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Bush Admin Uses Anti-terror funding for pork
Topic Started: May 31 2006, 06:07 PM (1,596 Views)
ivorythumper
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iainhp
Jun 2 2006, 09:45 AM
Perhaps all these NY newspapers that are complaining could publish an accounting of what the funds issued to date have been spent on. I'll wager that they have at least partially been siphoned off to support something other than anti-terror.

But that would not be in their interest to do so, would it?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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iainhp
Middle Aged Carp

Quote:
 

Let us define the most obvious targets -- either because they are symbolic targets or because of the potential for widespread death, injury and damage -- and let's secure those and not care whether every state, every city or every congressional district gets their bit of pork.


I propose that there is no real way to secure targets. How exactly would you have protected the World Trade Centre buildings, or Disneyland, or the Golden Gate Bridge? Or Las Vegas................ The only real way is to restrict all persons from access - but then the terrorists will have won. Can you imagine a place that has probably had more effort put into the terrorist problem than Israel - and still some bombers get through.

No, prevention is the only feasible method, using the intelligence agencies coordinated with local police agencies around the country. This tied in with architectural improvements to any new structures.

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Jeffrey
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ian: "no real way"

Uh, the way is high-profile police presence combined with on the ground intelligence. Exactly the sort of police man hours Cherty *criticizes* the world-wide copied and admired NYPD for putting in. Next.
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Jeffrey
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ian: "Perhaps all these NY newspapers that are complaining could publish an accounting of what the funds issued to date have been spent on. "

In short, unable to defend the actual substance of the report - which found that the Empire State Building, the Stock Exchange and Grand Central Terminal are not potential terrorist targets - you just chose to make something up and throw it out there hoping to divert attention from the facts of the allocation.
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Jeffrey
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Phlebas: "I tend to agree with the new model of spreading the money more around the country."

Plausible, if the money went to oil refineries, nuke plants etc. However it seems to have gone to Historic Register houses in Charlotte, rather than the Stock Exchange. That is why it is pork, not anti-terror funding.
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ivorythumper
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Jeff: given that NYC has already received over $800M over the past 4 years, and even assuming that MOST of the money was well spent on the actual use for which it was intended, are you absolutely convinced that the city requires continuous funding at that level instead of using the funds to bring up the security standards at less visible but still vital interest locations in other parts of the country that perhaps have not been adequately protected?

And are you certain than none of the NYC money went to Historic Register houses in NYC?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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JBryan
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Quote:
 
In short, unable to defend the actual substance of the report - which found that the Empire State Building, the Stock Exchange and Grand Central Terminal are not potential terrorist targets - you just chose to make something up and throw it out there hoping to divert attention from the facts of the allocation.


Cite for me the part of the report that found "the Empire State Building, the Stock Exchange and Grand Central Terminal are not potential terrorist targets". I seriously doubt they would have made such a finding. Might you be "mak[ing] something up and throw[ing] it out there hoping to divert attention from the facts of the allocation"?
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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Kincaid
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HOLY CARP!!!
There seems to be some confusion regarding lack of "icons" in New York. Granted Chertoff was on the Hannity radio show today, but he gave a convincing explanation that structures such as the Empire State Bldg are better classified as dwellings rather than icons. Icons are not occupied as living space and thus carry less weight than occupied structures in the formulas used.

Now, as for spending the money on pork projects in, say, Oklahoma, I can say that is the fault of the local powers if it happens. It should be exposed locally and dealt with at the ballot box.
Kincaid - disgusted Republican Partisan since 2006.
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
Hey! We need that air conditioned veranda on the Cowboy Hall of Fame to give the suicide bombers a chance to cool off before they let 'er rip.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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Rick Zimmer
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Kincaid
Jun 2 2006, 07:56 PM
Now, as for spending the money on pork projects in, say, Oklahoma, I can say that is the fault of the local powers if it happens. It should be exposed locally and dealt with at the ballot box.

Not if it is my federal money to fight terrorism.

In such an important aspect of our national life, I expect the Federal government to establish a system which keeps this from happening, not allows it and then leaves it to the locals to complain, if they even know it is happening.

I would never expect my tax moneys spent on a local military base for national defense to be subject to the whims of a local politican or locally elected board. I want it decided by the experts in national defense.

