Access Control
& Security Systems

Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge says America is better prepared for a terrorist attack than it was a year ago, but "I'm not going to tell you that we would be prepared to the level that both the President and the country desires," The Associated Press reports.

Ridge's speech comes on the heels of a warning from a government task force that said the U.S. is still dangerously unprepared to prevent or respond to another terrorist attack. It also came less than a month after CIA Director George Tenet said al-Qaida will try another attack on U.S. soil soon.

"It is going to take us several years to develop the capacity to equip all of our major metropolitan areas with the kind of response capacity they need to go forward," Ridge said.

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• On A Higher Plane
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