<nettime> National versus Federal Strategy ?!?

[Phil Duncan <PDuncan@AggregateStudio.com>]

Need we all chip in to buy this guy a dictionary?
or
Who needed the Cold War in the first place?

The following is copied from this source: 
http://dailynews.attbi.com/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=020715&cat=news&st=newsbushhomelanddc

Bush to Seek New Powers in Homeland Security Plan
Updated 10:30 PM ET July 15, 2002
By Adam Entous
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Laying out a comprehensive strategy to protect the 
nation for the first time since Sept. 11, President Bush will call for new 
measures to prevent nuclear strikes and for expanded powers to crack down 
on suspected terrorists.

"We are today a nation at risk to a new and changing threat," Bush will 
tell "fellow Americans" in a letter outlining his National Strategy for 
Homeland Security.

The letter warns that "our enemies are working to obtain chemical, 
biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons for the purpose of wreaking 
unprecedented damage on America."
Under the plan, which Bush will present to lawmakers at a White House 
meeting on Tuesday, the administration would in its fiscal 2004 budget 
provide funding for the deployment of new sensors to prevent attackers from 
using nuclear weapons.

The White House would also develop new "vaccines, antimicrobials and 
antidotes" to protect Americans from deadly germ agents, as well as boost 
the FBI's "analytic capabilities," expand the Coast Guard and improve 
security at the nation's ports.

The White House did not say how much Bush's plan would cost. But it 
estimated current spending on homeland security at $100 billion per year, 
including expenditures by federal, state and local governments, as well as 
the private sector.
In the short-term, Bush's homeland security strategy calls for Congress to 
consider new ways to use the National Guard and combat air patrols as part 
of the nation's defenses, which Bush has been bolstering since the 
September hijacked plane attacks on America.

Officials said Bush also wanted to place new restrictions on the public's 
access to information about material at U.S. chemical and nuclear plants.

Bush would also seek new laws expanding his authority to extradite 
suspected attackers, and ask Congress to grant him the power to reorganize 
federal agencies in response to future crises. "The terrorist threat to 
America takes many forms, has many places to hide, and is often invisible," 
Bush warned.


VULNERABLE AMERICA
Sept. 11 exposed U.S. vulnerability and opened Americans' eyes to the 
possibility of previously unimaginable strikes. It also obliged the Bush 
administration to design a strategy to prevent a repeat of the attacks that 
killed thousands of people.

Bush said his homeland security plan was developed over eight months in 
consultation with federal, state and local officials, as well as U.S. 
allies around the world. "This is a national strategy, not a federal 
strategy," he said.
The White House said the plan was the first of its kind by any U.S. 
administration.

Bush has already proposed folding all or parts of 22 agencies -- including 
the Secret Service, Coast Guard and Border Patrol -- into a new Department 
of Homeland Security to better guard against new attacks.
But several powerful committee chairmen in Congress are pushing for changes 
to the proposal.

In a speech in Alabama on Monday, Bush appealed to lawmakers to put aside 
their differences and carry out what he called the most sweeping 
reorganization since President Harry Truman confronted the Cold War in 1947.

"We need to know who is coming into our country, why they're coming into 
our country, and whether or not they're leaving our country when they say 
they're going to be leaving our country," Bush said.

"We need to make sure we've got a coordinating facility within the Homeland 
Security Department that will take all the bits of intelligence that we 
gather and coordinate it, and look at it, and assess it, and if there is 
any vulnerabilities in our country, react to it," he added.

But in seeking to secure the country's borders, the administration faces 
what may be an impossible task: screening out would-be attackers without 
slowing down the roughly 500 million people, 11.2 million trucks and 2.2 
million railway cars that cross into the country each year.

Bush must also overcome major bureaucratic obstacles in trying to 
coordinate more than 87,000 federal, state, and local jurisdictions across 
the United States.

"We will not achieve these goals overnight, but we will achieve them," Bush 
said in his letter to Americans.


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