Bush's "enormous, absurd time, money, effort" on govt. attack survival...

[DeepModem Mom]

lead to "no greater confidence" and uncertainty about a plan.

WP: BACK TO THE BUNKER
By William M. Arkin
Sunday, June 4, 2006; Page B01

On Monday, June 19, about 4,000 government workers representing more than 50 federal agencies from the State Department to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will say goodbye to their families and set off for dozens of classified emergency facilities stretching from the Maryland and Virginia suburbs to the foothills of the Alleghenies. They will take to the bunkers in an "evacuation" that my sources describe as the largest "continuity of government" exercise ever conducted, a drill intended to prepare the U.S. government for an event even more catastrophic than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The exercise is the latest manifestation of an obsession with government survival that has been a hallmark of the Bush administration since 9/11, a focus of enormous and often absurd time, money and effort that has come to echo the worst follies of the Cold War. The vast secret operation has updated the duck-and-cover scenarios of the 1950s with state-of-the-art technology -- alerts and updates delivered by pager and PDA, wireless priority service, video teleconferencing, remote backups -- to ensure that "essential" government functions continue undisrupted should a terrorist's nuclear bomb go off in downtown Washington....

***

After 9/11, The Washington Post reported that President Bush had set up a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work outside Washington on a rotating basis to ensure the continuity of national security. Since then, a program once focused on presidential succession and civilian control of U.S. nuclear weapons has been expanded to encompass the entire government. From the Department of Education to the Small Business Administration to the National Archives, every department and agency is now required to plan for continuity outside Washington.

Yet according to scores of documents I've obtained and interviews with half a dozen sources, there's no greater confidence today that essential services would be maintained in a disaster. And no one really knows how an evacuation would even be physically possible....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/02/AR2006060201410.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Uh oh

weren't they having some sort of "test" of an imaginary attack on the US on 9/11?

Let's hope history doesn't repeat itself.

[lyonn]

2. Where's my (our) bunkers?

Or don't we get to participate. Right, grey tape and plastic wrap. My daughter will no doubt start shrink wrapping her house again (just kidding of course, she loves to ponder this thought, ha).

[sweetheart]

3. commodities futures are gonna be critical after a nuclear war...

I'm sure glad they're protecting important supply chains. :sarcasm:

When everyone's starving, they can eat their futures.

[lyonn]

4. According to this very informative article

we are in deep do do. Practice, practice, can they ever get it right? A quote from article, the word "obsession" really tells volumes.

"The exercise is the latest manifestation of an obsession with government survival that has been a hallmark of the Bush administration since 9/11, a focus of enormous and often absurd time, money and effort that has come to echo the worst follies of the Cold War."


Since when has this govt. been capable of coordinating anything? Remember Katrina. My personal opinion is that this particular govt. isn't worth saving. This Washington Post article is very revealing, matter of fact, this article is a must read.