So also, I expect the Federal government to use federal anti-terrorism money to be used in just that way and not as pork.

Chertoff is using this as pork. I am not surprised because his job is under scrutiny because of his failures as the head of HSD under Katrina. He needs to buy congressional support.

But I am angered that this Admininstration places so litttle concern and shows so little understanding of terrorist attacks that they would distribute the money in this way rather than focusing it themselves on the targets which are most likely and most vulnerable and the programs which are most effective.
[size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size]
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ivorythumper
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Rick Zimmer
Jun 3 2006, 08:23 AM

Chertoff is using this as pork. I am not surprised because his job is under scrutiny because of his failures as the head of HSD under Katrina. He needs to buy congressional support.

But I am angered that this Admininstration places so litttle concern and shows so little understanding of terrorist attacks that they would distribute the money in this way rather than focusing it themselves on the targets which are most likely and most vulnerable and the programs which are most effective.

Rick: You keep asserting this is pork, without offering proof. Above I asked: Do you have any actual data as to how all the money has been used over the past 4 years, and how effectively it has been used, and whether the same level of funding is still required in these areas, and what the exact parameters are for considering distribution of funds in the present budget against what has already been implemented? Or are you just using this as another opportunity to grind your ax?

You are, of course, free to make any assertions that you want. But continuing to assert things without providing evidence is not persuasive.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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iainhp
Middle Aged Carp

Quote:
 

an: "Perhaps all these NY newspapers that are complaining could publish an accounting of what the funds issued to date have been spent on. "

In short, unable to defend the actual substance of the report - which found that the Empire State Building, the Stock Exchange and Grand Central Terminal are not potential terrorist targets - you just chose to make something up and throw it out there hoping to divert attention from the facts of the allocation.


This is a legitimmate question, not a diversion. You are complaining that NY did not receive sufficent funds. As a part of this argument it would be normal to state what prior funds have been spent on, then provide information on why this funding is insufficent (ie what requires further funding). You are the one who appears to be waffling. Just provide some facts.

Quote:
 

ian: "no real way"

Uh, the way is high-profile police presence combined with on the ground intelligence. Exactly the sort of police man hours Cherty *criticizes* the world-wide copied and admired NYPD for putting in. Next.


Again, it is not the job of the Federal Government to pay the wages of the NY police department - that is up to the citizens of NY. The purpose of federal funds is for security against terrorist type acts, plus some special responses to extra-ordinary events (such as a nuclear discharge, which city emergency response teams will typically have few facilities to deal with) - however these response teams are for nationwide use, and are not maintained purely for the comfort of the citizens of NY city.

I submit that the loss of the Empire State building or Grand Central Station, though a tragedy, would not cause anywhere near the havoc to NY city that, say, the loss of some key electrical transmission facilities outside of the state of NY - something that is not covered by the federal funds given to NY. Combine that with the destruction of a couple of key water pipes and NY would be worse off than down town Baghdad.




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Jeffrey
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Money for bingo halls, plasma TVs and Mushroom Festivals, but not for NYC bioterror defense. More election year pork from the Bush administration. This is criminal: http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/423815p-357615c.html


Bioterror chills

CDC doesn't weigh risk when divvying up funds

By JIMMY VIELKIND, AMY SACKS and ADAM LISBERG
DAILY NEWS WRITERS


NYPD haz-mat team checks can with mystery liquid, as Manhattan remains vulnerable to bioterror.

Penny-pinching feds are set to deal New Yorkers a second blow - cutting the city's bioterror funds by up to 15%, it was revealed yesterday.
The hit will come on money used to plan for the unthinkable: everything from dirty bomb explosions to chemical attacks to the unleashing of deadly biological agents to flu pandemics.

Sen. Chuck Schumer slammed the proposed budget slashing by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention yesterday, just days after the Homeland Security Department whacked New York's anti-terror funding by 40% - saying the city had no icons.

"To cut New York once again shows something. To cut New York a second time shows there's a pattern there in Washington," said Schumer (D-N.Y.). "This second cut - from a different agency - shows that politics is at work."

While the CDC cut will be $3.1 million - compared with the $83 million Homeland Security slashing - Schumer called the move another slap in the face from the White House to a city rocked by 9/11, the anthrax letters of 2001 and constant terror threats.

