Obama Has Right Idea on Security
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Printable FormatChicago Sun-Times Editorial
Though the newly hatched Democratic presidential candidates have expended time and energy defining themselves over having apologized or not apologized for authorizing the Iraq war, we haven't heard much from them on another pressing war topic, homeland security. But that stands to change this week, with Barack Obama putting before the Senate a proposal to take the Improving America's Security Act one step further in making "risks and vulnerabilities" -- as stated by the 9/11 Commission -- the determining factors in what percentage of anti-terrorism dollars each state receives.
Adding about $1.29 million to what Illinois would receive under the security bill, Obama's amendment would bring the state's allotment in fiscal year 2008 to $49 million, $6 million more than what the state got in FY2007. The minimum allotted to small states would be lowered another level from the current standard so that more funding would be available to states with higher risk. (States bordering Mexico and Canada would have a higher minimum than those that don't.) Even with Obama's amendment, only 10 states will come out with less money than was slated for them in the original bill.
We have called for a corrective to the disparity by which flea markets and petting zoos in Louisville and Omaha are deemed as badly in need of anti-terrorist dollars as sites in Manhattan and Washington, D.C. The federal anti-terrorism database, informed by pork-based needs, lists the most potential terrorist targets in Indiana -- 51 percent more than it lists in New York.
Obama's amendment is well-timed. Americans who have allowed themselves to downplay the threat of al-Qaida are all too slowly having their fears awakened again by reports that Osama bin Laden has rebuilt his lethal organization in Pakistan -- and may be planning new attacks in the United States -- and the Taliban is regaining a foothold in Afghanistan. The situation in Pakistan has escalated enough to occasion a visit there by Vice President Dick Cheney, who warned Gen. Pervez Musharraf that unless he goes after al-Qaida leaders more aggressively, the United States will reduce its aid to Pakistan. Preparedness needs to be restored to the national dialogue. Obama's proposal will help do that.