Homeland Security And Politics
Weekly commentary by CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer.
When our Bob Orr reported that Attorney General John Ashcroft's latest terror warning came as a surprise to the rest of the government, including the Department of Homeland Security, I couldn't believe it.
Well, I should have.
When the attorney general put out those `be on the lookout for seven suspected terrorist pictures,' Tom Ridge, who heads the Department of Homeland Security, got the details with the rest of us, when the announcement was made on TV. Nothing personal.
Apparently the FBI hadn't even passed the information to its officers in the field. And now we learn some of the information may have been bogus anyway. Excuse me? But wasn't the Department of Homeland Security created because our intelligence and law enforcement agencies could not or would not communicate with each other? If these people still cannot figure out the right reasons to work together, maybe the president should explain the politics of it, since politics seems to be what drives everything anyway these days. Maybe he should just sit them down and say, `Look, boys, I'm in the middle of a campaign. If you keep acting like the gang that can't shoot straight, you're going to get me beat.'
I suppose we should be pleased that the attorney general did close ranks with Ridge and they issued a joint statement Friday pledging to work together. They said, and we quote, "We thought this would be helpful as we move into this period of threat." How reassuring.
By Bob Schieffer