David Broder, the Washington Post’s veteran political observer, reports today on a walk through the Department of Homeland Security, where the "FBI, the CIA, the Secret Service and 33 other federal agencies each has its own workstation. And so do the police departments of New York, Los Angeles, Washington and six other major cities."
The point of his column in today’s Albuquerque Journal is that Tom Ridge made a start at integrating the forces, federal and local, protecting the nation against terrorism. And, Broder writes, he "tried to erase some of the bureaucratic barriers so frustrating to local law enforcement."
I mention this because to really understand Broder and the Homeland Security problem, you can do worse than read Nelson DeMille’s latest book, "Night Fall". His novel (which I recommended yesterday) deals brilliantly with just those barriers. Funny, isn't it, how fiction often gets closer to reality than journalism.
I think I will email Broder, suggesting the book.