· Rep. Thompson (D-MS) Critical of Homeland Security Strategy

The White House yesterday updated the nation's homeland security strategy for the first time since shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, acknowledging the need to prepare for catastrophic natural disasters as well as the "persistent and evolving" threat of terrorism.

The 53-page National Strategy for Homeland Security comes as the Bush administration, with little more than 15 months left in office, seeks to take account of lessons it painfully learned when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005.

"Homeland security both as a policy matter and as a concept didn't exist prior to 9/11 and prior to...President Bush assuming office," said Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser. "We believe that we had an obligation, regardless of who the next president is, Republican or Democrat, to leave them the benefit of our thinking."

Rep. Bennie G Thompson (D-MS), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said however that the document "provides little guidance for the deficiencies already taxing our homeland security capacity, while at the same time, it attempts to define successes...which have not yet been realized."