"Gut Check": Dump Chertoff

Anti-Terror-Tsar Michael Chertoff has announced that America needs to be worried about al-Qaeda. His assessment is based on a combination of weather forecast and abdominal discomfort.

What worries me most is that Chertoff remains in office.

"I believe we are entering a period this summer of increased risk," Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune's editorial board about an unspecified al-Qaeda threat. "Summertime seems to be appealing to them." When pressed for specifics, the Tribune wrote in today's (July 11) edition, "he indicated that his remarks were based on 'a gut feeling' formed by past seasonal patterns of terrorist attacks, recent al-Qaeda statements and intelligence he did not disclose."

Huh?

First, lets review the evidence:

The United States remains the number one terror target for al-Qaeda, as it has been for nearly a decade. The group's definition of legitimate targets is pretty wide ranging, from New York's World Trade Center, to US Embassies and naval vessels. The war in Afghanistan temporarily took some wind out of their sails, but they are clearly regrouping and undoubtedly looking for targets beyond direct engagement in that region. They have hit the United Kingdom and Spain, places they have greater freedom of unsupervised movement than in the United States. But, sooner or later, they will detonate something on our shores and we will suffer. We must remain vigilant, but we also must get on with the daily business of life.

The old saw in the intelligence field is that the terrorists only have to be right once; the defenders need to be right every time. Predicting an increased likelihood of a terror attack is like relying on Punxsutawney Phil to predict the weather. Yes, it will get warmer in April than in February. Yes the terrorists will eventually attack. But why in summer rather than fall or spring?

Chertoff's job is to protect the homeland from manmade and NATURAL disasters. Remember how well he did with Hurricane Katrina? One didn't need intelligence analysis or stomach gas to see that disaster coming; all you had to do was turn on the Weather Channel and chart the storm track. Somehow, the federal government's massive failure to prepare for and recover from the storm was sloughed off on some unremarkable bureaucrat named "Brownie." Chertoff's dome somehow escaped the chopping block.

I assumed at the time that the Bush administration kept him around because they realized the benefit of having a reliable fall guy for unforeseen but inevitable circumstance. Chertoff was and is certifiably expendable. I was no fan of Rumsfeld but why did he beat Chertoff out the door? The more we learn about the Iraq debacle the more it seems that (besides Colin Powell) Don Rumsfeld may have been the only sane man in the war room.

Back to al-Qaeda: Most intelligence assessments say that our greatest exposure is in overseas real estate like military bases, embassies, aid offices etc. The reason is simple: they are more accessible.

The main target within the homeland has been and remains New York City, scene of al-Qaeda's greatest feat and the touchstone public face of American culture. An explosion in Chertoff's home state of New Jersey isn't out of the question, but, honestly, how many al-Qaeda fighters can spell 'Piscataway?' and how many people around the world can give the correct code for Newark International Airport, aka Liberty Airport? (The correct answer is EWR).

So for all of his belly aching about a long hot summer and doom and gloom mongering, the first thing Chertoff does is slash terror protection funding for New York. What is the guy thinking? When New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly asked for federal assistance to install the kind of comprehensive security camera system that allowed UK authorities to nab the would-be London/Glasgow bombers, Chertoff turned him down.

From the day Chertoff got to Washington his job has been hatchet boy.

Chertoff was drafted by the GOP brain trust as "special prosecutor" to go after Bill Clinton for his unseemly contact with Monica Lewinsky. But even with enough DNA to land OJ Simpson in jail, Chertoff couldn't get a conviction. And now, most pollsters are predicting that Clinton is on his way back to the White House (albeit as a guest).

Chertoff's reward for needlessly humiliating the president and the nation was to become America's second Department of Homeland Security boss without so much as a suggestion of qualification in emergency preparedness, anti-terrorism, military affairs or any related topics.

Although today's headline from Chicago is about Chertoff's "gut" a further reading of what he told the editorial board reveals an attack on Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa for failing to follow GOP marching orders to back the immigration plan recently scuttled in Congress. Chertoff clearly implies that Grassley and every other politician with the nerve to oppose the immigration bill will be to blame "when a guy comes across the border with a phony document and blows up a target in Buffalo or Detroit?"

But, who will be to blame when someone blows up a target in New York. Who will be to blame the next time DHS mishandles a hurricane. Will Mike Chertoff stand up and take responsibility?

My gut says no.