Demos facing 9/11 challenges

WASHINGTON — Democrats poised to take control of Congress say they'll work to implement the unfinished business the 9/11 Commission recommended to better protect America from terrorists. But it won't be easy.

Much of what the commission proposed has been accomplished, at least in some measure. And many other proposals won't get through because they're either too expensive or face stiff political opposition.

Intelligence institutions were reorganized, some terrorist financing has been disrupted and planning for air defense of the United States has been improved. Those were key elements of the program the Sept. 11 Commission said must be instituted for America.

Yet, with Democrats eyeing the 2008 presidential election and eager to show they're strong on security issues, analysts say there are no still-lingering proposals that can easily be enacted into law.

"I don't think there's a lot more there," said James Carafano, homeland security fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative-oriented Washington think tank. "I think we're done."

The commission in July 2004 made 41 sweeping recommendations to prevent another devastating terrorist attack.

A third of the recommendations urged tighter domestic security and improved emergency response. Another third called for reform of intelligence-gathering and congressional oversight. The rest involved foreign policy issues and nuclear nonproliferation.

A year and a half after issuing the recommendations, the commission reconvened and announced that many of its recommendations had not been adequately addressed.

Meeting almost a year ago, the panel's members handed out failing grades to the government, giving an "F," for example, to improving airline passenger screening and homeland security spending for cities considered most at risk of attack.

Democrats had been harping on many of the same issues.

"We already know these vulnerabilities exist, and we can't wait till 2008 to deal with them," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who is in line to become chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

The Transportation Security Administration, acting after an alleged plot was discovered last summer to blow up airliners heading to the United States from Britain, severely restricted the amount of liquids that can be carried onto planes to reduce the threat posed by liquid explosives.