Vacant Homeland Security jobs pose danger to U.S., report says

Whew! If you checked out my post below, and you were as worried as I was that Nation-o'-Dick was minus a scare tactic, you can relax.

Fully one-fourth of top positions at the Homeland Security Department are now vacant, a problem that could make the country more vulnerable to attack, according to a harshly critical report released Monday by a House oversight committee.

The report, issued by the majority staff of the House Homeland Security Committee, blamed what it called "the gaping hole in department executive resources" in part on "the over-politicization of the top ranks of department management," particularly in critical national security jobs.

This, the report said, could mean an unduly large turnover of department executives in 2009 when the next president installs his or her own team.

"This identifies an enormous security vulnerability should an attack or disaster occur during the upcoming presidential transition," the committee said in a statement.

Big Dick, you have lift-off. And I mean that purely in the NASA context, of course.

"To me the issue is less vacancies per se, and more whether they have the right institutional structure," said Michael O'Hanlon, a security expert at the Brookings Institution. "For example, do they have a vibrant internal 'think tank' and/or red team capacity? I can't tell, but I'm skeptical."

A "red team" tries to anticipate terrorists' plans and intent.

The department's reputation suffered in 2005 after what was seen as FEMA's inadequate response to the hurricanes that battered the Gulf Coast.

Hekuvah job, Bushie.