THOMPSON SAYS FEDERAL
MANAGEMENT REFORM VITAL
FOR SUCCESSFUL BATTLE AGAINST TERRORISM
Monday, December 3, 2001
WASHINGTON - Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN)
Friday stressed the need for the federal government to fix
persistent management problems plaguing federal agencies that
threaten national preparedness and response in the war against
terrorism. Thompson’s remarks came during a panel discussion
with former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the
American Enterprise Institute’s "Winning the War
Against Terrorism - Next Steps" conference.
"We’ve had years of waste, fraud, and
abuse in the federal government, and a government that can’t
balance it’s books is a government that’s clearly
unprepared to meet the challenges that are here and on the
horizon," said Thompson, who has been pleased with the
Bush Administration’s early efforts to address management
reform. "We’ve got to look across the board and see
what we’re really going to have to have in terms of
financial management, critical infrastructure, public health
systems, and private partnerships in order to get the job
done."
Thompson said federal management needs have
been sidelined for other national priorities for too long and
that government reform is now of critical importance. He
pointed out the national security dimension of the human
capital crisis, as agencies and departments struggle to
recruit and retain people for positions throughout the federal
government. "We need to rearrange our domestic
priorities," he said. "Clearly, we must do more
militarily, increase spending as we’ve been told by the
Congressional Budget Office to do, modernize, realign, and
work more with the intelligence community."
Despite early successes in the war against
terrorism, Thompson said sustaining American will in this war
will be an ongoing effort. He urged the United States to prove
its willingness to use the military, technological, and
intelligence might it has, but has been reluctant to use in
previous engagements for fear of destabilizing international
coalitions.
"There’s a cost to alliances, as we’ve
seen with our troops returning from Desert Storm without
finishing up the job decisively," Thompson said. "We
must not compromise what’s in our interest for the sake of a
coalition. I’ve been afraid that our enemies looking at our
history, in Beruit, Somalia, and Haiti for example, would
think we have the technological power necessary, but not the
will. I think that idea is being dispelled, but we have to
really prove that we have the will to use what we have at our
disposal."
He continued, "We were not prepared for
what happened on September 11, but we should have been. We had
plenty of warnings and we knew that international terrorists
were becoming bolder and more aggressive. But we were
unwilling to confront those supporting terrorist networks. We
cannot afford to avoid this problem any longer." |