Former Army Sec Faults DHS Terror Plans

The War on Terror is not, as Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards claims, merely a bumper sticker slogan, but it is rapidly regressing into perhaps the highest-stakes blame game in our nation’s history. When attacks or attempted attacks occur, the outrage expressed usually focuses on whom within America or among our allies failed to predict and prevent the attacks, but very little ire is directed towards those who perpetrated the cowardly acts. Americans are obsessed with assigning blame within our own government, desperate to identify an internal flaw that makes such attacks inevitable because Americans like to be liked and have difficulty fathoming the fact that much of the world detests America and all that it represents, for good or evil. We spent far more energy and resources on study groups, commissions, and media reports to determine who within the U.S. government was to blame for the 9/11 attacks, even while the remains of victims were being unearthed at Ground Zero.

Meanwhile on 9/11, there was dancing, rejoicing, and celebratory gunfire in cities and towns across the Middle East, images of which appeared on “fair and balanced” news networks, but were deemed too inflammatory for broadcasts on traditional left-leaning channels. In Oliver Stone’s otherwise even-handed and excellent film World Trade Center, he portrayed the populations of the Middle East as shocked and deeply sorrowed by the television images of the Twin Towers collapsing, ignoring completely the reality of their celebrations. To have truthfully portrayed Middle Eastern Muslims as happy and gleeful on 9/11 would have implied that millions of people in the world find pleasure in watching America suffer, and thus are to blame for supporting, indirectly or directly, terrorism directed against America and her allies. Americans, ever in denial that anyone could hate something as wonderful as America or its tolerance, prefer instead to seek scapegoats from within, turning on our own in order to vent the anger and thirst for revenge that is considered politically incorrect to direct at those who are actually to blame: Islamic terrorists.

In a Washington Times editorial yesterday, Mike Walker, former acting Secretary of the Army and former Deputy Director of FEMA, waxed eloquent about the need for Americans to maintain vigilance and not to underestimate the threat radical Islam poses to our way of life. Walker, writing of the preferred tactics of al Qaeda, warned “They seek to spread fear, hoping to turn us inward and against each other.” Yet, a mere two paragraphs later, Walker turns inward against American government agencies, blaming the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for neglecting its responsibility to prepare for and prevent terrorist attacks. Walker wrote:

The Department of Homeland Security seems more concerned with passing immigration legislation and not repeating the response to Hurricane Katrina. While this occurs, the terrorist threat, the reason the department was established in the first place, continues to build. Almost six years have passed since the 9/11 attacks, we still have no national terrorism prevention doctrine. Programs continue to be episodic and not based on a plan for prevention. State and local government homeland-security budgets continue to be cut, while daily priorities take precedence.

Capital Cloak has criticized DHS on occasion when warranted and recognizes many flaws within that department, but Walker’s portrayal of DHS as failing in its counterterrorism duties was factually in error and undeservedly singled out one department as a scapegoat. Walker was absolutely correct in his assessment that DHS is greatly concerned with immigration issues and avoiding another Hurricane Katrina fiasco. He was also correct that DHS was created post-9/11 as a response to Islamic terrorism and that after nearly six years there is no “national terrorism prevention doctrine.” However, Walker ignored several important truths about DHS that, had he included them, would have negated much of his criticism.

I have written previously that DHS, despite public perception, is not a counterterrorism agency. Although it was the love-child of the post-9/11 political frenzy to pass legislation reassuring the American people that something was being done about terrorism, DHS was never meant to become the nation’s lead agency in the War on Terror. That distinction has been and continues to be shared between the “terrorism quartet” of the CIA, FBI, DIA, and NSA, with the FBI front and center domestically. DHS has no intelligence operatives or informants, no satellites, no electronic monitoring capabilities; in short, it has no counterterrorism tools whatsoever. None of the agencies who possess these assets are DHS components. They operate either independently or under the direction of other departments, such as Defense or Justice. While these agencies have employees assigned to work with DHS as intelligence liaisons, the level of information sharing between them and DHS is not under DHS’ control. Efforts have been made to improve intelligence sharing procedures and expectations, but the current reality is that DHS relies 100% on other departments and agencies to provide it with intelligence on terrorist activity.

