CNN: LOU DOBBS TONIGHT May 5, 2006
Congress Finally Getting Serious About Port Security
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DOBBS: Jamie, thank you very much.
Jamie McIntyre from the Pentagon.
President Bush today renewed his threat to veto a massive emergency spending bill that the president says is full of unnecessary spending. President Bush said Congress must be wise about the way in which it spends the people's money. His veto threat follows the Senate's overwhelming vote to support a spending bill of $119 billion, $14 billion more than the president had asked for to support the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and hurricane relief.
Also tonight, the Congress is finally coming to the realization that there is no national security without strict port security. The House has passed a $7.5 billion port security bill that is being called an important step in homeland security enforcement.
Kitty Pilgrim reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will not yield. I did not interrupt you.
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The debate in Congress rages over the best way to protect container ports from attack. And does the bill approved 421-2 in the House go far enough to fix the problem?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It does what's real. It does what can be done.
REP. ED MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: This bill has a loophole big enough to drive a cargo container filled with nuclear weapons material through it.
PILGRIM: Only 5 percent of freight coming into U.S. ports is inspected. The prospect of a nuclear bomb in a container in a U.S. city is a very real fear. The House bill wants electronic radiation screening equipment at domestic U.S. ports by the end of 2007. The bill also calls for document checks of all containers in overseas ports before the containers come to the United States.
But Representative Ed Markey wants overseas ports to electronically scan all containers before they come to U.S. ports. His amendment calling for that was defeated.
MARKEY: The fatal flaw in the bill is that all of the rest of the security is for the most part paperwork.
PILGRIM: Security analysts say at best the bill is halfway there.
JOHN PIKE, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: It's a step in the right direction. It's not sufficient because the containers that are not going to be inspected I think are the containers that you are most worried about.
PILGRIM: The bill comes just months after the Dubai ports deal raised a firestorm of criticism. Conscious now that public attention remains focused on port security, many in Congress are responding.
REP. DANIEL LUNGREN (R), CALIFORNIA: This bill moves us forward tremendously, and we've got an unbelievably good vote that is a bipartisan vote. So it wasn't a Republican bill or a Democratic bill. It was truly a bipartisan bill.
PILGRIM: Bipartisan interests likely tied to the fall elections.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM: Now, the White House issued a statement backing the bill, but it says the cost is high, the new domestic screening technology cannot be put in place by September 2007 -- Lou.
DOBBS: Kitty, thank you very much.
Kitty Pilgrim.
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