US National Security Status Made Simple - Statistics to September 5

From the New Zealand Herald newspaper today, "'We must ensure that the national nightmare that was Katrina never happens again,' said Joe Lieberman, the senior Democrat on the Senate's Government Affairs Committee which is planning hearings on the disaster.

'My feelings went from concern to grief to anger, and then to embarrassment,' Lieberman said, expressing a sentiment shared by Republicans as well as Democrats.

The debacle has made a mockery of claims that a new and efficient system had been put in place after the September 11 attacks to tackle national emergencies - of which a hurricane-provoked flood of New Orleans was near the top of every list. "

Yes, the whole world, including tiny New Zealand, now knows that our national emergency preparedness, an essential part of any national security progam, is in complete shambles. This, despite the fact that George Bush and Dick Cheney are widely acknowledged to have been reelected in 2004 because they frequently and dramatically boasted that they could make the US far more secure than could their opponents.

National Security Made Simple - Statistics & Numbers is a compliation of easy-to-digest data on the status of US military readiness and strain, recruiting and retention, and military morale as well as the War on Terrorism, the Iraq War, North Korea, Darfur, US energy policies and more.

The data was taken from multiple sources, including Department of Defense reports, tvarious Congressional hearings, United Nations reports, Brookings Institute, CNN.com, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Seattle Times, Winston-Salem Journal, Associated Press, and many more sources. Statistics were compiled by the Democratic Policy Committee (DPC), the research arm of the Senate Democratic Leadership, and released on September 6, 2005.

These statistics and numbers will amaze and likely alarm you. And hopefully equip you with the accurate, up-to-date info you need to vote intelligently, and to urge your elected officials to take action to make the US more secure.

Get informed. We all need, and deserve, to be much more secure than we are now under the Bush Administration's shoddy, short-sighted planning. Read National Security Made Simple - Statistics & Numbers.