- US Defense Secretary Predicts the Army
Will Patrol US Streets
-
- "Terrorism is escalating to the
point that Americans soon may have to choose between civil liberties and
more intrusive means of protection," says Defense Secretary William
S. Cohen
-
- The nation's defense chief told the Army
Times he once considered the chilling specter of armored vehicles surrounding
civilian hotels or government buildings to block out terrorists as strictly
an overseas phenomenon.
-
- But no longer.
-
- "It could happen here," Cohen
said he concluded after 8 months of studying threats under the Pentagon
microscope. Free-lance terrorists with access to deadly chemical and biological
bombs are "going to change the way in which the American people view
security in our own country," he predicted in a Sept 10 interview.
-
- Cohen is calling for the government to
step up its efforts to penetrate wildcard terrorist organizations. "It's
going to require greater intelligence on our part -- much greater emphasis
on intelligence gathering capability - more human intelligence, and it's
going to take more technical intelligence," he said.
-
- But using the U.S. military in a domestic
law enforcement role would require revisions to laws in force for more
than a century, cautions Shreveport attorney John Odom, Jr. "You
can't do it from the Defense Department side unless Congress dramatically
revises the Posse Comitatus laws." said Odom, a colonel in the U.S.
Air Force Reserve and a reserve Judge Advocate.
-
- "The 1878 law specifically prohibits
the use of the military in domestic law enforcement unless authorized by
Congress or the Constitution and does not wllow for military intervention
through action by the Secretary of Defense of even an Executive Order from
the President," Odom said. We're trained from the first day of Judge
Advocate school to think of Posse Comitatus !!! said Odom. "If Secretary
Cohen is suggesting that the Department of Defense be involved, it may
be part of a legislative package, but it will not happen unilaterally without
a lot of folks thinking long and hard about it."
-
- Cohen said terrorism would be a top priority
in 5 new areas he plans to focus on now that he has wrapped up his first
defense budget, the quadrennial review of the military and a new 4-year
defense strategy. Other goals include modernizing the military, improving
troops housing and other benefits, streamlining the defense bureaucracy
and shaping new military relationships and contracts across the globe.
|
