Are Americans prefer dwelling on 9/11 failures

[Guest Cerebus]

Another good article about if this comission hooplah is making us dwell on the past for all the wrong reasons.

 

Out of Commission

by Michelle Cottle

 

Thank God the latest round of the 9/11 Commission's public hearings is over. With all due respect to the group's worthy aim, its high-profile, politically charged, controversy-provoking performance thus far has resembled less a fact-finding mission than a reality show on Court TV.

 

For starters, has anyone ever seen a chattier bunch? Over the past month, Commission member Jamie Gorelick, formerly of the Clinton Justice Department, has sat down to gab with ABC's Charles Gibson, NPR's Melissa Block, NBC's Matt Lauer and Katie Couric, PBS's Jim Lehrer, CNBC's Alan Murray, and every single employee of CNN except that new intern who changes the coffee filters in the green room. With Gorelick's fellow commissioners following similarly grueling media schedules, it's a wonder the group ever found time to hold any hearings.

 

Moreover, in retrospect, the decision to televise the hearings may have been a mistake. It's hard to know for sure if such openness ultimately benefits the American public. What we do know, however, is that it invariably fosters partisan squabbling, bureaucratic finger-pointing, and politically juicy yet utterly unproductive minidramas along the lines of: Will Condi be allowed to testify? Will she offer an apology like Richard Clarke? Will she fall to pieces on camera, and if so, will her mascara run? The better question: Did all the hyperventilating over Rice's appearance bring us any closer to understanding how the most powerful nation in the world got its clock cleaned by a bunch of deranged holy warriors? In a word: No.

 

It's not that the hearings have failed to deliver plenty of drama--and even a bit of comedy. (Tom DeLay upset over "partisan mudslinging"? Stop it! You're killing me!) But a more productive approach to this whole business would have been to let the commission conduct its politically delicate mission away from the klieg lights while the rest of us obsessed about something even more important--like the fact that two and a half years after 9/11, we are still sitting ducks for another Al Qaeda attack.

 

I was reminded of this unsettling reality (again) this week when Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge boldly announced plans to "ratchet up" security in response to intelligence that Al Qaeda may be planning a November surprise for the upcoming presidential election. Alternatively, Ridge tells us, terrorists may try to drop in on this month's IMF and World Bank meetings in Washington; the G-8 summit in Georgia in June; this summer's Democratic National Convention in Boston; the Republicans' gathering in New York; or any number of other high-profile "symbolic opportunities" occurring between now and year's end. We don't know precisely what the murderous little thugs have in mind, but we know they're up to something.

 

While Ridge's announcement was meant to inspire confidence (We are all over this terrorism thing, folks!), it merely spotlighted the sorry security position from which we must "ratchet up." For starters, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it intends to complete a long-planned database mapping the nation's points of vulnerability--chemical plants, electrical grids, rail lines, and so on. Unfortunately, the bulk of private industry has not turned over the infrastructure information needed to construct such a database, and, aside from pleading, there's not much DHS can do about it since congressional Republicans insist that compliance remain voluntary. (This, despite the fact that some in the affected industries have requested that it be made mandatory in order to give them legal cover from customers who might not be thrilled at such information sharing.) Now, maybe Ridge will think up creative ways to spur mass reporting, organize and analyze the data, and get the system up and running in time for the IMF meetings this weekend--or by next month's dedication of the World War II Memorial. But this seems unlikely considering that, last fall, a Homeland Security official told Congress that an infrastructure analysis would probably take five years to finish.

 

More broadly, you have to question Ridge's ability to twist arms considering that, at this point, his own department remains in what could be politely termed total chaos--too busy fighting the predictable funding, staffing, and turf battles to focus on anything as silly as the continued failure of private industry to put security plans in place. Again, not that Ridge could do much about the situation. As with the infrastructure reporting, marvels one Democratic Hill staffer, we're expecting the vast majority of industries to do this "out of the goodness of their hearts."

 

At this point, one of the few sectors to have adopted notably tougher security measures is the beleaguered air-travel industry. But now even those precautions are under review. This week, the Transportation Security Administration is considering a request by Pittsburgh International Airport to lift the ban on allowing non-ticketed visitors beyond security checkpoints. It seems the airport's many shops and restaurants haven't been doing so well since the new rule was put in place, much to the distress of the local airport authority and, of course, Pittsburgh politicians.

 

Dearie me! Has this whole war on terror been inconvenient for airport merchants and shoppers? How dreadful. By all means, let's gut our meager security rules and send anyone with a wallet sailing through the checkpoints and into the Airmall. Who cares that actual travelers will wind up spending three extra hours in security lines because Aunt Betty's entire bridge club wants to see her off on that Caribbean getaway? (Just thinking of all the additional shoes to be removed makes me dizzy.) And why worry that, currently, airlines check the names of everyone allowed through security against a database of suspected terrorists--a precaution that would no longer be possible if the non-ticketed were again allowed access? Go right ahead. Lift those rules. Otherwise, I won't be able to sleep thinking about all the would-be shoppers cruelly prevented from reaching the Winnie-the-Pooh slippers and that cup of banana Frogurt calling out to them from Concourse C. If that sort of injustice is allowed to stand, the terrorists really have won.

 

Even if the TSA tells the folks in Pittsburgh to shove off, you can bet that another similar request will land in its lap one day soon. Americans value security--but we value our conveniences and our Frogurt even more. Which is why it's so much fun to sit around obsessing over the 9/11 Commission. Arguing about who's to blame for something bad that has already happened is infinitely easier than making even minor sacrificies to prevent something else bad from happening. But unless we start paying at least as much attention to what we aren't doing now as to what we weren't doing then, one day soon we're going to find ourselves watching another commission squabble over how Al Qaeda managed to catch us off guard yet again. Maybe by then Tom Ridge will have his database finished.