Levees Not War

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File this one under ‘Are They Really Serious?’

The Associated Press reports that the White House plans to cut Homeland Security’s counterterrorism funds by more than half next year—slashing grants for police, rescue departments, firefighters, port security, transit security, and other anti-terrorism programs.

For its 2009 budget the Department of Homeland Security requested $3.2 billion to help states and cities protect against terrorist attacks, but the White House plans to ask Congress for less than half of that: $1.4 billion. (To put this funding request in perspective, for 2008 alone the White House is requesting $196 billion for the Iraq + Afghanistan wars and $481 billion for the Pentagon’s annual operating budget.)

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A report titled “The Best Laid Plans” was issued June 27 by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a legal watchdog group, concerning FEMA’s preparation for handling a hurricane of Katrina’s magnitude, and analyzing the agency’s failure to implement the plan-or even to communicate with itself. (See Raw Story’s article here.)

It took nearly two years, three Freedom of Information Act requests, and finally an FOIA lawsuit for CREW to obtain the 7,500 Department of Homeland Security documents that were used in compiling the report. CREW has posted the documents on their web site, along with an executive summary and the full report.