Washington Post: Congress Not Advised Of Shadow Government

This is from The Washington Post, not some crazy-ass "they can hear me through my fillings" website:

Key congressional leaders said yesterday the White House
did not tell them that President Bush has moved a cadre of senior
civilian managers to secret underground sites outside Washington to
ensure that the federal government could survive a devastating
terrorist attack on the nation's capital.
Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said he had not been
informed about the role, location or even the existence of the shadow
government that the administration began to deploy the morning of the
Sept. 11 hijackings. An aide to House Minority Leader Richard A.
Gephardt (D-Mo.) said he similarly was unaware of the administration's
move.
Among Congress's GOP leadership, aides to House Speaker J. Dennis
Hastert (Ill.), second in line to succeed the president if he became
incapacitated, and to Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (Miss.) said
they were not sure whether they knew. Aides to Sen. Robert C. Byrd
(D-W. Va.) said he had not been told. As Senate president pro tempore,
he is in line to become president after the House speaker.
Bush acknowledged yesterday that the administration had taken extensive
measures to guarantee "the continuity of government," after it was
revealed that about 100 top officials, spanning every executive branch
department, have been sent to live and work in two fortified locations
on the East Coast. This system, in which high-ranking administrators
are rotating in and out of the two sites, represents the first time a
president has activated the contingency plan, which was devised during
the Cold War of the 1950s so that federal rule could continue if
Washington were struck by a catastrophic attack.
[...]
At least some members of Congress suggested yesterday that the
administration should have conferred about its plans, which were first
reported in The Washington Post yesterday. "There are two other
branches of government that are central to the functioning of our
democracy," said Rep. William Delahunt (D-Mass.), a member of the House
Judiciary Committee. "I would hope the speaker and the minority leader
would at least pose the question, 'What about us?' "

Let's just pray that Al-Qaeda doesn't get their hands on any serious
weaponry. If they do, Bush & his cronies are obviously poised to
assume full control of the US government in the case of a catastrophic
attack.
I continue to underestimate the Machiavellan audacity of a certain
group of people who are determined to govern the world. If the Bush
administration gets another term, it could wind up lasting a lot longer
than four years.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 22, 2004 at 08:23 AM | Permalink