WASHINGTON: The Bush administration and US Congress are "moving at a crawl" against nimble terrorists, leaving the country vulnerable more than four years after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the former September 11 Commission said in a scathing final report on Monday.

The former commissioners who wrote the seminal 2004 analysis of what went wrong before and after the hijacked plane attacks criticized anti-terrorism efforts in a range of areas from emergency communications and disaster response to keeping weapons of mass destruction out of militants' hands.

"We believe that the terrorists will strike again. So does every responsible expert that we have talked to," Thomas Kean, who chaired the commission, said at a news conference.

"While the terrorists are learning and adapting, our government is still moving at a crawl," said Kean, a Republican and former governor of New Jersey.

The former commissioners issued a "report card" reviewing how the commission's 41 recommendations have been implemented, and gave the government five failing grades of F including one for not providing adequate emergency communications.

They noted that police, firefighters and other emergency workers still did not have a dedicated radio spectrum, and could not communicate with each other if disaster strikes.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended the administration's security record, saying, "We have taken significant steps to better protect the American people at home. There is more to do. This is the president's highest responsibility."

Source: China Daily 12/07/2005 page8