Wednesday, 17 July 2002
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/20717Nhomelandsh.html
Homeland security plan's highlights
President Bush released a 90-page strategy on homeland security Tuesday. The
document, meant to be the guiding philosophy behind all future domestic counterterrorism
measures, envisions new federal laws and initiatives to:
* Create "red teams" that would think like terrorists and identify
potential methods and targets.
* Exempt from public disclosure requirements certain documents on the vulnerabilities
of such U.S. infrastructure mainstays as utilities and chemical plants.
* Expand extradition agreements with other nations.
* Possibly give the federal government authority to deploy the National Guard
in emergencies, currently a power reserved for governors.
* Give the president power to shift around funds that have been earmarked by
Congress.
The strategy also calls for new state laws:
* Creating tighter minimum standards for obtaining driver's licenses.
* Ensuring terrorism insurance is available for business and property owners.
By David Westphal
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON - State and local governments, along with private businesses across the country, will be asked to play increasingly important, and expensive, roles in protecting the nation against terrorist attacks, according to a homeland security blueprint released Tuesday by President Bush.
The first-ever domestic security strategy suggests local jurisdictions will face tens of billions of dollars in new spending for training first responders, buying new communications equipment and developing response plans for a massive attack claiming thousands of lives.
The plan offers new wrinkles for state and local officials to consider - a redesign of driver's licenses to prevent their fraudulent use by terrorist organizations, and a plan for quickly appointing judges in the event of a large-scale attack .
"This is a national strategy, not a federal strategy," Bush said in a letter to American citizens as he announced the plan. "We must rally our entire society to overcome a new and very complex challenge."
More will be asked of the private sector as well. Businesses spend $55 billion a year on security, and might have to double that to protect against attack, the report says. Beyond that, businesses will be asked to give the government reports on their own security weaknesses, with the understanding that the data couldn't be used against them in potential litigation.
The report lays the groundwork for the president's plan to establish a new, Cabinet-level Homeland Security Department. Congressional critics of the proposal have complained that Bush was asking for a massive reorganization without laying out an overall game plan.
In harrowing language, the study warns that - 10 months after the Sept. 11 assaults - the United States remains vulnerable to attack.
"Unless we act to prevent it," the report said, "a new wave of terrorism, potentially involving the world's most destructive weapons, looms in America's future."
Preventing that from happening, according to the administration's study, will require a mammoth national mobilization that will continue "for years and decades, not weeks and months." Even then, the study said, life in the United States will not return to normal.
"We have to accept some level of terrorist risk as a permanent condition," it said.
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