Please find below an example of UPI's continuing coverage of homeland and national security. I hope you find it interesting. You may link to it on the web here:
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20050710-080049-9892r Subscribers to UPI's Security and Terrorism service receive this column every Monday morning, first thing. If you have any comments or questions about this piece, need any more information about UPI products and services, or want to stop receiving these alerts, please get in touch. Thank you, Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: 202 898 8081 Security & Terror: The week ahead By Shaun Waterman UPI Homeland and National Security Editor WASHINGTON, July 11 (UPI) -- The week's homeland and national security news is likely to be dominated by the bombings last Thursday in London. White House officials told reporters returning from the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, that President Bush would refer to the attacks in previously scheduled remarks at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., mid-morning Monday. Critics of the administration's strategy against terrorism, like former senior counter-terrorism official Larry Johnson, have called on the president to seize the chance the tragic events in London present to resurrect a moment of unprecedented international unity that the world enjoyed in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but which the United States "squandered by the decision to invade Iraq." White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president would place the attacks in the broader context of the U.S. war on terrorism. "Short term strategy -- fight the terrorists abroad. Longer-term -- bring freedom and prosperity to the places that produce terror." Tuesday, the president's schedule lists a meeting with senators to discuss the Supreme Court, and the roar of speculation, expectation and comment about the possibility of a second retirement this week is likely to drown out most other domestic stories. This is unfortunate, because this is also the week the Department of Homeland Security has chosen to unveil its much-vaunted Second Stage Review. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will roll out the results of his top-to-bottom business process analysis of the department in comments to staff Wednesday and then again before the homeland security committees of both the House and the Senate Thursday. The review is in serious danger of looking like an anti-climax all round. Almost all the possible re-structuring moves have already been chewed over and debated. As in any reorganization, there will be an opportunity cost and a great deal will depend on the implementation. Expectations for Chertoff ran very high on Capitol Hill following his confirmation, and "the answer to every question so far has been this review," according to one administration official. "He has set the bar high and in the end what will he have? A piece of paper." The official, like many, is skeptical of the suggestion that another reorganization is a good prescription for an entity whose major management challenge up to now has been dealing with the consequences of the last one. The operational problems will remain, cynics argue, no matter what the organizational chart looks like. Those operational challenges at the border will be the focus of two congressional hearings this week. Border Patrol chief David Aguilar will testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday on tri-lateral North American cooperation on border issues. He will be joined by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. -- who will doubtless put in a good word for their immigration reform bill -- and by Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Fla., of the House Homeland Security Committee. Former Canadian and Mexican ministers will also testify. Sunday evening, the committee Web site was still listing Aguilar's boss, Acting Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security Randy Beardsworth as the invited departmental representative, so we can only hope senators will not be disappointed with Aguilar. The Border Patrol chief will also testify before Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky.'s Homeland Security Subcommittee of House Appropriations. He will be joined by Deputy Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Leonard Kovensky, who will testify about the much-criticized detention and removal system Kovensky is filling in for his boss, Michael Garcia, who is leaving to run the celebrated prosecutor's office for the Southern District of Manhattan. The incidence of deputies filling in or acting up is noticeably high in some of the most operationally-significant parts of the department -- the Transportation Security Administration is still awaiting the confirmation of Edmond "Skip" Hawley, nominated May 19, as its chief; and permanent replacements for a slew of senior officials, including those in charge of border and transportation security and infrastructure protection, have yet to be named. United Press International reported that at least one veteran former counter-terrorist official, Ed Badolato, had been interviewed for the infrastructure job as long ago as February. Critics lay part of the blame for the delay at the door of the much-anticipated Second Stage Review. "How can you pick someone for a job, let alone ask them to do it. if you don't know yet what the role is?" asked the administration official, who is not authorized to speak to the press and does so only on condition of anonymity. The review is likely to be overshadowed not just by chatter about and possible news of another Supreme Court retirement but also by the debate on the Senate floor over the Department of Homeland Security 2006 Appropriations Act, which begins Monday. In the wake of the London bombings, a long simmering sense that the administration is preparing to re-fight the last war in its transportation security strategy is likely to boil over. The 2006 Transportation Security Administration budget proposal included $4.7 billion for aviation security and a tiny fraction of that -- $32 million -- for mass transit and other modes of surface transportation. The Senate Appropriations Committee last month approved a bill that would actually cut rail security grants by one third, to $100 million. The House version maintains funding at last year's $150 million level. At least two senators say they will offer amendments to the appropriations bill to boost rail security funding -- and with pictures of the London carnage plentiful and editors on the hunt for a new angle on the story, they are likely to get a good deal of airtime doing so. Sen. Joseph R. Biden, D-Del., will put forward an amendment based on a bill he championed last year to add $1.2 billion for rail security over the next five years. Also Monday, the former members of the former Sept. 11 commission hold the latest in a series of hearing designed to measure the progress the government has made implementing their reforms. The topic is congressional reform, the issue upon which the commission's recommendations have been least successfully implemented by most measures. And in a sign of the way in which Department of Homeland Security officials continue to report to more than one congressional master, Acting Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis Karen Morr will testify Wednesday before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. She will discuss terrorist threats and terrorist cells in an open hearing in the committee's huge hearing room in the Hart building. It will be interesting to hear her views on the growing evidence that a "second generation" of Islamic terrorists -- only loosely affiliated with al-Qaida, unknown to the security services of any nation and in some case schooled by their participation in the Iraq insurgency -- now pose the greatest threat to the United States homeland. This week is likely to prove something of a zero hour for the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. House and Senate committees both hear from Treasury Dept. officials about their report on the law, which concludes it should not be renewed in its current form. The report, published at the end of June, found that TRIA, as it is known, had succeeded in supporting the industry during a transitional period and stabilizing the private insurance market. But with a more robust economy, renewal of the law could actually "hinder the further development of the insurance market by crowding out innovation and capacity building," Treasury Secretary John Snow said. Finally, on Thursday, Tom Lockwood, the director of the Office of National Capitol Region Coordination, will testify before the Senate homeland security oversight subcommittee on "How Prepared is the National Capitol Region?" -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. 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