Bureaucracy impedes bomb-detection work (* tried to cut funds)

[NVMojo]

Sat Aug 12, 5:53 AM ET

WASHINGTON - As the British terror plot was unfolding, the Bush administration quietly tried to take away $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new explosives detection technology. Congressional leaders rejected the idea, the latest in a series of Homeland Security Department steps that have left lawmakers and some of the department's own experts questioning the commitment to create better anti-terror technologies.

Homeland Security's research arm, called the Sciences & Technology Directorate, is a "rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course," Republican and Democratic senators on the Appropriations Committee declared recently.

"The committee is extremely disappointed with the manner in which S&T is being managed within the Department of Homeland Security," the panel wrote June 29 in a bipartisan report accompanying the agency's 2007 budget.

Rep. Martin Sabo, D-Minn., who joined Republicans to block the administration's recent diversion of explosives detection money, said research and development is crucial to thwarting future attacks, and there is bipartisan agreement that Homeland Security has fallen short.

more...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060812/ap_on_go_ot/terror_explosives_detection_10

[ShockediSay]

1. Need to trumpet this mightily, esp when they claim we are soft on

defense.

[truthisfreedom]

2. cut-funds-and-run repubicans need to be exposed!

they are soft on terror!

[maddezmom]

3. duplicate topic

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2451571