GAO: Homeland Security Dept. falls short

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Congressional auditors gave a stinging assessment of the Homeland Security Department's progress and said the department could not take credit for the absence of a terrorist attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

The department's primary mission is to prevent such a strike to and minimize the damage should an attack occur. Auditors said the U.S. is safer than it was that day in 2001, but the department has poorly managed its mission over the past four years.

"I don't think we can take comfort in the fact, necessarily, that we haven't had another attack," Government Accountability Office Comptroller General David Walker told senators Thursday, just five days before the sixth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

In a 320-page report, the GAO identified 171 performance expectations and found the department achieved fewer than half since it formed four years ago. Experts, including auditors, have said it would take a department this large five years to seven years to come together.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070906/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/homeland_security_10