NewsMax.com
Friday, Mar. 1, 2002

Bush created the Office of Homeland Security with Executive Order #13228. Tom Ridge, the office’s new director, in section 3(h) is tasked with the Continuity of Government. He "shall review plans and preparations for ensuring the continuity of the Federal Government in the event of a terrorist attack that threatens the safety and security of the United States Government or its leadership.”

Officials have not identified any specific nuclear threats as yet, but information the military gleaned from papers found in Afghanistan, and reports from intelligence sources, make the expense and trouble of the operations bunker a necessity.

Although the sites that house these subterranean chambers needed new computers and equipment, they have been rehabilitated.

The Washington Post is reporting that "high-ranking officials representing their departments have begun rotating in and out of the assignment at one of two fortified locations along the East Coast.”

Those on "bunker duty” have to be there, 24/7, far below the surface and a world away from their families, for 90 days at a time.

The number of people in a bunker at any one time can go up and down depending on the terrorist threat level reported by our intel community.

The only branch of government with delegates in the full-time shadow administration is the Executive. The military has it’s own continuity plan, as NewsMax.com’s Dave Eberhart explained in Where Uncle Sam Goes If Holocaust Comes To Town.

The objective of those in the bunker is to maintain control of America’s lifeline to its resources; food, water, energy and so on. The goings on inside the "COG” as it’s known, seem to explain the virtual disappearance of Vice president Dick Cheney for the months post-September 11.

Cheney's survival assures constitutional succession, one official said, but "he can't run the country by himself." He has a group of federal managers with him to assure that the leadership of the free world will continue in the event of a catastrophe.

Without this backup system, one official said a nuclear detonation in the capital "would be `game over.' "

Joseph Hagin, White House deputy chief of staff, said: "We take this issue extraordinarily seriously, and are committed to doing as thorough a job as possible to ensure the ongoing operations of the federal government ... In the case of the use of a weapon of mass destruction, the federal government would be able to do its job and continue to provide key services and respond."

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Bush Administration

War on Terrorism