AP: "Homeland Security Misses Many Deadlines"

AP:

A plan to defend ships and ports from attack is six months overdue. Rules to protect air cargo from infiltration 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 supposed to be done more than three years ago. [...]

A law signed by President Bush on Nov. 25, 2002, set a July 1, 2004, deadline for ships and ports to tighten security amid fears that terrorists might smuggle nuclear weapons in a cargo container.

The Coast Guard largely accomplished the undertaking. 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 container security is eight months overdue; a national security plan for marine transportation is well past its April 1 due date. [...]

TSA missed a March 17 deadline for a plan to deploy bomb-detection machines at airports.

Good spin:

"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."

But here's the kicker:

Those deadlines, sometimes for minor projects, distract the department from putting in place the 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."

Mr. 'homeland security expert'- can I remind you of something? There is NO WAY that a plane will be hijacked by someone with a knife, box-cutter, or other weapon since 9/11. The only way a passenger aircraft will fall victim to a terrorist act will be through a bomb or explosion.

Of course, the federal government is paying out a lot of money in 'hazardous disposal fees' for the tons of lighters confiscated each day, but I'll take over dying in a terrorist act, how about you?