Napolitano: Total air cargo screening 'not best way'

US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told American, Canadian and Mexican political leaders that 100 per cent screening of air cargo was easy to say "but not the best way."

Ms Napolitano said the measures in place after the recent Yemeni bomb plot have "bolstered security better than an infeasible bill that would require all packages on air-cargo planes to be screened," similar to 100 per cent screening for passenger aircraft that came into effect on August 1.

In 2007, Congress passed legislation that mandates 100 per cent screening of all packages carried onboard passenger aircraft.

But Ms Napolitano told Bloomberg that a similar law covering air freight aircraft would "require hundreds of treaties" so that foreign governments would allow the screening.

The report noted that US officials suspect Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, a master bomb-maker, of producing the explosives and that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was behind the plot.

"AQAP is very robust right now," Ms Napolitano said. She described Yemen "as an area of concern, but not the exclusive area of concern."

AQAP also is believed by US officials to have helped Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian who is accused of attempting to take down a Northwest Airlines jetliner with an underwear bomb as the plane approached Detroit on December 25.
(Source:www.schednet.com)