Report: Weapons-detection plans lacking

WASHINGTON — Bush administration initiatives to defend the nation against a smuggled nuclear bomb or a biological outbreak or attack remain poorly coordinated, costing billions of tax dollars while basic goals and policies remain incomplete, according to new reports by congressional investigators.

The administration budgeted $2.8 billion in 2007 for nuclear detection but lacks a strategic plan to plug gaps and move beyond its initial goals, such as placing radiation detectors at domestic and overseas ports, according to reports by the Congressional Research Service and the Government Accountability Office for a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing that will be held today.

Separately, a 5-year-old program to detect the airborne release of biological warfare agents such as anthrax, plague and smallpox in more than 30 major U.S. cities still lacks basic technical data to help medical officials determine how to respond to an alert triggered by the sensors, congressional investigators and state and local officials will report to the House Homeland Security Committee.

In written testimony submitted for a House hearing today, state and local public-health laboratory directors were highly critical of the program known as BioWatch, saying it is underfunded, improperly managed and of unclear benefit, despite $400 million in federal spending.

Impeachment article

sent to committee

Rep. Dennis Kucinich's single impeachment article will get a committee hearing — but not on removing President Bush from office.

The House voted 238-180 Tuesday to send his article of impeachment — for Bush's reasoning for taking the country to war in Iraq — to the Judiciary Committee, which buried Kucinich's previous effort.

This time, the panel will open hearings. But House Democratic leaders emphatically said the proceedings will not be about Bush's impeachment, a first step in the Constitution's process of a removing a president from office.

Instead, the panel will conduct an election-year review — possibly televised — of anything Democrats consider to be Bush's abuse of power. Kucinich, D-Ohio, is likely to testify.

Also

Myanmar: The House voted Tuesday to punish Myanmar's brutal ruling regime "where it hurts — in the wallet," by freezing assets of political and military leaders there and banning the importation of rubies from that country into the U.S.

Transportation: Nicole Nason, the administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is resigning after leading the administration's efforts on auto-safety and vehicle-fuel economy standards for two years, officials said Tuesday.

Seattle Times news services