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| August 27, 2003 | |||
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SEN. LIEBERMAN'S OPED IN THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Terrorism Watch List: Get it Together, Guys |
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The disquieting federal warning of possible airline hijackings like those of 9/11 - in effect until summer's end - reminds us that if properly managed and maintained, watch lists can help catch terrorists. Watch lists help keep those trying to get into the country out and are remarkable tools for law enforcers if terrorists do slip in. But because of a lack of leadership by the Bush administration, this crucial job remains undone.
Twelve watch lists that contain identifying information about suspected terrorists are scattered among nine federal agencies. Everybody agrees they should be consolidated, including President Bush. So why has the administration fumbled for almost two years? Why has a valuable tool to maximize our chances of catching terrorists been given such low national priority? The watch lists need to be consolidated and made available to all layers of homeland defense - from consulates abroad, where visas are issued, to border guards checking the documents of people entering the country, to domestic law enforcement at the local, state and federal levels. Failure to use the lists cost the nation dearly when the CIA neglected to place two of the 9/11 suicide bombers, identified as terrorists in 1999, on a watch list until it was too late. One of them was stopped for speeding in Oklahoma in 2001. Had the state trooper who ticketed the man had access to a consolidated watch list, history might have played out differently. The flow of names onto the State Department's watch list increased as much as 450% in the months immediately after 9/11. The lists have kept hundreds of identified terrorists out of our country. Their cost is small when compared with the hundreds of millions to billions of dollars needed to physically secure our borders. But the lists need to be consolidated. In their joint inquiry into 9/11, the House and Senate intelligence committees found repeated watch list failures by the CIA and FBI and recommended the creation of a unified list. The reasoning was that one list would have the best chance of guaranteeing a constant flow of foreign terrorist names onto it from all relevant sources. A single list also would promote its use among federal, state and local agencies. They would know exactly where to look to track down a suspect. The Homeland Security Department is the logical place to oversee this consolidation. One of the central ideas behind the department was to knock down bureaucratic barriers to information sharing and to link state and local authorities to federal agencies involved in homeland security. Still, it is not clear who, if anyone, is taking responsibility. The President, in his National Strategy for Homeland Security published in July 2002, said: "We will build and continually update a fully integrated, fully accessible terrorist watch list." CIA Director George Tenet told Congress the consolidation was underway: "The CIA and State Department are cooperating to transform the ... all-source watch list into a National Watch List Center [which] will serve as the point of contact and coordination for all watch lists in the U.S. government." And Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, testifying before the Senate in April, said his department was "accelerating consolidation of watch lists." Yet as we approach the second anniversary of 9/11, no action has been taken. I have called on the President to issue an executive order requiring the consolidation of watch lists by the end of the year. The order should clarify that Ridge will be the primary official responsible for consolidating the lists and disseminating the master list. It is inexcusable that two weeks shy of two years after 9/11, there is still no consolidated national watch list operating around the clock to alert us to terrorists attempting to enter our country to do us harm. The President must grasp the reins of leadership and demand that this task be completed with utmost dispatch before the deadly consequences of inaction are felt again. Senator Joe Lieberman, D-Conn |
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