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San Francisco Chronicle - September 11, 2005
Four Years After 9/11: The quest for national security
In Hurricane Katrina's wake, some question whether
battle against terrorism is the right fight
By Marc Sandalow
Washington -- Four years ago this morning, the nation's priorities changed.
As rescuers tore through the rubble of the World Trade Center and Pentagon, President Bush vowed that fighting terrorism would be the central focus of his presidency.
The nation has twice gone to war; more than 2,000 American soldiers have died, and many more Iraqis and Afghans have been killed. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent; security barriers have been erected; air travel has become an ordeal; and Americans have adjusted to a new way of life.
And since the late summer of 2001, not a single terrorist has struck the United States.
Instead, on the fourth anniversary of the nation's worst terrorist attack, America is confronting an even deadlier calamity, brought on by Mother Nature.
Hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- are dead along the Gulf Coast. Billions of dollars will be spent rebuilding New Orleans and the surrounding area, and the Bush administration is preoccupied with another form of disaster.
The cruel irony has prompted some to question whether the country's obsession with terrorism has left it vulnerable to other disasters. Rather than credit the administration for staving off terrorist attacks, many believe that unreasonable fears borne from the Sept. 11 attacks drove the country, and its leaders, to overreact to the terrorist threat and divert precious resources from the near-certain catastrophes of nature.
Financier George Soros told 1,000 participants in a Washington terrorism conference last week that the so-called war on terrorism has "done more harm than good. ... It has diverted our attention from other vital" missions.
Even those who remain exceedingly worried about terrorism found reason for concern after watching the response to Hurricane Katrina, which -- unlike a terrorist attack -- came with a few days' warning.
"This provides vivid insights into what (a terrorist) situation might be like," said retired Col. Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. "It makes me even tenfold more worried -- if that's possible -- than I was before."
Much has been written about the lasting legacy of Sept. 11 as it relates to the nation's foreign policy, politics and psyche. But the timing of Hurricane Katrina has also prompted a conversation about the cost of focusing on terror.
"This terrorism paranoia has (created) unbalanced priorities," said Ben Wisner, an adviser to the United Nations on disaster risk, and a visiting professor at Oberlin College in Ohio. "People have been taught like Pavlov's dogs; when the terrorism bell rings ... people salivate. They become hyper-aware of it to the extent that they don't pay attention to other risks," Wisner said.
"We live in a continent with very severe winters, hot summer, volcanoes, coastline, hurricanes, earthquake. ... The fact is these natural hazards affect people every year and in the aggregate kill a lot of people. We have to be concerned with the big picture."
For the past four years, terrorism has been the big picture in Washington. The administration's focus on war and terror was evident as Katrina blew through the Gulf Coast. The day the storm devastated New Orleans, Bush left his vacation home in Texas and flew to California, where he delivered a speech on the war in Iraq.
"After September the 11th, 2001, we've taught the terrorists a ... lesson," Bush said at the Naval Air Station in San Diego. "America will not run in defeat, and we will not forget our responsibilities. We have brought down two murderous regimes. We're driving terrorists from their sanctuaries. We're putting the terrorists on the run all across the world."
As Bush spoke these words, tens of thousands of New Orleans residents were trying to cope without food, phones or police protection.
The federal government's inability to react more swiftly has prompted many to blame the war in Iraq for draining the nation's resources. The military fiercely denies the charge. Of the 1.4 million men and women in uniform and another 600,000 in the reserves or National Guard, roughly 140,000 are serving in Iraq, and another 62,000 are in the Gulf Coast, according the Pentagon. "We do not have a shortage of capacity," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel. "Whoever's raising that question ... doesn't really understand the situation."
Yet it is not in dispute that the nation's emergency preparation and response since Sept. 11 has been aimed primarily at potential terrorist attacks.
Hundreds of billions of dollars have been allocated for homeland security, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency lost its Cabinet level status as it was subsumed by the new, anti-terrorism, Department of Homeland Security.
"It's pretty clear that most of this activity was not focused on major natural disasters ... and was really focused more on the problems associated with terrorist attacks," said Richard Falkenrath, former deputy homeland security adviser and deputy assistant to President Bush….
Some say the lesson to be learned is that America is confronting the wrong enemy.
After four years without an attack on U.S. soil, some believe the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks may have been the result of a "perfect storm," a freakish combination of able attackers, missed intelligence and bad luck.
Another conclusion is that there are some events -- whether at the hand of man or nature -- that are simply too large for government to handle in a manner that most Americans have come to expect….
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/11/MNG40EM00T1.DTL
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