What is the difference between Homeland Security and the Three Stooges?

The Three Stooges just pretended to be stupid....Homeland Security is.

Please remind me whose Administration this is occurring under and who I
should vote for in November?

TMT

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060422/ap_on_sc/bird_flu_training&printer=1;_ylt=AqDg9RA_9fNDGycbFRHaHSBxieAA;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

Ag Union: U.S. Not Prepared for Bird Flu By LARA JAKES JORDAN,
Associated Press Writer

Homeland Security Department inspectors at U.S. airports don't have
enough training to keep a deadly strain of bird flu from getting into
the country, a union official is charging, citing the handling of live
birds found in the luggage of a passenger from Vietnam.

Gaps in front-line protections were on display this week when a Customs
official at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport was
confused about how to properly quarantine the three cages of birds,
Alejandra Scaffa, vice president of the National Association of
Agriculture Employees, said Friday. Vietnam is among the nations that
have been the hardest hit by the deadly disease.

Homeland Security spokeswoman Suzanne Trevano said while the birds were
not put in a previously designated quarantine area, they were placed in
a filtered and sealed box and left overnight in a room that only
certain officials were allowed to enter.

She said inspectors routinely have stopped and screened passengers and
fowl entering the United States from flu-afflicted areas.

Scaffa, a Homeland Security agriculture specialist at JFK, said
inspectors have gotten only scant training on how to handle possible
bird flu carriers. Official guidance generally consist of updates on
where the flu has spread, and a 30-minute video that advises wearing
protective masks and gloves when dealing with risky passengers or
cargo, she said.

"Otherwise, DHS has not done a thing," Scaffa said.

One senior Homeland Security official said the department would ramp up
its training and intensify other preparations when a domestic bird flu
outbreak appears imminent. That is not the case now, said the official,
who was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly and spoke on
condition of anonymity.

Referring to last year's hurricane that received a sluggish federal
response after devastating the Gulf Coast, Scaffa predicted a domestic
bird flu outbreak would "wind up to be like Katrina - they're going
to try to fix it, and it's going to be too late."

Milder strains of bird flu commonly appear in the United States, but
officials now worry about H5N1, a deadly variation spreading through
Asia, Europe and Africa. It has killed 110 people, and scientists fear
it could mutate into a form that spreads more easily among humans.

Scientists believe the deadly flu would most likely be carried into the
United States by a wild bird migrating from a country suffering from an
outbreak.

But Ron DeHaven, head of the Agriculture Department's Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service, said the government also is concerned about
"millions of international passengers coming into the United States -
any one of which could be bringing poultry or poultry products ... that
could be infected."

Trying to stop the disease at the border is one responsibility that
clearly falls to Homeland Security, said James Carafano, a national
security fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. USDA and the
Health and Human Services Department will have broader responsibilities
in the federal response to bird flu, including detecting the disease in
birds and keeping it from spreading among the nation's poultry.

Trevano, the Homeland Security spokeswoman, said officers frequently
practice how to handle a potential flu carrier, have daily online
meetings and updates, and "are constantly being updated as the avian
flu threat changes."

During the incident Thursday night at JFK, a Homeland Security
agriculture inspector found three cages of 12 birds hidden inside
luggage of a China Airlines passenger from Vietnam, according to a
report provided by Scaffa.

A Customs officer took the birds. Their cages were placed in a
cardboard box and taken to an interrogation and search room for
safeguarding overnight, the report shows.

Trevano said officers did so after consulting with an Agriculture
Department veterinarian. She said the inspectors wore respiratory masks
and latex gloves during the incident and disinfected the area after the
cages were removed.

"We followed the procedures," she said.

Scaffa said she believes the birds should not have been stored in a
room generally used for other kinds of suspicious travelers.

"We've potentially exposed the whole airport, the whole country,
potentially," Scaffa said.

___

On the Net:

Homeland Security Department: http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/

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