Mass transit safety not top priority for Chertoff

WASHINGTON — The government must focus on preventing airline hijackings and other terror threats that could inflict mass casualties and is limited in the help it can give cities and states to protect trains and buses, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday.

His comments, in an Associated Press interview, drew criticism from Senate Democrats from metropolitan areas who said mass transit systems are highly vulnerable to terrorists — as shown in last week's bombings of three subway lines and a bus in London.

At the same time, nearly two-thirds of Americans believe an attack on mass transit is inevitable, according to a new AP-Ipsos poll.

With finite resources and a looming range of threats, Chertoff said the federal government is forced to set priorities to prevent attacks that would produce the highest number of casualties. In the interview with AP reporters and editors, Chertoff noted that mass transit systems are largely regulated by state and local authorities that he said should provide the bulk of security measures.

By contrast, he said, the commercial aviation system is "almost exclusively a federal responsibility" and demands extensive funding.

"The truth of the matter is, a fully loaded airplane with jet fuel, a commercial airliner, has the capacity to kill 3,000 people," Chertoff 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."

He added: "But it doesn't mean that we only focus on aviation. It means we do aviation, we do other things as well, but we scale our response based on the nature of the architecture."

The remarks touched off criticism among Democrats as the Senate approved, 96-1, a $31.8 billion Homeland Security Department spending measure for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. As part of the bill, senators rejected a plan to spend $1.16 billion on mass transit security measures, favoring instead a competing $100 million proposal. The bill now goes to a conference committee to resolve differences with the House version passed in May.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Chertoff's statements "just make one's jaw drop," and he demanded an apology. Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., who has described Chertoff as a friend, said he hoped the secretary would reconsider whether "funding for rail and transit security is a lower priority for the federal government."