LIEBERMAN PRESSES FOR QUICK
ADMINISTRATION ACTION ON REPORT ON U.S. LACK OF READINESS FOR
TERRORIST ATTACK
October 25, 2002
WASHINGTON - Senate
Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.,
Friday challenged the Bush Administration to respond immediately
to the recommendations of a new Council on Foreign Relations
report that concludes the U.S. government is still woefully
unprepared to prevent another terrorist attack.
Given the report's analysis that disorganization among
anti-terrorism components of the federal government is still a
major problem, Lieberman also urged his Republican Senate
colleagues to end their filibuster against their own version of
homeland security legislation pending before the Senate.
"It's been over a year since the worst attack on
American soil in memory," Lieberman said.
"A lot could have, and should have, been done in
that time to shore up our domestic defenses. And yet, I'm afraid
the time has been frittered away, and yet the nation is still in
a dangerous state of unpreparedness."
Lieberman pressed for the Bush Administration to assess
and act quickly on the report's recommendations, including to
bolster homeland defenses by providing state and local law
enforcement agencies with real-time information about terrorist
threats and to immediately provide federal funding to equip
local first responders to fight terrorism.
The report, issued by an independent task force sponsored
by the Council on Foreign Relations and chaired by former
Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, said that, "a year
after September 11, 2001, America remains dangerously unprepared
to prevent and respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on
U.S. soil."
The administration has made little progress in key
homeland security areas, according to the report, such as port
and container security, protection of energy and water supplies,
and public health preparedness for a chemical or biological
attack.
"President
Bush declared war on terrorism," Lieberman said. "But
this report shows that the war to protect our own citizens at
home has barely begun. I
deeply appreciate the task force's commitment to keeping us all
focused on the need to strengthen our homeland defenses."
Lieberman particularly thanked Senators Hart and Rudman,
on whose work he heavily relied in drafting legislation to
create a new Department of Homeland Security last year.
The creation of a homeland security department should be
"enacted on an urgent basis," the report said, and
security vulnerabilities should be addressed quickly.
"Last week CIA Director Tenet told us that another
attack may be imminent," Lieberman said.
"Now this report shows that we're woefully
under-prepared to respond to that threat.
I hope this provides a wake-up call to my Senate
colleagues who are inexplicably filibustering their own homeland
security bill. We
need a Homeland Security Department, and we need it
yesterday."
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