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Thursday, July 07, 2005

In case you were still inclined to believe that Bush is keeping you safer...
Posted by Jill | 11:46 AM

...comes a report in McNews about the crumbling Coast Guard infrastructure -- you know, the coast guard that patrols the waters around our shores (emphases mine):

The Coast Guard's ships, planes and helicopters are breaking down at record rates, which may threaten the service's ability to carry out its post-9/11 mission of protecting ports and waterways against terrorism.

Key members of Congress, maritime security experts and a former top Homeland Security Department official say that the fleet is failing and that plans to replace the Coast Guard's 88 aging cutters and 186 aircraft over the next 20 years should be accelerated.

"This nation must understand the dire situation in which the Coast Guard now finds itself," says Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, chairwoman of a Senate Coast Guard subcommittee. She favors replacing the Coast Guard's "deepwater" fleet — the ships and aircraft capable of operating far offshore — over 10 to 15 years.

Former Coast Guard commandant and Homeland Security deputy secretary James Loy says "the stakes are simply too high in the post-9/11 environment" to continue to allow the Coast Guard's aging equipment to continue to deteriorate. Some ships are more than 50 years old, well beyond the recommended age for replacement.

The Bush administration wants to increase the amount of time it will take to replace a fleet that's among the oldest on the globe — older even than fleets owned by nations such as Algeria and Pakistan. The "deepwater" replacement program, conceived in 1998 as a $20 billion, 20-year plan to replace the fleet, could be increased to 25 years under a White House plan.

The strategy would save the government money in the short term. The White House budget office declined to comment.


But hey, as long as Bush's wealthy friend get their massive tax cuts, right? After all, God forbid we should actually do something that might keep us safe, instead of killing a bunch of Iraqis and turning their country into a recruitment center for MORE terrorists.
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