2A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, October 31, 2005
NATION/WORLD
Post-Sept 11 deadlines missed NEWS IN BRIEF
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Many plans aimed to protect
country after Sept 11 have yet to be
completed by Bush administration
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration
has missed dozens of deadlines set by Congress after
the Sept. 11 attacks for developing ways to protect air-
planes, ships and railways from terrorists.
A plan to defend ships and ports from attack is six
months overdue. Rules to protect air cargo from infil-
tration by terrorists are two months late. A study on
the cost of giving anti-terrorism training to federal law
enforcement officers who fly commercially was sup-
posed to be done more than three years ago.
"The incompetence that we recently saw with
FEMA's leadership appears to exist throughout the
Homeland Security Department," said Mississippi
Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, top Democrat on the
House Homeland Security Committee. "Our nation is
still vulnerable."
Congress must share the blame for the department's
sluggishness in protecting commerce and travel from
terrorists, according to other observers.
Lawmakers piled on deadline after deadline for
reports, plans and regulations while the department,
created after the 2001 attacks, had to integrate 22
agencies with 170,000 workers and cope with terrorist
threats and hurricanes.
Those deadlines, sometimes for minor projects,
distract the department from putting in place the
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most important security measures, experts say. The
Transportation Security Administration, for example,
scrambled to try to meet a Feb. 15 deadline to ban
butane lighters from airplanes, a precaution that does
little to protect airliners, they said.
"You have no ability to prioritize against something
like that, and it's going to take up all your time," said
Dan Prieto, homeland security expert with Harvard's
Kennedy School of Government. "The urgent becomes
the enemy of the important."
Thompson said the government has yet to develop a
comprehensive plan to protect roads, bridges, tunnels,
power plants, pipelines and dams. He said a broad plan
to protect levies and dams might have helped prevent
the New Orleans levies from being breached.
Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said
the department goes to great lengths to work with
Congress. But, he said, "there is an extraordinarily
high number of reporting requirements."
The department has to submit 256 reports to Con-
gress every year, while the TSA alone has 62 reporting
requirements.
"There's a lack of adult leadership on both sides,"
said James Carafano, a senior fellow at the conser-
vative Heritage Foundation. "The department just
doesn't have its act together," he said. "Some of these
deadlines are unrealistic."
The first response to the Sept. 11 hijackings was
to prevent terrorists from taking over airliners with
weapons and crashing them into buildings.
It became clear that more needed to be done after sui-
cide bombings of railways in Madrid, Spain, and Lon-
don, on a tanker near Yemen and on airplanes in Russia.
So Congress set more deadlines for more security
measures.
Some were met. Many were not.
A law signed by President Bush on Nov. 25, 2002,
set a July 1, 2004, deadline for ships and ports to tight-
en security amid fears that terrorists might smuggle
nuclear weapons in a cargo container.
The Coast Guard largely accomplished the under-
taking. But much still remains undone: A report on
how a grant program for shippers and ports would
work is more than a year late; a report on cargo con-
tainer security is eight months overdue; a national
security plan for marine transportation is well past its
April 1 due date.
Rep. Harold Rogers, chairman of the House sub-
committee that oversees Homeland Security spend-
ing, was unhappy because the TSA missed a March 17
deadline for a plan to deploy bomb-detection machines
at airports.
Rogers, (R-Ky.), put a provision in the Homeland
Security spending bill, signed into law Oct. 18, that
withholds $5 million from the department until it sub-
mits such a plan.
Some security deadlines have been met, especially
those set soon after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Within nine weeks of the hijackings, lawmakers
ordered a federal work force to take over airport
security, many more air marshals and the creation of
the TSA.
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NEW DELHI, India
Group claims responsibilitfor blasts
A little-known group that police say has ties to Kashmir's most feared militaits
claimed responsibility yesterday for a series of terrorist bombings that killed 59
people in New Delhi.
Authorities said they already had gathered useful clues about the near-simulta-
neous blasts Saturday night that ripped through a bus and two crowded markets just
before the Hindu festival of Diwali, one of the year's busiest shopping seasons.
Investigators reportedly raided dozens of small hotels across India's capital
looking for possible suspects, and police said "numerous" people were being
questioned.
The attacks came at a particularly sensitive time as India and Pakistan were
hashing out an unprecedented agreement to partially open the heavily militarized
frontier that divides the disputed territory of Kashmir to speed relief to victims of
a massive earthquake earlier this month.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip
Palestinians, Israelis agree to bait violence
Israel and the Palestinians agreed yesterday to halt their latest round of rockjt
attacks and airstrikes, officials said, but the deal threatened to fall through when
Israeli forces killed three Islamic Jihad militants in the West Bank.
