SEGURIDAD MAXIMA

Bush pledges 'unprecedented' spending on security in U.S.
By Brian Knowlton International Herald Tribune THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2005
WASHINGTON President George W. Bush, in his most extensive comments on homeland protection since the bombing attacks in London, promised significantly higher spending on U.S. transit and port security and vowed that "these terrorists will not shake our will."
"We're spending unprecedented resources to protect our nation," Bush said during a visit to a marine terminal at the port of Baltimore. "We will not let down our guard."
Following the July 7 attacks in London, which killed 56 people aboard three trains on the London Underground and on a double-decker bus, critics here noted that U.S. homeland security spending was skewed strongly toward protection of airports and commercial aviation, with far slighter emphasis on protecting rail and subway facilities.
Bush, in a speech billed as primarily a defense of the Patriot Act, which bolsters law-enforcement powers against terror suspects, offered an extensive defense of efforts by the administration to protect ports and mass transit facilities.
"We've provided more than $350 million to help state and local authorities to improve security on mass transit," he said.
"That's what the enemy hit the other day on one of our strong allies," he said, referring to the attacks in London. "At home, we're doing everything we can to protect the American people."
But Bush also said that in the face of what he called a war against "cold-blooded ideologues who will kill," it was necessary for the country to "plan for the worst" - studying the most likely and vulnerable targets, then securing them.
Democrats have said the administration, preoccupied with fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, has slighted security at home. Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, referring to homeland needs, spoke recently of "a general feeling and consensus that the administration is not paying attention to the second front."
The president said that cities like Baltimore had received $2.4 billion in urban security grants that could be used partly for transit protection. His proposed budget envisages a 64 percent rise in grants to protect roads, bridges, subways, light rail and other infrastructure, he noted. Spending on port security was 10 times the pre-Sept. 11 levels.
In addition, he said, "we're widening the use of explosive detection teams and nearly doubling the number of rail security inspectors."
The homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, was criticized by Senate Democrats when he said last week that a federal focus on aviation was logical because attacks using planes could be catastrophic, as they were on Sept. 11, 2001.
"The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people," he said. "A bomb in a subway car may kill 30 people. When you start to think about your priorities, you're going to think about making sure you don't have a catastrophic thing first."
Bush spoke with particular intensity Wednesday about the fight against terrorism. "See, these people believe that there should be no dissent, no freedom, nor rights for women, that there only ought to be one religion, which is a great misinterpretation of the great religion of Islam," he said.