"Am I therefore become your enemy,because I TELL YOU THE TRUTH...?"
(Galatians 4:16)

Questions Raised Over US Terror Exercise

The nation is preparing for its biggest terrorism exercise ever later this month when three fictional "dirty bombs" go off and cripple transportation arteries in two major U.S. cities and Guam, according to a document obtained by The AP.Yet even as this drill begins, details from the previous national exercise held in 2005 have yet to be publicly released information that's supposed to help officials prepare for the next real attack.House members demanded answers Wednesday, including why the "after-action" report from 2005 hasn't been made public. Congress has required the exercise since 2000, but has done little in the way of oversight beyond attending the actual events.Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, did not get a direct answer to why it has taken the department two years to finish the after-action report."I'm just wondering how much of that information you gleaned is actually current enough to move forward with," Thompson, D-Miss., told Dennis R. Schrader, a preparedness official at the Department of Homeland Security. Wednesday was Schrader's 45th day on the job at the department, and he did not have most of the answers lawmakers were seeking on the $25 million exercise.Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., suggested the department might be hiding something by not releasing the report. "Is it so sensitive because there was a lot of failures in this exercise?" he asked. "You know Katrina wasn't exactly a home run."The fourth Top Officials exercise dubbed TOPOFF takes place during the week starting Oct. 15. The program costs about $25 million a year and involves the federal government's highest officials, such as top people from the Defense and Homeland Security departments."The challenge with TOPOFF is not the exercise itself. It's to move as quickly as possible to remedy what perceives to be the problems that are uncovered," former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in an interview with AP this week.
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