The CDC funds will be sliced for almost all areas of the country, Schumer said, but New York faces far deeper cuts than most.

For example, while the per capita spending in the city will drop to $2.99 from $3.22, the spending in Wyoming will decline to $9.72 from $9.77, he said.

"Once again, areas that need the funding far less do much better than New York," Schumer said. "We're here today to tell Washington and the CDC: Don't burn New York twice."

Meanwhile, Rep. Anthony Weiner unveiled more "outrageous boondoggles" by Homeland Security yesterday, including these anti-terror fund expenditures:


A $30,000 trailer for the October Mushroom Festival in Madisonville, Tex.

$160,000 for plasma TVs in Montgomery County, Md.

$36,200 to block terrorists from raising money in Kentucky bingo halls.
"What we have is a coast-to-coast smorgasbord of pork-barrel spending for homeland security," said Weiner (D-Brooklyn, Queens).

"This isn't fun and games," he added. "This is the exact funding that has gone [elsewhere] instead of having it come here to New York City."

Mayor Bloomberg defended the funding request applications the city sent to Homeland Security Department officials and said he planned to speak today with agency boss Michael Chertoff, who has become a figure of derision in New York.

"Once they make announcements, it's very difficult for them to change it, but hope springs eternal," Bloomberg said.

Schumer said figures he obtained from the CDC show city funding falling 15% to $17.9 million next year, while separate funding for New York State would face a 17% decline to $21.6 million.

A top CDC official said last night that funds are being cut, but not as much as Schumer said. Richard Besser, head of the CDC's terrorism preparedness and emergency response office, said revised figures would cut 14.5% of the state's grant and 12% of the city's.

"Our overall budget is down 12%, and because of that, just about every locality in the country is getting less money than it did last year," Besser said.

The CDC funds are also diluted because the agency is trying to funnel money to at least one city in every state, he said - but it doesn't weigh risk in divvying up the funds.

"We believe New York City is at much higher risk," Besser said. "It's the department's hope that for next year's funding, there will be a risk component."

Bloomberg has been lobbying the CDC for bioterror funding for months and made a personal appeal to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt in February, the mayor's spokesman said.

"The mayor has always made it clear that we will go out and buy every single piece of equipment we need to keep the city as safe as we possibly can right away, the day we think we need it," said spokesman Stu Loeser. "We hope that these preliminary funding formulas are changed."

New York has used the CDC money to monitor hospital admissions for troubling diseases, install air monitors and improve its testing labs, health officials said - but cuts will hurt its ability to prepare for disaster.

"This Health Department is doing a terrific job," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, head of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. "How we justify any kind of reduction is beyond me.

"I just don't get it."


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Jeffrey
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NY is a blue state, so screw'em, they don't vote for us anyway:

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/64723.htm


FEDS ADD IN$ULT TO INJURY VS. N.Y.


NOW OUT TO SLASH BIO-TERROR FUNDS


By TATIANA DELIGIANNAKIS and DAN MANGAN





June 5, 2006 -- Now, the feds are plotting to whack New York City's bio-terror funds by 15 percent, too, an outraged Sen. Charles Schumer revealed yesterday.
"These proposed cuts in bio-terror preparedness are like rubbing salt in a gaping wound," the New York senator fumed, as the city continued to reel from a separate, severe, 40 percent slash in its crucial Homeland Security money.

"Don't burn New York twice," Schumer warned. "Just as we are a target for all other kinds of terrorism, we are targets for bio-terrorism as well.

He noted that in the "one instance we had in the United States with bio-terror, which is anthrax, New York was the focal point."

New York's senior senator said he learned that the federal Centers for Disease Control is proposing to cut the city's biological terror funding from $20.96 million for the current fiscal year to $17.87 million next year - a 15 percent drop.

The CDC also wants to reduce the state's own bio-terror pot by 17 percent - dropping from $25.89 million this year to just $21.61 million next year.

The reduced numbers - which continue a nearly uninterrupted pattern of cuts in bio-terror funding to New York since 2003 - are even more striking when they are compared on a per-capita basis to other locales.



For example, Wyoming is slated to receive $9.72 in bio-terror funds per resident, while New York City is set to receive just $2.99 per resident.

