipping ports, nuclear facilities and chemical plants remain poorly protected. First responders in many cities still don’t have the communications and protective equipment they need. Public-health agencies are too weak and neglected to cope with the threat of an avian-flu pandemic.

The wiring of D.H.S. for lobbyists—and the dominant influence of political appointees—became inevitable when President Bush appointed former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, amiable and malleable, to direct the White House Office of Homeland Security. He staffed the office with political aides and ex-lobbyists whose résumés were long on politics and short on security. When D.H.S. was established in 2003, the revolving door spun incessantly between its offices and Blank Rome—a lobbying firm that enjoyed an intimate relationship with Mr. Ridge and his associates.

Blank Rome’s chairman was a Bush Ranger, of course, while two other partners were Bush Pioneers. One of those partners took a year off from the firm to help set up the mammoth new department. As a result, Blank Rome has led the K Street pack in D.H.S. clients and billing.

This greasy political culture seems depressingly familiar, except that the stakes at D.H.S. are so much higher than at other federal agencies where private boodling outweighs the public interest. Both firms that employed the convicted crook Jack Abramoff have represented major D.H.S. contractors, as have all of the largest lobbying outfits in the capital. There are fees aplenty—and hundreds of millions of dollars to squander on wasteful programs and boondoggles.

Unfortunately, little has changed for the better since Mr. Chertoff took over. He brought along his own group of associates and cronies, notoriously including Julie Myers, the wife of his chief of staff, whose lack of relevant administrative experience didn’t deter him from appointing her to direct immigration and customs enforcement. (She also happens to be the niece of Gen. Richard B. Myers, the former Joint Chiefs chairman.) Tracy Henke, the official who oversaw those weird municipal grants, is a political appointee who seems to be in far over her head.

The last time that the public demanded accountability at D.H.S., following the deadly fiasco on the Gulf Coast, Mr. Chertoff escaped by sacrificing FEMA chief Michael (Brownie) Brown. This time, he may have to go—but nobody should expect serious reform under this regime.

The New York Observer (http://www.newyorkobserver.com/20060612/20060612_Joe_Conason_opinions_conason.asp)

[al-Canine]

KELLY: IRAN'S SPYING ON US, NOT STICKS

By FRANKIE EDOZIEN

June 13, 2006 -- Iran has an "aggressive" spy program targeting New York City, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly warned yesterday as he protested the slashing of federal homeland-security funds.

"They [Iran] have an aggressive surveillance system, the Iranians do, and have had for a long time," Kelly said.

"The Iranians have done this in the past, but they are not going to other cities to do it. They are doing it here in New York. They are aggressively surveilling us," he added.

Kelly testified before a joint hearing of the City Council's Finance and Public Safety committees that was looking at the impact of the loss of over $80 million in funding from the federal government.

The city's top cop detailed for lawmakers 17 terrorist-related events in the city's recent past, including three incidents of Iranian diplomats spying.

In June 2002, Iranian security personnel at its U.N. mission were expelled by State Department officials after having videotaped landmarks and infrastructure.

The following November, cops caught two more people from that mission videotaping tracks and tunnels of the No. 7 subway line.

And in June 2004, the FBI caught two more security officials from Iran's U.N. mission taping landmarks and sensitive sites in the city. They also were expelled.

In the meantime, NYPD officials are examining whether they can implement the lower Manhattan initiative - a high-tech security ring - with city funds only.



The New York Post (http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/kelly__irans_spying_on_us__not_sticks_regionalnews _frankie_edozien.htm)

[NYer]

In the meantime, NYPD officials are examining whether they can implement the lower Manhattan initiative - a high-tech security ring - with city funds only.





Might I suggest a new lottery with funds earmarked for NYC security?

[al-Canine]

Might I suggest a new lottery with funds earmarked for NYC security?
Brilliant idea!!

You should run for our next mayor! ;)

[CHE]

June 1, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - Less than five years after the murder of 2,749 people in the Twin Towers on 9/11, the feds yesterday shockingly slashed anti-terror funds needed to protect New York City against future attacks.

New York City will get its vital anti-terror funding chain-sawed from $208 million this year to $124 million next year - even though security experts agree it is vastly more threatened than any other city in the country.

I don't know if this is the right thing or the wrong thing to do this year - make sure you got that straight first. But if you thought you were going to continue to get $208 MM every year, well it doesn't work like that. Some of that money is supposed to be invested in equipment and security infrastructure would should depreciate, not have to be repurchased every year. Also, the burden for security expenditures should be largely shifted to the states over time anyway.

Finally, in comparing yourselves to remote areas of the countries that got increases - did you ever think that maybe the Feds spent the money on NY FIRST and withheld the money that those other places needed because they considered NY more important and more urgent?


Two cities in Chertoff's home state, New Jersey, made out like bandits - Jersey City and Newark will receive a total of $34.3 million, a 79 percent increase from the previous year.

I consider this statement intellectually dishonest even if factually correct with respect to one number, because it clearly hides the fact that NJ will receive LESS money than the previous year. You would think that would be relevant to this little comparison about "making out like bandits."

Also, I hope you realize that Jersey City and Newark are critical targets on the East Coast because they process almost all of the foreign imports in the NY metropolitan area and have almost all of the chemical plants in the same area - compared to almost none (comparatively) in NYC. Not that they are more important, they are less important than NYC. That is why NYC has and continues to receive more money. But there is importance assigned to the area.