CLEAR-EYED, TOUGH-MINDED MEASURES

The news of a second, more devastating 9/11-like terror plot uncovered by the British authorities underscores starkly the facile nature of the incessant lambasting of the Bush administration recently for its pursuing clear-eyed, tough-minded measures to protect the United States from just such an attack.

--letter in today's New York Times

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Bush staff wanted bomb-detect cash moved

While the British terror suspects were hatching their plot, the Bush administration was quietly seeking permission to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new homeland explosives detection technology.

Congressional leaders rejected the idea....

The department failed to spend $200 million in research and development money from past years...

The administration also was slow to start testing a new liquid explosives detector that the Japanese government provided to the United States earlier this year....

--AP