Whole new debate

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution states that "the Congress shall have power to ... provide for the common defense." As this traumatic year of 2001 ends, it is obvious that terrorist Osama bin Laden has changed the working definition of "common defense" and what the lawmakers should do to provide for it. If there were any doubts about this, the current debate on how Congress should spend taxpayer money to combat bin Laden and company should dispel them. Right now, for example, senators and representatives are struggling to find the middle ground between doing too little and doing too much to protect a democracy that is vulnerable anywhere and everywhere. Do too little, and risk being accused of nonfeasance. Do too much, such as shooting civil liberties through the heart to strike at bin Laden, and be charged with malfeasance. This dilemma brings to mind the Army officer who reportedly said he had to destroy a friendly South Vietnamese village to save it. And then there is the military maxim that the commander who tries to be strong everywhere, is weak everywhere. The new politics of defense was on display on the Senate floor late last year when Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., chairman of the Appropriations Committee, told his colleagues that it was nothing less than their constitutional duty to provide far more money to protect the homeland than President Bush was requesting--$15 billion more for this fiscal year. While agreeing with Byrd in principle, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, ranking Republican on the Appropriations Committee, persuaded his colleagues that Bush was not ready to spend an extra $15 billion this year, that it made more sense to wait until next year. But the message for the American defense establishment was in the rhetoric this time, not the numbers. "The ground has shifted under us," said the white-maned 84-year-old Byrd in talking about the post-9/11 world. "We are like children in the dark being asked to be brave in the face of an enemy we cannot see and whose actions we cannot predict. What better use of the tax dollar than to protect our citizens as well as we can from the scourge of terrorists.... At least 36 states have implemented or are considering budget cuts or holdbacks to address fiscal problems.... How can we expect states in such shape to mount a front-line defense for our people if the federal government does not help with additional monies?" Sen. Robert G. Torricelli, D-N.J., noted that the bridges and tunnels connecting New Jersey and New York are vulnerable to terrorist attack. But he did not try to make the case for buying more missiles, bombers, or warships; his plea instead was to arm America's front yards and backyards. "This is one of those moments to provide for the common defense, to promote the general welfare," Torricelli said. "The obligation of this Senate is to provide resources for all the police officers, all the citizens, all the workers who are on the front lines.... It is not a distant war." The remarks of Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., illustrated how bin Laden has given a new meaning to the term "states' rights." Decades ago, states' rights was shorthand for states telling the federal government to keep out; "Let us handle racial problems and high school education on our own," the governors said. The new definition is the right of states to get federal money to protect themselves against terrorists. "My state has a long common border with Canada," Dorgan said in pleading for more federal money for border guards. "I have been there at 10 o'clock in the evening when the port of entry closes. I have seen what they do. On that paved road between the United States and Canada, at closing time, they put out an orange rubber cone in the middle of the road, and that is our security past 10 o'clock at night. An orange rubber cone cannot walk, it cannot talk, it cannot shoot or tell a terrorist from a tow truck." He noted that Southern states have a lot more guards on their borders than Northern ones. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Rep. Bob Stump, R-Ariz., chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services committees, respectively, sounded similar themes about homeland defense in reporting out on December 12 the $343.3 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 2002. Levin said the entire Defense Department may have to be restructured so it can zero in on defending the homeland, where casualties are likely to be higher than on any distant battlefield. "Defending our homeland was our top priority" as the Senate and House hammered out a compromise defense bill, Stump said. In actions that represent the thin edge of the new wedge being driven into traditional defense funds, the final authorization bill outdoes the President in several homeland security accounts. It triples Bush's $300 million request for training and equipping firefighters to handle the consequences of terrorist attacks; authorizes $15.5 million more than he requested to detect and neutralize anthrax and other poisons; and provides $6 million to help the Navy gear up for homeland defense and $5 million, also unrequested, to train active and reserve military people to help victims of a nuclear attack. The bill also invites Bush to draw $1.3 billion out of his $8.3 billion missile defense account and spend it instead on anti-terrorism programs. Asked if policy leaders will soon have to choose between spending taxpayer dollars on conventional military hardware or homeland defense, Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, the ranking Republican on Armed Services, echoed Levin and Stump: "Homeland defense is now our top priority." What is happening before our eyes is the political run-up to a basic restructuring of the military-industrial complex. In the New Year, the fight for federal dollars will be over more than warships for Mississippi, F-22 fighters for Texas, aerial tankers for Washington state, or missiles for Alaska. Politicians and allied lobbyists in the old military-industrial complex will find themselves for the first time up against a wave of people demanding more dollars for a new kind of defense--one designed not to take the hill or bomb the anti-aircraft site, but to protect the bridges, tunnels, factories, ports, nuclear power plants, airfields, reservoirs, cities, and open air here at home.

