2A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, October 31, 2005 NATION/WORLD Post-Sept 11 deadlines missed NEWS IN BRIEF _!: .. s j " 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 HEDLNS ROMAROUDTHEWORL , . a x: 4 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. I I _ _-_ _ _ _ Y_ - 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 I 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 %uvimne %_viuease koi . ugenio 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. Mbe 5irbi gan ui 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327 www.michigandaily.com 40 A man walks under a coconut tree knocked onto power lines by strong winds from Hurricane Beta yesterday. * JASON Z. 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