美議員批馬方貽誤時機 搜尋不力

Several U.S. lawmakers on Sunday panned the Malaysian government's role in the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, accusing the Malaysians of withholding information and bungling the crucial early days of the search.

"I think across the board people are looking for more in the way of openness from the Malaysian government in terms of sharing the information they have in a timely manner," said Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-Pa., on CNN.

He cited reports of "frustration" among U.S. officials about their level of coordination with their Malaysian counterparts.

"We're invited in only a little bit," he said.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said the Malaysian government squandered the early days of the search looking for the plane in Central Asia when it was likely to be found in the southern Indian Ocean .

"I think the Malaysian government spent way too much time focusing on the northern routes and the Gulf of Thailand and Kazakhstan," he said on "Fox News Sunday." "It would have been picked up by radar and we knew that. And I know satellite imagery given to the Malaysians established that, but we wasted a week of precious time up in that region when all along it's been in southern Indian Ocean, I think is where the location is."

CBS News Aviation and Safety Expert Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger said on "Face the Nation" that some "missteps" early in the investigation have impaired the search effort.

"Here we the third week of the investigation and just now beginning to re-narrow the search to areas that are still as large as the United States," he said.

The White House, though, has touted an unprecedented level of international coordination in the search for the missing plane, which disappeared over two weeks ago.

"The one encouraging thing, I would say, if there's anything encouraging in a tragedy like this, is you have countries working together in ways that they haven't before," said Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken Sunday on CNN. "Not just the Malaysians, but we have the South Koreans, the Chinese, the Australians, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, all working in the same direction, which is to get to the bottom of what happened."

Blinken said there's "no prevailing theory" about what might have happened to the flight.

"We're chasing down every theory, we're looking at facts as they develop," he said, "but, again, the bottom line is we can't get ahead of the facts."

McCaul said the evidence suggests the incident was probably a "deliberate attack," and that investigators haven't ruled out the possibility that it was an act of terror.據美國哥倫比亞廣播公司報道，多名美國議員23日抨擊了馬來西亞政府在搜尋馬來西亞航空公司MH370航班過程中的失誤，指責馬方隱瞞信息，貽誤時機。

“我認爲大家都希望馬方能夠更公開更及時地分享信息。”衆議員帕特里克·米漢在美國有線電視新聞網上說。

他提及美方官員對馬方合作感到失望的報道。

“我們參與的完全不夠”，他說。

衆議院國土安全委員會主席邁克爾·麥考爾說最有可能發現航班的地方是南印度洋，而馬來西亞卻將搜尋工作的最初幾天浪費在了北部。

“我認爲馬來西亞將太多時間花費在了北部線路、泰國灣和哈薩克斯坦，如果正如他們所想，我相信航班會被雷達捕捉到的。發給馬來西亞的衛星圖像也證明了如此，而我們卻將一週時間浪費在了那些地方。自始至終航班都在南印度洋，我相信飛機就在那裏，”他在接受福克斯新聞採訪時說。

美國哥倫比亞廣播公司的航空安全專家切斯利·薩林伯格在“面對全國”節目上說調查早期的“失誤”讓搜尋努力大打折扣。

“現在已經進入搜尋工作的第三週，但我們纔剛開始重新縮小搜尋區域，但依然與美國面積相當。”他說。

但白宮對搜索失聯航班中史無前例的國際協作也予以稱讚。

“讓人受鼓舞的一件事情是，我認爲，如果說在這樣一場悲劇中有什麼讓我們鼓舞的事情，那就是有這麼多的國家團結在一起解決問題，這在過去是沒有的。不止是馬來西亞，還有韓國、中國、澳大利亞、新西蘭、美國和加拿大，都在勁往一處使，弄清楚到底發生了什麼。”美國國家安全顧問託尼·布林肯23日對美國有線新聞網如是說。

布林肯說關於航班可能遭遇了什麼，現在並沒有“普遍認同的解釋”。

"我們在思考每一種解釋，隨着事情進展我們也在着眼事實。但是前提是我們不能超前於事實。"他說。

麥考爾說證據表明這很有可能是一起“蓄意攻擊”，調查員也並沒有排除恐怖襲擊的可能性。