From an AP article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
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.
They wanted to move the money to fill a shortfall for protecting government buildings. But both Republican and Democrat Senators and Representatives refused.
Congressional committee members have expressed continuing frustration with the way Homeland Security is dealing with the threat of explosives on airplanes.
There are echoes of the mismanagement of FEMA here, which made the New Orleans disaster much worse than it needed to be. Why are they being so apparently negligent? More from the article:
Congressional leaders rejected the idea, the latest in a series of steps by the Homeland Security Department that has left lawmakers and some of the department's own experts questioning the commitment to create better anti-terror technologies.
Homeland Security's research arm, called the Sciences & Technology Directorate, is a "rudderless ship without a clear way to get back on course," Republican and Democratic senators on the Appropriations Committee declared recently.
[...]
The department failed to spend $200 million in research and development money from past years, forcing lawmakers to rescind the money this summer.
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.
I find it so bizarre that they wanted to move this money. It's up there with failing for years to buy battle armor for our soldiers. Look at this:
Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, a senior Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, said he urged the administration three years ago to buy electron scanners, like the ones used at London's airport to detect plastics that might be hidden beneath passenger clothes.
"It's been an ongoing frustration about their resistance to purchase off-the-shelf, state-of-the-art equipment that can meet these threats," he said.