How hard can it be

Last week's DHS Inspector General report on the department's ludicrous purported list of the nation's most critical sectors and sites is but the latest example of why the Department of Homeland Security cannot be taken seriously. That check cashing businesses, popcorn stands, and funeral parlors would be listed, and that Washington State was said to have more monuments and icons of national significance than Washington, D.C., shows the rank incompetence of those who are at least nominally in charge of protecting the nation from the awful prospect of another terror attack. After three years and millions of dollars, how hard could it possibly be to get this elemental task done right? Unless and until the department produces a creditable list, in priority order, of the sectors and sites whose destruction would have catastrophic consequences for the nation as a whole, there will be no rational way to allocate our limited counterterrorism resources and to focus our limited time, attention, and imagination.