By Doug Miller
According to city officials, information obtained by operatives in the Middle East suggested that more than a dozen men had been dispatched to the city to stash bombs disguised as baby carriages in the city's web of subway stations.
When the bombs never materialized and no arrests were made, Democrats called it an election-year stunt. The Bush administration cautiously gave the story a wide berth, saying New York was acting independently and in its own interests.
But standing with the mayor in his prosecution of this matter was U.S. Rep. Peter King, the South Shore Republican who was confirmed as chairman of the House's Committee on Homeland Security on Sept. 15.
An interview with the Herald last Thursday, in fact, was cut short and delayed for several days as the subway story was breaking so King could huddle with New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. "He and Bloomberg were having a press conference within the hour to announce the threat, and he needed me to know about it and what was coming," King said Monday. "It was a legitimate threat. It's legitimate even when you don't know if it's real. People came forward with evidence of an attack on New York, and when you looked at it, there were four or five reasons why the evidence was no good, and two or three reasons why it was good.
"And Bloomberg's attitude and Ray Kelly's attitude and my attitude is, until that's resolved, you have to take precautions. You'd be crazy not to."
This was the type of situation - assessing domestic terror threats and carrying the war on terror's flag on the home front - that King likely envisioned when he sought the chairmanship of the Homeland Security committee in July, when its former chairman, Rep. Christopher Cox, left Congress to become head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Of course, since King was confirmed, the job has been All Katrina All the Time, with the national conversation shifting, as least for now, to infrastructure and emergency preparedness.
They are certainly topics for King's Congressional 3rd District, where, for example, the City of Long Beach is trying to decide how to fortify its beaches against threats of a 100-year storm. Further inland, the fear of a storm rivaling the Long Island Express hurricane of 1938, or even hurricanes Donna in 1960 or Gloria in 1985, is enough to send politicians and insurance adjusters into fits.
King said his efforts had opened the door for Long Beach's coastline reclamation project, which has met its share of opponents among environmentalists, surfers and other residents who worry about the lasting effects of too major an overhaul.
But the plan's fans, led by King, insist that protecting the Long Beach barrier island will go a long way toward protecting the inland communities of Island Park, Oceanside, Baldwin Harbor, Merrick and Bellmore.
"I was the one who got the original approval for it in Congress in 1994," King said. "We have to find a way to get this done. I know a lot of people in Long Beach have questions about it, but one way or the other this has to be done. ... New Orleans should be a wake-up call to everyone. We have to find a way to get it done."
King is the second chairman of the Homeland Security committee, which is tasked with, among other things, balancing the nation's homeland security needs with local security concerns. Representing a commuter community near water makes his district a priority. "This means I will be at the table when decisions are made," he said. "As far as [Homeland Security funding is concerned,] if the money were to be done on a fair-funding formula, which I want, based on threats, then you'll have more coming to Nassau and Suffolk County."
He described a symbiotic relationship between New York City and its eastern suburbs, which he said helps explain the region's critical role in the event of an attack. "We are part of the greater New York area, and if the city is attacked, people are going to evacuate here, and we need to be ready for them," King said. "One assists the other. We are, unfortunately, in the target zone of terrorists in New York. We use the Long Island Rail Road, we use the bridges and tunnels. I'll be making sure we have the money to make those safer."
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