And North Dakota would receive $8.09 per resident, while New York state - minus the city - would receive a paltry $2.14 per resident.

Schumer said the reduced funding to New York would significantly undermine infrastructure and staffing that the city and state have already put in place with past bio-terror funding from the CDC.

In recent years, the city has used its funding to pay for such things as installing and monitoring air samplers in densely populated areas to detect the presence of airborne threats.

The city also has hired 200 new public-health staffers and created a medical reserve corps of 4,600 responders with the federal bio-terror funds.

The proposed cuts come amidst a furor over the federal Homeland Security Department's decision to cut by 40 percent the federal anti-terrorism grant money awarded to the Big Apple - as seemingly less-terror-prone areas are getting a boost in such funding.

"This administration seems to allocate funding like children play Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Donkey - blindfolded," Schumer said at a press conference, where he demanded that New York's funding be restored to pre-cut levels.

The senator claimed that the CDC and Homeland Security cuts show a clear bias against New York City and state by the Bush administration.

"To cut New York twice shows that there's a pattern here," Schumer said.

"At first, I thought what [Homeland Security] Secretary [Michael] Chertoff was doing was just ineptitude, but this second cut from a different agency shows that politics are involved.

"It is clear that the message that is going out is, 2006 is an election year, and New York is a 'blue [Democratic] state' - [so] cut it," he said.

Ironically, Schumer's office noted, at the same time that the CDC plans to cut its bio-terror funding to the city and state, it is urging the state to increase from three to five the number of public-health laboratories that it has capable of analyzing chemical agents.

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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
And did anything ever come out of the investigations of misuse of NYC funds that were being investigated by Congress?

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“Charges of apparent kickbacks, payoffs, mob contracts, payments to undeserving firms and businesses - all this and more must be investigated and those responsible must be held accountable. Not only for the sake of justice and the memory of those who died, but to show that this immoral and illegal conduct was the exception and not the rule,” wrote King this weekend.


$21 Billion, Jeff -- puts that $36000 used for training in Kentucky into perspective. What have you done to locally protest the misallocation of funds in NYC that really do endanger you directly? Or is all of America just supposed to keep funding the City when it cannot even responsibly and legally use the money its already been given?
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Bernard
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I thought this was pretty good...


DHS to New York, DC: You Lose
mlevi's picture
By Michael Levi | bio

“After vowing to steer a greater share of antiterrorism money to the highest-risk communities, Department of Homeland Security officials on Wednesday announced 2006 grants that slashed money for New York and Washington 40 percent, while other cities including Omaha and Louisville, Ky., got a surge of new dollars.”

That lede from today’s New York Times sums up the situation that has homeland security observers scratching their heads this morning. To be fair, DHS seems to have made a good-faith effort to better distribute funds. But its approach is wrong.

We should be careful not to instinctively assume that funding should be heavily concentrated in the top terrorist targets. The 9/11 terrorists spent very little time in New York or Washington as they prepared their attacks – had law enforcement funding been steered to those cities, it would have raised, not lowered, the terrorists’ chances of success. Spreading out funding to some degree helps eliminate safe havens for terrorist planning and preparation, and thus makes sense.

But that doesn’t mean that the DHS approach is sensible. For starters, money isn’t just being spread evenly – it’s being directed preferentially to states like Wyoming ($14.83 per person per year) over New York ($2.78).

And the DHS method of rectifying that problem is ill thought out. According to the Times article, “Homeland security officials said the grants were a result of a more sophisticated evaluation process”, in which “teams of law enforcement officials from around the nation evaluated the effectiveness of the spending proposals submitted by the 46 eligible urban areas, cutting grants for cities that had shoddy or poorly articulated plans.”

This sort of approach makes sense for scientific grants – whichever institute has the best research plan gets the money, and everyone benefits. It may even make sense for education (it’s the essence of No Child Left Behind) – weak schools get funding cut, stronger schools get a boost – but only because parents can move their kids to the better schools. It makes no sense for homeland security, unless we’re expecting New Yorkers to move to Omaha and Louisville, which apparently submitted better plans. A better alternative? DHS should work with cities to help them improve their grant proposals. If the Department has to withhold funds from defense of the nation’s capital because Tony Williams can’t write a good grant proposal, someone ought to conclude that the system is broken.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
I am not in the least convinced that a per capita comparison is the least bit helpful in deterimining how well or poorly the dollars are being distributed. It makes for good press to point out that metric comparing NYC to North Dakota or Wyoming, but that seems to be blatently tendentious rhetoric.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
I heard a report today that mayor Vilaraigosa (sp?) is dancing for joy over what LA got.

