In the offices of the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C., Clark Kent Ervin, former inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security, speaks passionately about his new book, Open Target: Where America is Vulnerable to Attack.
I'd like to start with a quote from the conclusion of your book: “We are a nation that highly values civil rights and civil liberties.” As both the former inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security and as an American citizen, how do you feel this administration is doing today balancing national security and our civil rights and liberties?
Well, frankly, I don't think the administration is doing a good job. I strongly believe it is critical to our national security that we continue to respect civil rights and civil liberties. If we continue to engage in abuses, or things that can be deemed as abuses to them, ultimately that will be antithetical to our goal of keeping the country safe. In regards to government eavesdropping, I am a firm believer in government accountability. I say in the book that the institution of inspector general speaks to that as does congressional oversight and judicial oversight. They are important checks on executive power. There is a [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)] procedure for eavesdropping on conversations where we suspect terrorist involvement. This administration has not to my mind made it clear why an end-round the FISA procedure is necessary in this circumstance. And absent that justification, it seems to me that evasion of the FISA process is unjustified.
Do you think the current immigration debate and the issues it raises have any security implications in regards to the problems you address in your book?
I don't know that the present immigration debate has any security implications. There may be an exception here or there, but it is being framed entirely around economic terms: Is immigration good for our economy or not? Is there a way to reconcile our being a welcoming, tolerant, embracing country with economic imperatives? I myself don't see immigration in economic terms. Al-Qaeda and like-minded terrorists are very much aware of the degree to which our porous borders can be exploited in our failure to get a handle on the illegal immigration problem. They see how that can be exploited to slip terrorists into the country. I think we need to be more attentive to the security implications of illegal immigration than we have been today. It's very easy to demagogue the illegal immigration issue and to use security concerns as a cover for what is really primarily an economic concern about immigration.
You say “the ultimate ‘nightmare scenario'” is for terrorists to smuggle nuclear weapons onto American soil and that it has been widely agreed that the easiest way to do so would be by sea. Can you talk about the Bush administrations ports deal with UAE?
I was a strong opponent of the deal based on security grounds. I am a strong proponent of foreign direct and indirect investment into the United States. But, there is a world of difference between a foreign company and foreign countries like the UAE, which have recent ties to terrorism. I have a concern with foreign companies controlling strategic assets that have critical infrastructure like port terminals; even with foreign companies that are based in countries that couldn't be closer allies like Great Britain. After all, two of the 9-11 hijackers came from the UAE. Much of the financing coursed through its notoriously porous financial system. The UAE was one of the only three countries in the world -- Saudi Arabia and Pakistan being the others -- that recognized the Taliban before 9-11. Furthermore, UAE was a trans-shipment port for much of the nuclear smuggling materials of the al-Qaeda network that made its way to Iran and North Korea. But the price for UAE support should not be our acquiescence in their acquisition of key strategic assets like port terminals. For those who say there have been no security concerns here, I say they don't really know what they are talking about.
How do you feel about Bush's rhetoric in defense of the ports deal?
I think with all due respect to the President, it's all just an absurd argument. If the facts were the same and the country at issue was Norway or Japan, and the countries had the same record on terrorism as the UAE, I would have exactly the same position. It has nothing to do with the race or ethnicity of the majority of the people in that country, and it's not the religious affiliation. It's the fact that this country has a record on terrorism and if the deal had gone through it would have resulted in their having access to and an involvement in, key security aspects.
How do you feel about the President's allocation of the federal budget for national security?
Some politicians believe that there is a difference between national defense and homeland security. In fact, they are the same thing. We are willing to spend so much on protection abroad and, in fact, we spend a fraction of that -- almost a tenth -- protecting the homeland. It's about $400 billion compared to $40 billion. I think that's in part due to the American failure to appreciate history and to learn from it. Vietnam got us into a lot of trouble because we had this metaphor, a domino theory. We either stop the communists right now or they'll be here on our doorstep. Actually, the right metaphor is water. Terrorists are like water in that they seek the path of least resistance. For all the difficulty we are having in Iraq -- it is hard to attack our forces in Iraq and the same for our diplomatic installations. Relatively speaking, it is very easy to attack the hardest targets in the United States. An example would be airports. If we continue to have this imbalance between our interests abroad and at home, terrorists, being as they are adaptive and resourceful as well as knowledgeable of our vulnerabilities (more knowledgeable than the average American is -- which is why I wrote the book), then they are ultimately going to attack here again because it is easier to do.
Elizabeth Spellmire is a Prospect intern.