Israeli forces circled a house in the West Bank town of Qabatiyeh after sundown
Sunday and killed Jihad Zakarne, an Islamic Jihad member accused by Israel of
planning a deadly suicide bombing last week, and another militant, witnesses ahd
Palestinian security officials said.
Israel Radio reported Israeli troops killed a third Palestinian who was planting
a bomb nearby. The Israeli military had no comment.
Islamic Jihad responded with a statement threatening to hit Israeli towns
near Gaza and called on "Palestinian factions to be united to confront the
I
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B " eZionist campaign against the Islamic Jihad and the Palestinian people in th
Beta weakens as It moves inlandWZZak"
KABUL, Afghanistan
13th hurricane of surf. At least 30 people were injured, U.S. soldiers charged over alleged assault
Colomian Civil DI fV C E ii 111
the season batters
Nicaragua's coast
PUERTO CABEZAS, Nicaragua (AP)
- Hurricane Beta pounded Nicaragua's
Caribbean coast with heavy rains and
powerful winds yesterday as thousands
of people rode out the storm in boarded-
up homes or government shelters.
The storm came ashore near the
remote town of La Barra as a category
2 hurricane with 105 mph winds. But it
weakened to a category I with 90 mph
winds as it moved inland, dumping up
to 15 inches of rain, the National Hur-
ricane Center in Miami said.
While powerful, Beta was a small
hurricane, with hurricane force winds
extending outward only up to 15 miles,
the center said.
At 10 a.m. EST, the storm's center
was about 50 miles north of the coastal
city of Bluefields. It was moving toward
the southwest at nearly 7 mph.
Before reaching Central Ameri-
ca, the record 13th hurricane of this
year's Atlantic storm season lashed the
Colombian island of Providencia with
heavy winds, torrential rains and high
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Alarcon said.
The slow-moving storm battered the
mountainous island for more than 12
hours, damaging more than 300 wooden
homes and buildings, most with their
roofs torn apart, he said. Most of the 5,000
islanders found safety at brick shelters in
the hills.
In Nicaragua, President Enrique Bola-
nos declared a maximum "red alert" late
Saturday, ordering some 45,000 people
from the port regions to stay in their
homes or hole up in 15 shelters provided
by the government.
Earlier in the day, soldiers evacuated
10,000 people from the far eastern coastal
port of Cabo de Gracias a Dios and from
along the River Coco, both on the Hondu-
ras border, said Nicaragua's national civil
defense director, Lt. Col. Mario Perez
Cassar.
The Civil Defense Department sent
100 army rescue specialists along with
various land and water vehicles. A tent
hospital also was set up, while universi-
ties and public schools were closed and
converted into shelters. Flights to the
Nicaraguan islands Islas del Maiz were
canceled.
Two U.S. soldiers have been charged with assault for allegedly punching two detain-
ees in the chest, shoulders and stomach at a military base in Afghanistan, the military
said yesterday. The announcement came just 10 days after the military launched an
investigation into television footage purportedly showing a group of U.S. soldiers burn-
ing the bodies of two dead Taliban rebels.
The charges against the two soldiers include conspiracy to maltreat, assault and der-
eliction of duty. The allegations, if substantiated, could lead to disciplinary action, the
statement said, adding that neither detainee required medical attention.
- Compiled from Daily wire repors
CORRECTIONS
A story in Thursday's edition of the Daily (Author: Schools remain segre-
gated) incorrectly reported that Ecology graduate student Jahi Chappell attended
the John Kozol speech in support of affirmative action. The story should hate
said that Chappell attended the event out of interest for the speaker. The story
also incorrectly reported Chappell as saying that he supported affirmative action
because it was necessary to correct historical injustices.
A photograph of Al Sharpton on the front page of Friday's edition of the
Daily was incorrectly credited to Mike Hulsebus. The photo should have
been credited to Aaron Swick.
A story in last week's edition of The Statement (Fair Play) incorrectly stated that the
1977-78 women's varsity basketball team was the first women's varsity team. The story
also incorrectly stated that President Gerald Ford signed the bill putting Title IX info
effect. The story should have said President Richard Nixon signed the bill in 1972 and
President Ford signed the part that dictated the specific stipulations of Title IX compli-
ance for athletic departments in 1975. The story also incorrectly listed the original
women's varsity sports at Michigan. They were field hockey, synchronized swimming,
swimming and diving, tennis, track and basketball. Cheerleading was not a varsity
sport. The mistakes were due to an editing error.
Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@michigandaily.com.
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A man walks under a coconut tree knocked onto power lines by strong winds
from Hurricane Beta yesterday.
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