Isn't California a blue state?
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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Steve Miller
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JBryan
Jun 5 2006, 07:20 PM
I heard a report today that mayor Vilaraigosa (sp?) is dancing for joy over what LA got.

Isn't California a blue state?

Yeah, but we're happy we got anything at all. :cool:

Here's a list of who-got-what:

Edited out incorrect web link
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Those seem to be '03 numbers, Steve.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Steve Miller
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ivorythumper
Jun 5 2006, 07:51 PM
Those seem to be '03 numbers, Steve.

You are 100% correct - sorry.

Here are the '06 numbers. No wonder Hizzoner the Mayor is so happy:

http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/g...-local_fy06.pdf
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Jeffrey
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Giuliani says anti-terror funding bureaucrats are "incompetent":

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/424154p-357780c.html
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Jeffrey
Senior Carp
Rudy rages at terror funds ax

Says 'incompetents' missed many city monuments, icons

BY DAVID SALTONSTALL
DAILY NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT


Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani is as incensed by security funding cuts as Daily News readers who sent numerous faxes in protest.

Breaking nearly a week of silence, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani blasted federal bean-counters yesterday for cutting homeland security dollars to the city by 40% - blaming the decision on "incompetent" bureaucrats in Washington.
"I don't know who was responsible for it, but it looks like a report that was incompetent," the former mayor said of last week's Department of Homeland Security study that found no national monuments in the city worth protecting - and slashed city anti-terror grants by $80million.

"The thing that jumps out at you is that they seem to have missed the fact that New York has many monuments and icons," an incredulous Giuliani told the Daily News as he headed to last night's matchup in the Bronx between the Yankees and the Red Sox. "I am going to one tonight - Yankee Stadium."

The comments represented a rare break by Giuliani with the Bush administration, whose war on terror Giuliani routinely defends in his speeches around the country on behalf of other Republicans.

But Giuliani, who is pondering a run for President in 2008, insisted his criticism was not aimed at the White House or President Bush - just the bungling bureaucrats at the Homeland Security Department who proposed the cuts.

Asked if his criticism extended to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who signed off on the cuts, Giuliani responded, "I don't know."

"I am just looking at the report," he added. "And whomever they entrusted this to made a very big mistake, and the mistake [Homeland Security Department superiors] made is in not reversing them."

Chertoff worked for Giuliani in the 1980s when the former mayor was U.S. attorney in Manhattan.

The comments, coming nearly a week after the cuts were first reported and aimed at no one in particular, seemed calculated by Giuliani to maintain his position as an important voice on counterterrorism - without upsetting Republicans leaders inside or outside the Beltway.

"The guy is running for President and he doesn't want to tick off the Republican base," said Baruch College political science Prof. Doug Muzzio. "He is clearly looking at the issue through a wide lens, and given his political ambitions, it's probably the lens he should be using."

Giuliani said the goal now should be finding a face-saving way to reverse the cuts to New York, while not taking money away from any other area.

"It shouldn't be robbing Peter to pay Paul," said Giuliani, who offered to join Mayor Bloomberg and other city leaders in lobbying federal officials, if asked.

The former mayor added that he didn't think the cuts were political "because a lot of other cities were cut, too, and they didn't seem to make any sense either.

"So it seems to me the criteria they used was just wrong," said Giuliani. "I mean, I don't know what criteria you could use that found no monuments in New York City."



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Jeffrey
Senior Carp
IT - I read your link. Sounds like a well-planned Repub hatchet job on NYC, with their local Congress guy sent for a planned diversion, complete with idiotic allegations. Both terrorists and hick-state Republicans hate NYC, it seems.
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Kincaid
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HOLY CARP!!!
Maybe its the seeming condescension of many New Yorkers towards us in hick states.
Kincaid - disgusted Republican Partisan since 2006.
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