STATE OF THE UNION

National Security

Today's report is the last in our four-part series examining the state of our nation. In advance of President Bush's State of the Union address next Tuesday, the Progress Report has already reviewed the state of our nation's economy, health care, and energy/environment.

Last week, Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove -- still under investigation for leaking classified national security information -- said that President Bush and his allies in Congress "understand the nature of the threat and the gravity of this moment." The facts suggest otherwise. More than four years after 9/11, Osama Bin Laden is still on the loose, al Qaeda is expanding globally, nuclear materials remain unsecured, violence rages in Iraq, and the America military is stretched to the breaking point. The former members of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission recently released a report card that faulted both Congress and the President for failing to implement the reforms necessary to prevent and prepare for a future terrorist attack. The results were dismal: five F's, 12 D's, nine C's, and only one A-minus. The Progress Report puts itself squarely in Karl Rove's cross-hairs with this candid look at the State of National Security:

THE THIN GREEN LINE: Despite President Bush's promises to "support our military and give them the tools for victory," his policies have stretched our all-volunteer ground forces. Repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan have made the Army a "'thin green line' that could snap unless relief comes soon," according to a recent Pentagon report. This year marked the first time since 1999 that the Army missed its recruiting goal, and it is the third year the Army National Guard has fallen short. The Bush administration has further strained the troops by not providing enough equipment and protection. A "secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor," and the Marine Corps's inspector general found that Marines in Iraq "don't have enough weapons, communications gear, or properly outfitted vehicles." American Progress has a progressive Quadrennial Defense Review, a strategy to provide the military with the proper resources it needs to both address traditional threats and to combat the asymmetric threats of the 21st century.

INCREASED GLOBAL TERRORIST THREAT: More than four years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still alive, al Qaeda has spawned new terrorist networks, and global terrorism is on the rise. According to the Bush administration's own statistics, the problem of international terrorism is worse now than it was in 2001. The sum of global terrorist attacks in 2005 was 3991, up 51% from the previous year's figure of 2639. According to State Department data, the number of international terrorist attacks tripled to 650 in 2004. In May 2004, the London-based Institute for Strategic Studies reported that "al-Qaeda's recruitment and fundraising efforts had been given a major boost by the U.S. invasion of Iraq," and the Afghan Defense Minister recently claimed that al Qaeda had "increased its activities in Afghanistan."

FLUNKING OUT ON HOMELAND SECURITY: The 9/11 Public Discourse Project (formerly the 9/11 Commission) has given the administration failing grades on its efforts to improve homeland security. Thomas H. Kean, former chair of the 9/11 Commission, said that homeland security is "not a priority for the government right now. You don't see the Congress or the president talking about the public safety as number one, as we think it should be, and a lot of the things we need to do really to prevent another 9/11 just simply aren't being done by the president or by the Congress." Just 6 percent of national security spending is devoted to homeland security and the administration still has "no system in place that allows emergency personnel to communicate reliably and effectively in a crisis." The government has also cut funding for state and local law enforcement and first responders by more than $2 billion from FY 2005 to FY 2006. "While the terrorists have been learning and adapting, we have been moving at a bureaucratic crawl," said James Thompson of the 9/11 Project.

NUKES ON THE LOOSE: Bush promised to make keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists a top priority, and the 9/11 Project's December 2005 report said there is "simply no higher priority on the national security agenda." But so far, the threat has actually grown worse. A Harvard University study found that on average, the Bush administration "has requested less money to control nuclear materials and technology than was sought in the final Clinton administration budget, adjusted for inflation" and has secured less fissile material in the two years after 9/11 than in the two years before.

A FAILED STRATEGY IN IRAQ: In Iraq, the administration's strategy is failing on all three tracks: security, economic, and political. Since the March 2003 invasion, 2,239 U.S. troops have died and 16,420 have been injured. On the security front, more than 500 Iraqis have died since the December 15 elections. While the administration claims that Iraqi security forces are "increasingly competent and in the lead," more than 130,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq. (Question: If the Iraqi security forces are so competent why can't any U.S. troops go home?) On the economic front, a new study shows that one-fifth of the Iraqi population lives in poverty, up since the 2003 invasion. Reconstruction efforts are floundering. According to a new report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, "American-financed reconstruction programs in Iraq will not complete scores of projects that were promised to help rebuild the country." Despite recent elections, the political situation is highly unstable. Shiites are threatening to unite with Kurds and exclude Sunnis from political power. The New York Times reports "[a]nything short of a unity government, Iraqi and American officials here say, would be tantamount to disaster, with the Sunnis the most likely losers. Leaving them out of the government could very well prompt them to turn away from democratic politics again, and give the insurgency a fresh shot of energy."