Oliver Norths Rex-84

Then, during the Reagan years, Oliver North organized Rex-84short for readiness exercise 1984 (I guess somebody had been taking their Orwell seriously)that envisioned using the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA, created in 1979) to round up and detain in camps as many as 400,000 refugees in case of uncontrolled population movements coming across our border from Mexico. When North was asked during the Iran-Contra hearings about his work on a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would suspend the American constitution, Chairman Daniel Inouye ruled that this highly sensitive and classified matter shouldnt be discussed in an open hearing.

So who do you think was doing some of the top-level planning of this along with North? Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, along with Vice President Poppa Bush, under something called the National Program Office. Rumsfeld and Cheney were principal actors in one of the most highly classified programs of the Reagan Administration. Congress would have no role in the event of a national security emergency.

U.S. Armys Continuity-of-Government

Ten months before 9/11, immediately upon the second Bush Administration taking control, Pentagon chief Rumsfeld approved an updated version of the Armys COG plan. COG stands for Continuity-of-Government. The idea has been around since the fifties and the possibility that the Russians would drop a nuke on us. In May 2001, Bush put Cheney in charge of a terrorism task force and opened a new Office of National Preparedness within FEMA. The guy Bush had named to head FEMA was Joe Allbaugh, whod managed the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000 and helped out with the dirty-tricks 19th-Floor Riot that brought a halt to the ballot recount going on in Miami-Dade County.

After 9/11, the COG plans went operational. Heres what the Washington Post reported six months later: President Bush has dispatched a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work secretly outside Washington, activating for the first time longstanding plans to ensure survival of federal rule after catastrophic attack on the nations capital. Known internally as the COG, for continuity of government, the administration-in-waiting is an unannounced complement to the acknowledged absence of Vice President Cheney from Washington for much of the past five months.

Homeland Security's ENDGAME

(Reuters/Landov)Under the new Homeland Security office, another plan called ENDGAME was established. Its goal was to place all removable aliens and potential terrorists in detention facilities.  Attorney General John Ashcroft came right out and announced his wish that such enemy combatants be put in camps scattered around the country. In January 2002, the Pentagon submitted a proposal for deploying troops on our streets and, that April, the Northern Command (NORTHCOM) was set up to implement this. The command will provide civil support not only in response to attacks, but for natural disasters, according to the Pentagons announcement. (In September 2005, NORTHCOM conducted a highly classified exercise in D.C. called Granite Shadow.)

Bear in mind that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 specifically outlaws the military acting like cops on our own soil. Bush also put through an executive order that changed the 1807 Insurrection Act, giving himself much greater powers in the event of something he might label as insurrection. (The Constitution lets habeas corpus be suspended during such an occurrence.) This marked a fundamental change in military culture, according to Paul McHale, an assistant secretary for homeland defense. Before 9/11, he says, this would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable.

All through the Bush years, this kind of preparedness kept building. Early in 2006, as part of ENDGAME, Homeland Security awarded a $385 million contract to KBRa subsidiary of Cheneys old company, Halliburtonto get going on temporary detention and processing facilities in case there was an emergency influx of immigrants, or to support the rapid development of new programs with a natural disaster. (Think Katrina, which saw the first roundup of citizens, held not only in the football stadium in New Orleans but shipped out to other detention centers.)