If DHS is concerned with immigration issues, it is because immigration agencies are a significant part of the department, comprising the majority of DHS personnel. Immigration issues are also controversial and politically charged. DHS comes under fire for not “securing the border,” yet the executive branch, which is responsible (through the Justice Dept.) for establishing federal law enforcement priorities, has chosen not to pursue strict enforcement of immigration laws, including deportation, except in campaign years. As I have written previously, law enforcement is restricted in what laws it will enforce by the Justice Department’s willingness to prosecute violations of those laws. If American presidents and their attorney generals do not want to see illegal immigration laws enforced properly, law enforcement must focus its priorities on other laws that attorney generals do want to see enforced. It is not the way it should be, but that is the reality. DHS actively pursues violations according to direction from a Cabinet member and the president. If Walker is looking to lay blame for DHS’ interest in immigration issues, he should lay it at the feet of those who dictate priorities to DHS. Once Congress and the executive branch realize that illegal immigration and border enforcement are national security issues rather than the potential means to legalize a treasure trove of potential voters for political gain, perhaps DHS will be given the proper tools and mandate to halt illegal immigration and locate those already here.

As a former Deputy Director of FEMA, surely Walker must realize that FEMA has nothing to do with “homeland security” and never should have been included in the formation of DHS. The fallout from its handling of Hurricane Katrina, some deserved, some unfairly heaped on FEMA instead of local leaders, has assured that DHS must give an inordinate amount of attention and resources to predicting the only thing more unpredictable than terrorism: the weather. Nothing whips DHS leadership into frenzy quite like a tropical storm that may or may not become a hurricane. There are email alerts, pages, conference calls, and several daily briefings all to warn that a storm somewhere in the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico may one day develop into a hurricane. What is the terrorism nexus with hurricanes? Is al Qaeda sending these storms to batter America? Of course not, but you wouldn’t know it by the near panic that engulfs DHS with the mere mention of the dreaded phrase “Hurricane Katrina.” That DHS has this focus on the weather and determination never again to take a media beating after a major storm is not DHS’ fault. If Walker is looking to turn inward and lay blame, he should lay it at the feet of those who crafted the Homeland Security legislation to include FEMA in a department that was allegedly supposed to tackle weightier issues like terrorism.

Walker wondered why DHS has not created a “terrorism prevention doctrine” nearly six years after 9/11. The answer is quite simple and to a Washington insider like Walker should have been obvious: DHS does not have the resources, departmental mission, or terrorism expertise to oversee the creation of such a doctrine. For such a doctrine to be formulated, debated, edited, and approved, the process currently requires separate participation from a host of departments and agencies, each with its own budgetary and political agendas. DHS is perhaps the world’s largest middleman, receiving intelligence from other agencies, sanitizing it, and then sharing it with state or local officials. For DHS to gain counterterrorism capabilities, some of the agencies listed above who actually do perform counterterrorism functions would have to be moved into the department. Reliance on other agencies to share intelligence did not work very well or often prior to 9/11, and now that the stinging memory of 9/11 has become distant for some in Congress and the executive branch, that inter-agency dependence will inevitably devolve to previous levels of non-cooperation.

When a department or agency is the product of a flawed creation process, should the blame for its shortcomings be heaped upon those within it who merely perform the duties the department has been given? Certainly there have been and will always be human errors that occur in the performance of routine duties in any department, and those errors should be recognized and remedied appropriately. However, when it comes to public and media perception that DHS should be the government’s counterterrorism authority, a dose of reality would be refreshing. DHS’ creation without inclusion of the FBI, the primary agency empowered to investigate terrorism, was akin to building a fire station but choosing not to equip it with fire trucks or staff it with a crew. In the absence of counterterrorism capabilities, DHS naturally turns its attention to immigration and hurricanes as Walker argued, but not because terrorism is a low priority within the department. Effective counterterrorism is simply beyond DHS’ current organizational structure.

Whether DHS should be the lead agency in counterterrorism and be given more capabilities is a matter for debate, but criticizing DHS for failing to be something it was not designed to be contributes little to improving public trust at a time when our confidence and faith in each other as Americans is the one thing al Qaeda cannot destroy with its car bombs and plane hijackings. DHS is not the enemy. President Bush is not the enemy. Congress is not the enemy. Our enemies are radical Islamic terrorists, and they delight in our penchant for self-loathing and our obsession with assigning blame to each other for their actions.

Like a battered wife, we cover up our injuries and blame ourselves for the beatings we receive, searching ourselves for faults or flaws that make us deserve attack, while the bullying perpetrator who relies on violence to intimidate escapes blame or punishment. We, like our British counterparts, are asked not to mention that terrorists are Islamic and the use of the phrase “War on Terror” has been deemed too harsh or belittled as a “bumper sticker.” Sadly, many battered wives blame themselves until the terrible day that the cowardly abuser strikes a fatal blow. Only then is it clear that blame mattered not at all. The priority should have been removal from the threat or better still, removal of the threat.

Walker was right to warn Americans not to turn on one another. He should have set the example by heeding his own warning.

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