More Money To Terror Victims
Red Cross officials say they're aiming to deliver about $150 million dollars more to terror attack victims by the end of the year, but warn it could take years before all the money from the Red Cross Liberty Fund is doled out.
It's the the American Red Cross is working damage control on its own public relations disaster, reports CBS News Correspondent Peter Maer. After first diverting money to other causes, the Red Cross has decided to focus all money donated to its Liberty Fund to victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"We deeply regret that our activities over the past eight weeks have not been as sharply focused as America wants, and the victims of this tragedy deserve," Red Cross interim chief executive Harold Decker told a press conference Wednesday.
Another press conference was scheduled for Thursday.
The Liberty Fund has collected $543 million. The Red Cross had planned to put about $200 million aside for use in the event of future terrorist attacks. That move drew a sharp rebuke from critics, who said the money donated to the fund was given under the assumption only people affected by the Sept. 11 attacks would get it.
Instead, the Red Cross will give $111 million to Sept. 11 victims by the end of the year. It will allocate more money in January when it announces a plan detailing how remaining funds will be spent.
The Red Cross has stopped accepting donations to the fund, saying the amount collected so far is sufficient. The charity already has distributed about $121 million in direct aid to Sept. 11 victims and their families.
Red Cross President Bernadine Healy is stepping down as head of the charity at the end of the year in part because of criticism of the fund. Healy took the unusual step of setting up the Liberty Fund as a separate account to deal with the attacks, over the objections of some Red Cross board members.
Healy was lambasted at a House hearing on charitable contributions last week after two widows who lost their husbands in the World Trade Center attack described how they have had to fight a maze of bureaucracy to obtain financial help.
Lawmakers from both parties said they believed donors to the Liberty Fund contributed as generously as they did because they thought their money would be channeled directly to the victims and families of the attacks.
About 2,600 families of people who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the crash of a hijacked airliner in Pennsylvania have received an average of $15,000 each.
Roughly 22,000 other families whose homes were damaged in the attacks or who lost jobs because their workplaces were damaged or destroyed also have received money.
The 37,000-employee American Red Cross administers almost half the nation's blood supply and provides relief to victims of disasters.
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