New York Times:
Congress and the American public must accept that the government cannot protect every possible target against attack if it wants to avoid fulfilling Al Qaeda’s goal of bankrupting the nation, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a Senate committee Tuesday.
Osama bin Laden, Mr. Chertoff said, has made it clear that scaring the United States into an unsustainable spending spree is one of his aims. In a 2004 video, Mr. bin Laden, the Qaeda leader, spoke of “bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”
“He understood that one tool he had in waging war against the United States was to drive us crazy, into bankruptcy, trying to defend ourselves against every conceivable threat,” Mr. Chertoff said at a hearing of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “We have to be realistic about what we expect and what we do. We do have limits, and we do have choices to make.”
So, we don't have enough money to inspect incoming cargo, but we can scare up the money to search Aunt Enid's mail for contraband Lipitor -- take that Osama! Strangely, we can also afford to throw $195 million a day down a rathole in Iraq.
(h/t John in DC at AmericaBlog)
Tags: news politics Homeland Security terrorism crime morons republican conservative Michael Chertoff
