Critical infrastructure report not in line with National Infrastructure Protection Plan | 07.13.2006 | 08:56:41 | Views: 4467 | ID: July 13: A new report released by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general Richard L. Skinner found that the central database used to define and rank the nation's critical infrastructure is faulty and inaccurate in judging vulnerabilities, the Associated Press reported earlier this week. The report was compiled and finished before recent announcements that some major US cities would receive federal spending cuts to help secure critical landmarks, "But the report, which was released Tuesday, affirmed the fury of those two cities (New York and Washington DC) - the two targets of the September 11, 2001 attacks - which claimed the department did not accurately assess their risks." The San Francisco Chronicle ran the New York Times' story on Wednesday which wrote that list of potential critical infrastructure targets vulnerable to a terrorist attack "reads like a tally of terrorist targets that a child might have crafted: Old MacDonald's Petting Zoo, the Mule Day Parade, Sweetwater Flea Market and an unspecified 'Beach at End of Street'." The database, and the cataloguing of the nation's critical infrastructure was created in 2003 when President Bush signed the Critical Infrastructure Identification, Prioritization and Protection directive which sought to "identify and prioritize the United States' critical infrastructure and key resources (CI/KR) and to protect them from terrorist attacks." The DHS' IG report found that the National Asset Database which was created to catalogue the critical infrastructure "is not yet comprehensive enough to support the management and resource allocation decision-making envisioned by the National Infrastructure Protection Plan." The AP reported that "Indiana has 8,591 assets listen in the database more - more than any other state and 50 percent more than New York. New York had 5,687 listed. It did not detail which ones, but the Homeland Security assessment of New York this year failed to include Times Square, the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge or the Statue of Liberty as a national icon or monument."
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