U.S. Response I:  House Approves Fiscal 2004 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 425-2 yesterday to approve the fiscal 2004 homeland security appropriations bill, which provides $30 billion for homeland security programs, according to the Los Angeles Times (see GSN, June 16).

The bill would provide the Homeland Security Department with $29.4 billion for operations in the next fiscal year, an increase of almost 2 percent over last year’s funding for the U.S. agencies that were combined to create the new department, the Times reported.  The bill provides:

*         $9 billion for border protection;

*         $5.2 billion for the Transportation Security Administration;

*         $4.4 billion for state and local emergency personnel;

*         $890 million to combat biological terrorism; and

*         $776 million for U.S. infrastructure protection.

House Republicans added an additional $1 billion to the bill — more than President George W. Bush’s initial request — for additional transportation security measures and to help fund first responders, according to the Times.

Bush praised the House “for acting quickly to approve funds for our continued effort to strengthen homeland security and protect the American people” (Justin Gest, Los Angeles Times, June 24).

The funding included in the bill amounts to about $250 in U.S. spending per taxpayer, said House Select Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Christopher Cox (R-Calif.).

“Nothing we do is more important,” Cox said.  “It’s an extraordinary amount of money to respond to the post-9/11 world,” he said.

Some House Democrats, however, criticized their Republican counterparts for failing to fully fund homeland security measures while devoting so much funding to Bush’s $350 billion tax cut, according to the Washington Post.

“The problem is we cannot put the resources in the bill today because this Congress, the majority, has decided their No. 1, and virtually their only, priority is tax cuts,” Representative David Obey (D-Wis.) said (Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post, June 25).

The Senate is set to consider its own version of the legislation, but no schedule for doing so has yet been announced (Gest, Los Angeles Times).

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U.S. Response II:  DHS Plans to Localize Color-Coded Warning System

The U.S. Homeland Security Department will revise its color-coded terrorist warning system this summer, the New York Daily News reported today (see GSN, June 3).

The new system will be localized, and the department will have it in place by September, according to Steve Cooper, the department’s chief information officer.  Officials are concerned that repeated nationwide warnings, without an incident, have jaded U.S. residents.

“We recognize that the risk is not uniform,” Cooper said.  “We want to regionalize or localize the alerting mechanism,” he added.

Officials also denied rumors that the country would be placed at an orange level of alert, the second-highest possible, for the July 4 holiday.

“Discussions have not taken place yet regarding the threat level over the July 4 holiday,” said spokeswoman Rachel Sunbarger (James Meek, New York Daily News, June 25).

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International Response:  U.N.  Studies Shows Some Antiterrorism Efforts Are Ineffective

The U.N. Security Council’s travel and arms embargo on individuals linked to al-Qaeda is not stopping the global terrorist network from carrying out attacks, according to a 42-page, unpublished U.N. draft report cited in Saturday’s Washington Post.

According to the report, since the sanctions were imposed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, no terrorist or weapon covered by the measures has been detained or seized at an international border.

“Despite the travel ban,” the report reads, “members of the al-Qaeda network have retained a high degree of mobility and have been able to carry out and contribute to terrorist attacks in several countries around the world.”

The report indicates that a U.N. list of over 220 people and groups said to be linked to al-Qaeda contains many misspellings and errors.  Thirty-four suspects are identified by a single name, and translations from Arabic to English vary. Also, the United States and other countries have reportedly refrained from releasing certain names to the United Nations because of concerns about compromising their own investigations.

The report indicates that efforts against al-Qaeda have been successful in some areas, with a number of senior al-Qaeda members having been arrested over the last year, but that recent attacks in Casablanca, Morocco, and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, show that terrorists are “still willing and able to strike at targets of their choosing.” The group that carried out the attack in Casablanca is not directly linked to al-Qaeda, but according to the report, the incident demonstrates the organization’s ability to recruit new adherents.

Terrorists still have access to millions of dollars, according to the draft. The United States and other countries, the report indicates, are unable to freeze some al-Qaeda-related assets, allowing al-Qaeda members to “acquire adequate quantities of weapons and explosives where and when they need them” (Colum Lynch, Washington Post, June 21).

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U.S. Response:  U.S. Company to Begin Producing New Radiation Detector

The U.S. company ORTEC is set to begin production of a handheld radiation detector developed by the U.S. Energy Department’s Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Energy Daily reported today (see GSN, March 3).

Laboratory officials yesterday signed an agreement with ORTEC representatives on commercializing the RadScout radiation detector, which laboratory officials have said is both portable and easy to use.  In addition to detecting radiation, the detector uses software to identify what materials are likely producing the radiation, according to the laboratory’s Michael Dunning.

The RadScout is primarily designed to detect gamma rays and X-rays, but it also is equipped with a small neutron detector, Dunning said.  “This will address the vast majority of radioactive materials,” he said (Energy Daily, June 20).

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