(Via Michelle Malkin) Well, considering how easily TSA continues to slip fake bombs past itself and how completely open our borders remain, is there any real question to this statement by Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff?

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb 6 (Reuters) – From weak border controls to the risk of chemical bombs, the United States could be backsliding on national security since the Sept. 11 attacks, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said on Wednesday.

“A couple of years after 9/11 it would not have seemed conceivable that a ‘business as usual’ mentality could creep back into our public mind-set. It has begun to return,” Chertoff told a forum at Harvard University.

“I’m concerned that we are beginning to backslide,” he said, citing several areas where the United States has faced trouble while seeking to get tougher on security after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

He said many residents, mayors and business owners are resisting the Department of Homeland Security’s plan to build a border fence on private land — a key part of his department efforts to stop “potential terrorists.”

If you asked him a few months ago, I think you would’ve gotten some sort of rebuke given how he had been shilling for the summer’s Amnesty bill. So what has changed in recent memory that would wise Chertoff up to the sorry state of our Homeland Security?

I’m seriously wondering. Could it be that there’s true interest in the executive branch to close the blaring holes in our defenses here at home? Or is this just a passing statement from the lame duck’s homeland head as he waves while walking toward the exit.

Chertoff… serious or CYA?

Update: Or hey, maybe it was the whole “Americans are being kidnapped by Mexican terrorists in the U.S.” thing. Y’never know.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 7:53 AM and is filed under Domestic, Terrorism, The Border. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.