Wrong Questions Produce Wrong Answers : Part 3

Our Own Worst Enemy: Asking the Right Questions About Security to Protect You, Your Family, and America
By Colonel Randall J. Larsen USAF

(Page 3 of 5)

Apparently, the Homeland Security command center was watching the wrong cable news network. One of America's top homeland security reporters, CNN's Jeanne Meserve, who arrived in New Orleans thirty-six hours before Katrina made landfall, left her makeshift shelter (a parking garage) near the Superdome after the most severe weather subsided. She didn't go to Bourbon Street. Jeanne went with city officials directly to the low ground, the Ninth Ward, and reported massive flooding. Live on the air, she told anchor Wolf Blitzer, "This is Armageddon." Courageous and memorable reporting by Meserve, but situational awareness for federal, state, and local governments should not depend on which news network they are watching in their command centers.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the egregious response to Katrina, but a major share must rest with the state and local governments that failed to properly prepare. On the other hand, we must also expect that key federal leaders be properly prepared for their jobs. Can you imagine a president appointing an attorney general who is not a lawyer, a surgeon general who is not a doctor, or a chairman of the Joint Chiefs who is not a general or an admiral? Emergency management is a profession, and many schools offer graduate programs to prepare those individuals who are interested in making it their career. There are numerous people working at all levels of government with decades of experience in emergency management, and America deserved someone better qualified than Michael Brown. We must expect more from government.

The most frequently asked question about the failed response to Katrina is, "Who is to blame?" I won't qualify this as a wrong question, but I will say that looking for an answer is a wasted effort that quickly gets bogged down in partisan politics, cable news hysteria, and finger pointing among federal, state, and local officials. The answer is so simple that it deserves little attention. Leaders at all levels were not properly prepared. The most important question that citizens and taxpayers should be asking is, "What can we do to avoid such a disaster in the future?" The answer to that question is education at all levels - executive, graduate, undergraduate, high school, elementary school, and for ordinary citizens. (Reading this book is part of the solution.)

Several members of the national media, such as Pam Fessler from National Public Radio, who have studied homeland security and reported on it for several years do a great job of asking the right questions. Unfortunately, too many journalists and reporters cover homeland security as a part-time job, and their work clearly demonstrates their lack of knowledge. While writing this book I have had several calls from both print and broadcast reporters asking me to go on record discussing the fact that most cities are poorly prepared for a mass evacuation. They, and many elected officials ask, "Why aren't we better prepared for such a contingency?"

Wrong Question

When I get this question, I ask them to name a reason why we would have to conduct a mass evacuation, other than for an approaching hurricane. In that particular example, we would have several days to coordinate and execute the evacuation, and our focus should be on how we would evacuate those who require assistance. The American Red Cross estimates this figure to be around 20 percent in most communities. (FYI: The New Orleans Hurricane Plan estimated that one percent of the residents would require assistance, while the American Red Cross estimated the number to be slightly more than the national average - in this case, closer to 24 percent.) For the remainder of scenarios, whether we're talking about dirty bombs, suicide bombers, chemical attacks, pandemics, or another 9/11, rarely, if ever, is a mass evacuation the right solution. The correct questions should focus on creating plans for sheltering-in-place and ensuring that all families have appropriate transportation plans, communication plans, and readiness kits at work and at home.

Unfortunately, the majority of Americans fail to take even these three rudimentary steps to protect their families. I recall watching a TV report just thirty-six hours after Hurricane Wilma hit Florida in October 2005. The camera was showing a large group of angry Florida residents waiting in line for drinking water. Several of the citizens were complaining, "This is ridiculous!" "Where's FEMA?" "Why can't we get any water?"

Wrong Question

The crowd was correct about one thing: The situation was ridiculous. But the correct question that should have been asked was why residents who had four days' warning about the hurricane were already out of water a mere thirty-six hours after it passed through the area. Have we truly become a nanny-state where the government is responsible for all of our needs from cradle to grave? A month later I talked to the deputy mayor of that town. She told me that an even better question would have been, "Why don't you go down to the Wal-Mart (less than a half mile away) and buy some water? There's no electricity, but Wal-Mart is open and selling water for the normal price."

Finally, I recently heard a member of Congress acknowledge that bioweapons are one of the two most serious threats to our homeland (correct assessment), but then ask what system we needed to buy to ensure that no one smuggles a bioweapon into the U.S.

Wrong Question

Considering that just a couple of pounds of weaponized bio-agents are considered an enormous quantity, it's impossible to build an inspection system capable of preventing the importation of bioweapons. According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, drug runners brought 300 metric tons of cocaine into the United States in 2004. So what do you think our chances are of stopping determined terrorists from smuggling in a few pounds of dry-powdered anthrax? Inspecting shipping containers for bioweapons makes as much sense as building a wall along our southern border to prevent terrorists from entering our country, yet some prominent members of Congress, and pundits such as Bill O'Reilly and Pat Buchanan, want to spend your tax dollars building such a wall from Brownsville, Texas, to Imperial Beach, California. That wall might reduce the number of gardeners and house cleaners, but do you really think it would deter people who are willing to fly airplanes into buildings?

Copyright © 2007 by Randall Larsen

About the Author

Colonel Randall J. Larsen, USAF (Ret)is the director of the Institute for Homeland Security, a senior associate at the Center for Biosecurity, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and the cohost of public radio's Homeland Security: Inside and Out. Colonel Larsen served for thirty-two years in the Army and Air Force. His assignments ranged from duty as a nineteen-year-old Cobra pilot in the 101ST Airborne Division, with whom he flew 400 combat missions in Vietnam, to command of America's fleet of VIP aircraft at Andrews AFB, MD, and chairman of the Department of Military Strategy and Operations at the National War College.