Need help - Didn't the admin. cut funding for fighting terror pre 9-11?

[Fuzz]

I seem to remember that was the case, correct me if I'm wrong. Can anyone help me by getting me some links that prove this if true?

[Melinda]

1. Here ya go:

In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows.

The document, dated Oct. 12, 2001, shows that the FBI requested $1.5 billion in additional funds to enhance its counterterrorism efforts with the creation of 2,024 positions. But the White House Office of Management and Budget cut that request to $531 million. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, working within the White House limits, cut the FBI's request for items such as computer networking and foreign language intercepts by half, cut a cyber-security request by three quarters and eliminated entirely a request for "collaborative capabilities."

-snip-

The group released two other administration documents, parts of which have already been made public, showing that just before the Sept. 11 attacks, Ashcroft did not agree to $588 million in increases that the FBI was seeking for 2003. That request included funds to hire 54 translators and 248 counterterrorism agents and support staff. But in his 2003 request sent to the White House, dated Sept. 10, 2001, Ashcroft did not propose that any FBI programs get increases above previously set levels and proposed small cuts to some programs related to counterterrorism.

Other documents indicate that before Sept. 11, Ashcroft did not give terrorism top billing in his strategic plans for the Justice Department, which includes the FBI. A draft of Ashcroft's "Strategic Plan" from Aug. 9, 2001, does not put fighting terrorism as one of the department's seven goals, ranking it as a sub-goal beneath gun violence and drugs. After the attacks, fighting terrorism became the department's primary goal. By contrast, in April 2000, Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, called terrorism "the most challenging threat in the criminal justice area."



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13541-2004Mar21.html

[maddezmom]

2. and check out this link from today

New air control center unguarded
BETH SILVER; The News Tribune

Metal detectors, remote-controlled cameras and an office for armed guards will serve as little more than decoration when a new center for air traffic controllers opens next month in Burien.

~snip~
When it began plans five years ago to build the Seattle Terminal Radar Approach Control Center, FAA officials expected that guards would watch the controllers and the millions of dollars in new equipment.


Last September, though, the FAA abandoned those plans, in part because of federal budget cuts to the agency.


The reduction in security also represents a change in the way the FAA looks at the issue as the "hysteria" over the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon has subsided, said FAA spokesman Mike Fergus.


~snip~

more:http://www.tribnet.com/news/story/4906967p-4841912c.html

[MsUnderstood]

3. They had to cut the anti-terrorism budget to afford the anti-drug war

http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns/052201.htm

May 22, 2001

. . .the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that catches this administration's attention.

Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998.

Sadly, the Bush administration is cozying up to the Taliban regime at a time when the United Nations, at U.S. insistence, imposes sanctions on Afghanistan because the Kabul government will not turn over Bin Laden.

(gee I wonder why no one asked Powell about this?)

[Fuzz]

4. Thank you, thank you!! :)