Responding to Homeland Threats: Is Our Government Organized for the Challenge? : Hearing Before the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, One Hundred Seventh Congress, First Session, September 21, 2001

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U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002 - Terrorism - 107 pages
 

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Page 97 - The combination of unconventional weapons proliferation with the persistence of international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the US homeland to catastrophic attack. A direct attack against American citizens on American soil is likely over the next quarter century.
Page 88 - O, it is excellent To have a giant's strength ; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.
Page 42 - Advisory Panel to Assess Domestic Response Capabilities for Terrorism Involving Weapons of Mass Destruction (Gilmore Commission.
Page 70 - Non-governmental organizations (refugee aid organizations, religious and ethnic advocacy groups, environmental and other single-issue lobbies, international professional associations, and others) will continue to grow in importance, numbers, and in their international role. 8. Though it will raise important issues of sovereignty, the United States will find it in its national interest to work with and strengthen a variety of international organizations. 9. The United States will remain the principal...
Page 39 - Agency (NHSA) with responsibility for planning, coordinating, and integrating various US government activities involved in homeland security. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) should be a key building block in this effort.
Page 40 - ... of achieving this. The Senate's Arms Control Observer Group and its more recent NATO Enlargement Group were two successful examples of more informal Executive-Legislative cooperation on key multi-dimensional issues. Specifically, in the near term, this Commission recommends the following: 7. Congress should establish a special body to deal with homeland security issues, as has been done effectively with intelligence oversight. Members should be chosen for their expertise in foreign policy, defense,...
Page 87 - two major theater wars" yardstick for sizing US forces is not producing the capabilities needed for the varied and complex contingencies now occurring and likely to increase in the years ahead.
Page 61 - In 1987, screeners missed 20 percent of the potentially dangerous objects used by FAA in its tests. At that time, FAA characterized this level of performance as unsatisfactory. More recent results have shown that as testing gets more realistic — that is, as tests more closely approximate how a terrorist might attempt to penetrate a checkpoint — screeners performance declines significantly.
Page 73 - ... of US bases around the world will increase pressures on the United States to reduce substantially its forward military presence in Europe and Asia. In dealing with security crises, the 21st century will be characterized more by episodic "posses of the willing" than the traditional World War Il-style alliance systems.

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