Posted on 07/18/2002 1:42:35 PM PDT by Servant of the Nine
MSNBC
July 18 — Less than six months after he was given the task of making U.S. airports and airlines safe, John Magaw was forced out Wednesday as head of the new Transportation Security Administration
MAGAW, WHO SUBMITTED his resignation at the request of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, will be replaced by the agency’s chief operating officer, retired Coast Guard Commandant James M. Loy, MSNBC’s Robert Hager reported from Washington. Mineta issued a statement after MSNBC reported the ouster, praising Magaw, calling him “a dedicated public servant with a lifetime of achievement in the law enforcement field.” The TSA inherited responsibility for aviation security from the Federal Aviation Administration in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Faced with a daunting series of congressional mandates to enact tough new measures to make it safer to fly, the agency has consistently fallen short of meeting its deadlines. MSNBC.com reported in March, for example, that the agency would miss a Dec. 31. deadline to install electronic baggage scanning devices in all TSA-supervised airports by as much as three years, a failure TSA officials have since acknowledged in congressional testimony.
Magaw, a former director of the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, was confirmed in late January to direct the new agency. Almost immediately, the agency came under heavy criticism from aviation industry leaders, congressional overseers and even its own inspector general, who told Congress of serious bureaucratic inefficiencies.
Magaw had his defenders, too, however, among them Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, the powerful chairman of the House Transportation Committee. Young told MSNBC.com recently that he thought Magaw was the right man for the job and that the TSA was plagued by outdated equipment and procedures left over from the FAA. “If anyone is negative on 9/11, it’s the FAA,” Young said. “... They are an outdated agency.” Other congressional figures also said Magaw deserved more time, noting that the agency had been given an enormous task and a very short time to accomplish it. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the Transportation subcommittee on aviation, told MSNBC.com that “the Congress has set in law some requirements that are very difficult to meet from a practical and technical standpoint.”
But a series of embarrassing disclosures had made the agency a punching bag for many in Congress and the aviation industry. In addition to missing the scanning deadline, critics said, the agency also: Issued new rules that put ordinary travelers under undue scrutiny while not applying enough scrutiny to travelers who should excite concern. Issued other new rules that would do nothing to address the actual process by which the Sept. 11 attacks were carried out, a coordinated attack by suicide terrorists. Delayed conducting tests on procedures to close a loophole in checked-baggage security for many months. The agency conducted a secret test only after an MSNBC.com report in March and said it had no plans ever to reveal its results. MSNBC.com reported last month that the test was being suppressed because of pressure from airlines involved in the test, who did not want it revealed that the test indicated little impact on airlines’ schedules or income.
Thank God this man is out.
So9
Normy is the Democrat designated to take the rap if there is a disaster. Better him than a Republican. It will complicate life for Tiny Tom.
SO9
Was this the same Magaw that was the head of BATF in St Louis district?
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