$98 Billion More Urged; Ridge Aide Calls Number ‘Inflated’
By John Mintz, The Washington Post
Government agencies across the nation are dramatically underfunding efforts to prepare police, fire and ambulance personnel for terrorist attacks, and should spend $98 billion on that task beyond current plans for the next five years, according to a study by the Council on Foreign Relations.
The 62-page report, to be released Monday by a task force of the nonpartisan research group, concludes that while the Homeland Security Department is doing valuable work, the federal government should increase its spending fivefold as part of the effort to prepare “first responders” for terrorist strikes.
“Although the American public is now better prepared in some respects to address aspects of the terrorist threat than it was two years ago, the United States remains dangerously ill-prepared to handle a catastrophic attack on American soil,” according to the study by the Independent Task Force on Emergency Responders.
The study substantiates the complaints of many cash-starved states and cities that they need more federal help to pay first responders, and that even the money that has been dedicated to them is slow to arrive. The panel identifies biological, chemical and nuclear weapons as the gravest terrorist threats.
The 20-member panel that wrote the report was headed by former senator Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) and Richard A. Clarke, a former top counterterrorism adviser to presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. and George W. Bush. Other members include retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr. and retired Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., both former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; William H. Webster, former director of the CIA and FBI; and Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg.
The report, “Emergency Responders: Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared,” is a follow-up to an earlier study, also led by Rudman, that reached equally critical conclusions about the nation’s lack of preparedness for emergencies, as well as gaps in protections for facilities such as ports and water systems.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesman said the council’s new study contains little new information except for the huge sums of money it recommends.
“The council’s [recommended] budget numbers seem to be grossly inflated,” department spokesman Gordon Johndroe said. He cited a proposal that government agencies spend an additional $3.3 billion in the next five years on emergency operations centers.
Johndroe added that many of the report’s other recommendations have already been suggested by the Bush administration or are being implemented.
Other blue-ribbon panels have also proposed increasing the budgets for police, fire and emergency medical personnel to help them respond to terrorist attacks. Democrats have made similar recommendations, elevating the issue as one of their main critiques of the Bush administration’s handling of homeland defense.
The council worked closely on the report with 20 large groups that have stakes in the funding of local personnel, including the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and other organizations that represent police, fire and hospital officials.
Currently, the Homeland Security Department and other federal agencies spend about $5.4 billion a year on first responders. The study says they should be spending about $25 billion annually to do the job.
The federal government is expected to spend about $27 billion on first responders over the next five years, and state and local agencies (whose emergency preparedness budgets are harder to forecast) between $26 billion and $76 billion, the council says. The report recommends that, over the next five years, all those levels of government should spend $98 billion more than is called for in current plans.
On average, fire departments have enough breathing equipment to protect only a third of the firefighters on a shift, and enough radios for half, the council says. Police departments lack the protective clothing for securing a site attacked with a chemical or biological weapon, or a radiological dispersal bomb.
The council says one big snag in moving forward to prepare first responders for terrorist attacks is the lack of federal standards, namely guidance on the protective gear they should buy, and the training their officers need. Johndroe said Homeland Security is moving quickly to draw up standards.