From the WSJ Opinion Archives
THE WESTERN FRONT
When the Cows Come Homeland
The case for antiterror pork.
Every member of Congress wants to maximize the amount of federal dollars sent back to his constituents. So it was probably inevitable that lawmakers would eventually get around to wrangling over Homeland Security money. Now we have the spectacle of Wyoming receiving far more federal antiterrorism money per capita, than California. One study put the disparity at $35.30 a person for the Equality State to the Golden State's $4.70.
Besides simple arithmetic--any amount of money is going to send the per capita number skyward for a small state--is there anything to the complaints that Wyoming's cut of the loot is evidence of blind federal spending? Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), Jon Corzine (D., N.J.) and others say yes, and maybe they have a point. There's almost no chance that Wyoming's first responders will be heading to the scene of a terrorist attack, unless they fly to New York City. A state that has more cows than people just isn't going to be high on Osama bin Laden's list. Organizations ranging from the American Enterprise Institute to the Congressional Budget Office and, most recently, Homeland Security's departing Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin have chronicled wasteful antiterrorism spending. Does it really make sense to spend port-security money in Arkansas, rather than New York, Baltimore or Houston?
Yet big-city pols and residents shouldn't be too provincial. From New York City much of America may look like a collection of cow towns. But rural Homeland Security spending is here to stay, and we are lucky it is. Just because al Qaeda targets big cities doesn't mean that's their operatives aren't living in the heartland awaiting the opportunity to strike. To catch them, we have to go on the offensive by giving first responders around the nation the equipment and the training necessary to spot and kill or capture terrorists. We also must imbue in them a sense that in this war, we are all on the front lines. Thwarting the next attack likely depends on the actions of an alert sheriff's deputy or border agent well outside of Los Angeles or New York.
We saw this in late 1999, when an alert border agent in Port Angeles, Wash.--population 18,000--unraveled the so-called Millennium Plot. Ahmed Ressam tried to cross the border from Canada with more than 100 pounds of explosives in his car. Likewise, Zacarias Moussaoui--now on trial for his alleged involvement in the 9/11 plot--was picked up not in Los Angleles or New York, but in Minnesota, where he was taking flight lessons.
Many Americans probably don't realize that the North Star State's large Muslim refugee population and its proximity to Canada make it an attractive place for militant Islamists. That's one reason why Coleen Rowley, chief legal advisor in the FBI's field office there at the time, was alert enough in August 2001 to realize Moussaoui might be part of a larger plot to attack the United States after he was discovered taking flight lessons in Eagan, Minn.
There's even a case to be made for homeland-security pork. Lawmakers in California, New Jersey and New York would love to see Homeland Security dollars parceled out based strictly on population. But the Founding Fathers invented the Senate to put small states on an equal footing. Sen. Pat Leahy, a Democrat from tiny Vermont, was able to write a law dictating that some of Homeland Security Department's money will be distributed to states regardless of population.
Wasteful? Perhaps, but it also means Mr. Leahy and others now have a vested interest in supporting the war on terror at home. If only a handful of states received the bulk of federal antiterrorism dollars, it wouldn't be long before a sizable bloc emerged in Congress in favor of cutting such funds. In the zero-sum world of federal budgets, either everyone is cut into the pie or pretty soon appetites diminish for even worthwhile federal projects.
That doesn't mean we can't look for waste or even find a way to spend more money to protect places al Qaeda is likely to attack. But from Lackawanna, N.Y., to Bly, Ore., to Columbus, Ohio, al Qaeda's operatives have shown a propensity to live and train in suburbs and even small towns. We need to harden likely targets, but we must also bolster our efforts in seemingly out-of-the-way places.
Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com. His column appears Tuesdays.