The states will insist that federal dollars be spent on recruiting and training different kinds of armies--ones for protecting the homeland and treating victims of terrorist attacks. No matter how big the Pentagon budget gets to prepare for wars abroad, it will have to compete for dollars with homeland defense. This is both new and obvious. Despite Bush's hopes to the contrary, bin Laden has brought back big government and budget deficits. At the same time, the Saudi's terrorist acts have confronted civilian and uniformed leaders of the American military with such fundamental questions as these:

• National Guard and reserves. Does it make sense to activate and send reservist doctors and medics overseas when their skills could mean life or death to victims of a terrorist attack at home? If the answer is no, what should replace the "total force" concept--the heart of U.S. war plans, which calls for reservists to serve alongside active-duty soldiers in any major war? If the answer is yes, how should the federal government fill medical vacancies on the home front, especially in rural areas?
• First responders. Should existing fire and police departments, ambulance squads, hospital emergency rooms, and their personnel receive the major portion of homeland defense dollars, or should the federal money go into training and equipping the Guard and reserve response teams to treat victims of terrorist attacks in cities and rural areas? What role should active-duty forces play in responding to domestic terrorist attacks?
• The draft. Is it time to resume the draft calls that were suspended in 1973? Otherwise, where will all the young people needed to respond to disasters and to guard the ports and airports come from? Should six-month enlistments be offered, along with college money, to young men and women willing to be trained in homeland-defense skills? Should women as well as men be drafted? Should all people age 18 be subject to being called up under a lottery system that has no exemptions? Who should bear the burden of fighting for the nation abroad and protecting it at home? Is it fair to continue relying solely on volunteers, often the have-nots of American society, to do all the dying for the rest of us?
• The size of the military. Should the number of troops on active duty in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard be expanded to ease the high tempo of operations on today's military personnel? And should active-duty troops provide more trained people for homeland defense? Should the Coast Guard be a big winner here in size, ships, and budget as Congress demands that American ports be guarded against terrorist attacks?
• Missile defense. Why spend so much money on combating a possible North Korean missile attack from 10,000 miles away when the more likely nuclear attack would be terrorists blowing up nuclear power plants inside the United States?
• Marine Corps versus Army. Now that the Afghanistan theater commander, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, has decided that the Corps is better-suited, in some ways, than his own service to combat terrorism in distant lands, why not make the Army the heavy sustaining force and the Marines the nation's light, mobile, and lethal infantry? Do we need two sets of light infantry?
• Homeland defense command. If domestic defense is so important, why not set up a separate military command to handle it? Also, isn't it high time to base the U.S. Central Command--the one that is running the war in Afghanistan--in the Persian Gulf rather than in Tampa, Fla.? The Pentagon is far along in planning these changes, so the focus next year will be on its recommendations.
• Strategic medicine bank. Should the Defense Department stockpile vaccines and antibiotics to use when terrorists attack with biological weapons, the same way the nation has stored oil underground for use in wartime?
• Military training. Should the armed forces establish a new career track in which men and women would be trained to respond to terrorist attacks and treat the victims?
• Food safety. How should food for civilians and soldiers be protected against being poisoned by terrorists?
• Budget cuts. What programs can the White House and Congress agree to eliminate to free money for homeland defense and avoid plunging the government deeper into debt? Closing surplus military bases is an obvious choice here, but this Congress has refused to do so until after the 2004 presidential election.

Gearing up to defend the homeland while continuing to serve as the world's policeman in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, and other global hot spots is going to cost the government more money than it takes in. So much more, in fact, that nobody in the Senate last week argued when Byrd said that because of bin Laden, "budget deficits are on the horizon as far as the human eye and our computers can see, and certainly as far as the end of the President's second term."

Happy New Year, White House Budget Director Mitch Daniels.