Too few marshals on flights, boss says

[Khephra]

Too few marshals on flights, boss says
Security force is undermanned due to budget constraints, director acknowledges.


By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar
Los Angeles Times
September 19, 2004


WASHINGTON -- Air marshals are not able to offer maximum protection for an ideal number of flights because they are understaffed due to a tight budget, the agency's head said.

"We haven't had the budget to sustain (full staffing) for a variety of reasons," Thomas D. Quinn, director of the Federal Air Marshal Service, said in a rare acknowledgment of potential vulnerability for the secretive agency.

"There is an impact," Quinn conceded last week. But he downplayed the consequences, calling them "minimal."

In a wide-ranging session, Quinn also defended the marshals' dress code and personal grooming policy, saying he imposed the requirements after repeated complaints about shabbily dressed, unshaven marshals.

http://www.indystar.com/articles/5/179861-8625-010.html

[bluedeminredstate]

1. I can see the headline

Bush declares Air Marshall program a catastrophic success!
:eyes:

[struggle4progress]

2. kick

:kick: