WASHINGTON – Homeland Security Office Director Tom Ridge has met with the president, Cabinet members, governors and the press – everyone, it seems, but counterterrorism experts, administration sources complain.
They charge that Ridge is wasting precious time talking, when he could be putting into action countermeasures for biological, chemical and radiological threats.
“I don’t see anything going on with homeland defense,” said a Bush administration official who’s part of a federal interagency Technical Support Working Group started in 1984 to combat terrorism.
The group, run by an executive committee made up of members from the departments of State, Defense, Justice and Energy, is responsible for conducting rapid research, development and prototyping of new technologies to combat terrorism.
Ridge has yet to tap counterterrorism experts in the group, they say.
“Basically all we’ve done is brief undersecretaries of every agency every day for the last two weeks, so they can look relevant,” said one official.
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WND Staff