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U.S. Senator Calls Missile Threat a Low Priority; 9/11 Panelists Seek Private Funds to Keep Working By Joe Fiorill WASHINGTON — A Democratic senator yesterday criticized the U.S. missile defense program as a poor use of resources, while lawmakers from both major parties laid into the Homeland Security Department’s transportation chief over his directorate’s priorities and policies. At a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing that featured the two leaders of the independent commission that studied the 2001 terrorist attacks, senators pressed Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson on his Border and Transportation Security Directorate’s timeline to develop an overall security strategy and on the state of implementation of recommendations of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Sept. 11 commission Chairman Thomas Kean said his panel, whose paperback report is atop the New York Times best-seller list, is trying to raise private funds and to keep a small staff after its mandate ends Sunday. He said the resources would be used to “educate the American public as to these issues and as to the importance of these recommendations as we work with you to get some of them implemented.” Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) ended the hearing by suggesting that the Senate seek an extension of the commission’s mandate, an idea that committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) termed “doable” in the Senate but uncertain to win over the House of Representatives and the White House. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) called for stepping up risk-based protection of transportation systems and other potential terrorist targets, blasting President George W. Bush’s plan to deploy a national missile defense system as a dangerous waste of resources. The Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal 2005 contains about $10 billion for the missile defense program, parts of which Bush said Aug. 5 would be activated by year’s end (see GSN, Aug. 5). “If you had a threat meter,” Dorgan said, “the likelihood of a terrorist group or a rogue country getting an intercontinental ballistic missile and putting a nuclear warhead on its tip is probably the least likely threat to this country.” Kean and commission Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton adopted a conciliatory tone but leveled a fundamental criticism at the Transportation Security Administration, part of Hutchinson’s directorate. The agency, said the commission heads, has been too slow in developing a national transportation-security plan and a related series of more focused plans organized by sector. Hutchinson said the “road map” should be completed by the end of the year. Hamilton still returned repeatedly to the subject, saying the plans must be completed quickly and must be based on risk, taking into account both threat and vulnerability information, rather than on threat alone, as he said was the case before the Sept. 11 attacks. “We need a blueprint for TSA in each mode of transportation. … Congress should set a specific date for completion of these vital plans,” Hamilton said. “We’re not satisfied,” he said, “with the state of the plans today — either the comprehensive plan or the sector-specific plans.” Committee members also took up the cause, suggesting they could act with the urgency sought by the commission leaders. “The master plan for action has to occur this year, before we adjourn,” Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) said. Aviation security was an apparent sore spot among the legislators, with senators at times ridiculing policies on numbers of air marshals on passenger planes, items that passengers may carry and air marshals’ clothing. Several senators called for reversing both a rule requiring marshals to wear business attire, which McCain said can make them “stick out like a sore thumb,” and a policy allowing passengers to carry matches and butane lighters onto planes. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) called for congressional action on various recommendations related to transportation security, including passage of pending rail- and port-security bills. Among other shortcomings, she highlighted a need for more efforts to protect people living near nuclear and chemical plants. Besides seeking greater urgency on the overall security plan, Kean and Hamilton called for improving screening of passengers and cargo, including by taking airport screening out of the hands of private companies and placing it under the Transportation Security Administration. Hamilton said Homeland Security officials must begin to exhibit “disciplined decision-making” about where to spend funds. “The American people understand that, in a free society, we cannot protect everything everywhere all the time,” he said, “but they expect their government to make rational decisions about how to allocate limited resources to address those areas where the terrorist threat to transportation is highest, the nation’s vulnerabilities are greatest and the consequences of a successful attack most severe.”
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