N.Y.ers a-maized by corn protection
Honcho sez fields more vulnerable than N.Y.C.
By James Meek, New York Daily News
WASHINGTON - The Homeland Security bureaucrat who shortchanged New Yorkers' safety by $80 million implied yesterday that guarding a Nebraska cornfield from an Al Qaeda attack is the same as putting a cop with a gun on the Brooklyn Bridge.
"When you are protecting agriculture in the Midwest, you are protecting the citizens of New York City," Assistant Secretary Tracy Henke told C-Span's "Washington Journal."
Henke - a political appointee in charge of doling out $1.7 billion in security grants to cities under the highest threat of attack - cut funds to New York City and Washington by 40%, even though both are considered Al Qaeda's top terror targets.
A senior U.S. counterterrorism official in Washington scoffed at the insinuation that Al Qaeda is targeting cornfields and grain stores.
"The whole DHS agro-terrorism theory doesn't hold," the official said. Asked if he had ever heard of a credible terrorist threat to the food supply, the official laughingly replied, "Never."
Henke is a Republican political operative and protégé of former Attorney General John Ashcroft with no background in military or intelligence.
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