Chertoff Says Can’t Protect All Targets


Mr. Chertoff, since he was named secretary in February 2005, has talked of the need to make spending risk-based, but his department has also been lambasted for compiling a list of possible targets that included a petting zoo, a bourbon festival and a popcorn factory, while at the same time it cut antiterrorism grants to high-risk cities like Washington and New York.

Mr. Falkenrath, the deputy commissioner for counterterrorism at the New York City Police Department, said the department was focusing too much on screening cargo containers, when the greater threat in American ports, like the attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000 showed, was from a small boat packed with explosives pulling up aside a ship or a ferry. It is spending $9 on security per airplane passenger, he said, but less than half a penny on each mass transit rider.
Feel safer now? -Ed.

Posted: Wed - September 13, 2006 at 06:24 PM          

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