Real Security
REAL SECURITY -- (House of Representatives - April 06, 2006)
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Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Schiff for putting this Special Order together to give us an opportunity to talk about real security from the Democratic standpoint.
As you know, unlike my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we have a plan. That plan is very simple. If we can get additional support, we can make this country safer. But for this hour, let us talk a little bit about homeland security.
First of all, I want to take you to the notion that as a grandfather, I spend a lot of time reading children's stories. It may be because I am the ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee, but recently I was reading the ``Emperor's New Clothes,'' and I could not help but think about the Department of Homeland Security.
For those of you who are not familiar with the story, it is about a ruler who loved to dress up in the finest threads. One day some folks came by and promised to make him the finest suit he had ever seen. As they made it, they kept asking him what he thought about the beautiful cloth and the fine design. Not seeing anything but feeling a little naive, the emperor said it was beautiful.
When the day came for him to wear the suit out in public, he called a big parade and put on the so-called outfit. Everyone ``oohed'' and ``aahed'' until one small child spoke out and said those magic words, ``He doesn't have anything on.''
Why does that story remind me of the current administration's homeland security efforts? Because DHS is like the naked emperor. Despite the Department's many press releases of success, the agency's efforts are not enough to cover our Nation's critical parts. Like the citizens of the emperor's town, we all want to believe what we are hearing and seeing is sufficient. But let me tell you, it is not.
If you have any doubts about this, just look at the government's response to Hurricane Katrina last year. As Clark Kent Ervin, the former inspector general of the Department has said, if Katrina was a dress rehearsal on how the U.S. would respond to a terrorist attack, we are not prepared. A lot needs to be done to ensure homeland security is covered. Our security gaps at our borders must be eliminated. Our trains and subways must be protected so we do not have a London or Madrid attack.
Our ports must be secure, and our Coast Guard must be well funded. That means we must work with our partners internationally to protect our ports by screening 100 percent of the U.S.-bound containers at their points of origin rather than waiting until they arrive at our port communities.
Those flying the friendly skies should be safe as they are carried to their final destination. That means we must secure our passenger airlines by requiring 100 percent screening of air cargo that travels on the same plane with the passengers. We must have commonsense security at chemical and nuclear plants. The private sector is looking for guidance from the Department. We need to be sure that they have it. We must ensure that hazardous cargo is carried safely through our communities.
Also, we must guarantee that our local cops, firemen, and EMTs have the training, staffing, equipment, and technology they need so that they can talk to each other during an emergency. As you know, we saw with 9/11 that a lot of the individuals involved in that situation could not communicate with each other and many of them lost their lives because of it.
Now, when the small child called the emperor out, he knew the child was right, but thought the procession goes on. He carries himself proudly and his assistants acted like they were keeping his invisible robe off the ground.
The Department's procession absolutely cannot go on. I ask my colleagues across the aisle to stop carrying this invisible robe and join us in recognizing that the Department of Homeland Security has been without clothes for way too long. It is about time that we outfitted the agency so that it can fulfill its mission. Our Nation and its citizens deserve no less.
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Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman, and I particularly appreciate your talking about the common sense changes that have to be made to protect this country. Does it make sense, I ask our ranking member, to have a policy where you have to take off your shoes at the airport to get through the metal detector, but 50 percent of the cargo on the plane you are flying on is commercial and 98 percent of that is never checked for an explosive? You can ship a bomb the size of a piano that will never get opened in a crate under that same plane, but you have to take your shoes off. Does that make sense?
Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. None of it makes sense. The other thing is, we have the technology available to us to do many of these things. We have to have the will to produce the resources necessary to acquire the technology in order for that to occur.
We have tried in our committees to fully fund all of the screening programs, not just at airports, but we are talking about screening cargo coming into our country. But we can't get the support on the Republican side of the aisle to move in that direction.
We have two government agencies, Department of Energy and Department of Homeland Security, charged with radiation screening of certain activities. We can't even get support to merge the two programs. They are operating in ports separate and apart. So clearly, there are a number of things, Congressman Schiff, that we need to do.
Mr. SCHIFF. And that last point, I think, is the key one. The President, I am sure you recall, during the first debate with Senator Kerry, was asked what is the top national security threat facing the country? And he said, nuclear terrorism. Senator Kerry agreed. I think they were both right.
But if that is true, and the most likely suspect for nuclear terrorism is al Qaeda, then the most likely delivery device is not a missile but a crate. And that crate is going to come into one of our ports. And why we haven't mobilized the resources to implement that portal technology, why we are spending as much as we are on a more distant threat in terms of national missile defense, rather than the more proximate threat of a smuggled in dirty bomb or crude nuclear weapon is not in our Nation's national security interest.
Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Well, it is not. And what we find is there are a substantial number of containers that come to this country, as you know, without any inspection. To inspect it when it gets to our shores, if it is a dirty bomb or anything like that, is unacceptable. We have to do the inspections or the screenings at a minimum at the points of origin rather than when they get to this country. If we don't, we are in for a rude awakening.
The other point I want to make, and I want to thank you for this time, is we clearly have to support financially the safeguards that are required. We have the technology. We have to make sure that we put the resources to support the technology.
Mr. SCHIFF. I thank the gentleman very much for all his leadership in improving our Homeland Security.
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