Editorial: It is about time

Monday, Jan. 8, 2007 | 7:23 a.m.

Las Vegas is back on the U.S. Homeland Security Department's list of most likely terrorist targets in America after inconceivably being taken off.

Southern Nevada is once again eligible for federal anti-terrorism money after Nevada's congressional delegation and state and local leaders mounted an exhaustive campaign to get federal decision-makers to see reality.

Last year Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., called for the resignation of Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff after Chertoff announced that Las Vegas, which has regularly been on the list, had somehow missed the cut. Chertoff's deputies had used "3.2 billion" calculations to determine which areas of the country were most likely to be terrorist targets and thus eligible for money to bolster defenses.

No one initially would say why Las Vegas was not on the list. It took a large amount of political pressure to find the answer - the federal calculations didn't include Nellis Air Force Base, the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, among other things.

It also apparently didn't include common sense. As former Sheriff Bill Young said at the time, "Open your eyes." McCarran International Airport is the fifth busiest in the nation, more than 40 million people visit the region each year and the Strip bustles with some 250,000 people on any big weekend.

Oh, and five of the 9/11 hijackers visited Las Vegas. We still don't know why, but as Young said, "In the fanatical Muslim world, we embody everything they hate about America. We have drinking, gambling, scantily clad women. This is what we market and push out there in the world."

While we don't like being a potential terrorist target, that is the reality of living in "Sin City," and the federal government needs to do all it can to help protect Southern Nevada.

We are grateful for the efforts of the congressional delegation, Young and others who pushed the issue and successfully opened the eyes of Homeland Security officials. We can only hope it won't have to happen again.