In the 60 Minutes report on the NYPD’s counterterrorism efforts back in March, they cited a statistic that NYC has spent nearly a billion dollars of its own money – excluding funds from federal sources – on counterterrorism. If that statistic is correct, then they’re clearly already paying a significant share of the total cost burden to protect the city.

Christian

Ultimately, the concept is to increase nationwide preparedness. If 30% of the available funding continues to go to the same city to pay overtime and buy more toys (while those low-risk folks in rural America continue to wait 2 hours for a hazmat team to arrive – they don’t matter, though), what are we accomplishing? How are we improving our ability to handle events?

The LETPP funding has more flexibility to fund things like intel fusion, information sharing etc – things that truly hold promise for preventing terrorism. having mobile SWAT units patrol the subway may reduce crime, but probably is of minimal (at best) utility in reducing the risk of terrorism.

Here’s how it should work: the politicians ask the scientists to conduct an analysis. The scientists come back with their resulst and recommendations. The politicians take the results and do whatever they like, regardless of the results, because they are politicians.

Here’s how the Bushies do it: they tell the scientists to produce a specific result. During the analysis, the scientists come to a different result. Therefore, a political appointee edits the scientific results to conform with Bush’s pre-determined policy. Then the scientists are fired, disbarred, and ridiculed.

That’s what I mean by it’s all politics with these guys — the science is corrupted and co-opted into nonscience (pronounced nonsense) to justify a pre-ordained plan.

On February 18, 2004, over 60 leading scientists — Nobel laureates, leading medical experts, former federal agency directors, and university chairs and presidents — signed the statement at this link, voicing their concern over the misuse of science by the Bush administration.

The scary thing, is that the ignoring of science (and quantitative analysis) is across the board: security, energy, environment, health care, public health, fiscal responsibility. The only analysis the Bush administration does is to realign congressional districts so that republicans are never defeated in future elections. That’s where they apply their science: to staying in power instead of toward improving the lives of Americans.

I’ve been meaning to weigh in here and talk about the funding issue, but have been too distracted by work, etc. – usual excuses. But I do directly challenge this whining I hear coming from the pols in DC and NYC. Yes, you were hit nearly five years ago by one particular terrorist group. Time to get over that, and the half-billion dollars that NYC got over that period of time should help. There are a number of extenuating circumstances that ought to be considered when DHS doles out the pork.

1. What’s the real risk of terrorism (domestic or foreign) to any major or minor city as opposed to natural disasters? Should we really be investing millions of dollars into antiterrorism efforts when natural disasters occur more frequently, affect more people, and cost more to clean up?

2. Let’s say for estimates that there are 200 major US cities, and DHS has a billion to spend (they had what, $780 mill?). Roughly, that’s $5 mill per city. Has NYC or DC done a baseline assessment to demonstrate their current capability, their capability gaps, and the costs associated with filling those gaps? Can they demonstrate (other than pointing to 9/11) that domestic or foreign terrorists are targeting them? Are terrorists really carrying around roadmaps of NYC as the mayor claimed, or was that just BS? Tell me where Oklahoma City fits in the DC/NYC mayors’ arguments.

3. Metrics have to be a key here. Maybe DHS doesn’t have the right data yet, but they have two choices – use their gut instincts and award bigger cities with more money, or dole it out based on existing capabilities and true gaps. If the smaller cities make a stronger case that they have needs that are (on the surface) more credible than paying for NYC cops’ overtime, then they ought to get the money instead.

4. Last point. How many cases over the last few years have you seen stories where cities are getting millions in funds and can’t spend it fast enough, or spend it on non-terrorism related (but still related to “emergency management”)? Too many? When we were reeling from 9/11, maybe it was alright to throw buckets of money at the cities. But if we are in for a “long war,” then we need a long-term strategy. That ought to include some degree of responsibility on behalf of the cities to protect their citizens. At the least, they ought to demonstrate an ability to pick up 33-50 percent of the tab, and ask for matching federal funds. This pork-barrel funding process where the city who whines the most, gets the most, isn’t helping anyone.