Collins: Homeland Security panel will look into Coast Guard training snafu

The Senate Homeland Security Committee's ranking Republican said on Friday that the panel will "look into" a Coast Guard training exercise that briefly caused a security scare in the nation's capital this morning.

CNN reported that a Coast Guard vessel fired on suspicious boat on the Potomac River, but it was later revealed that Coast Guard was conducting a training mission and that no shots were fired. President Barack Obama was traveling in the presidential motorcade on the way back from to the White House after a September 11 memorial service at the Pentagon.

"The Homeland Security Committee will be looking into the timing plus the communications to see if they were flawed," Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told MSNBC this afternoon. "There's certainly a question about the timing."

CNN based its report off of comments on police scanners that the Coast Guard fired 10 rounds of ammunition at the boat. A Department of Homeland Security official later said that shots had not been fired.

Collins said that she would reserve judgment on the incident until her committee conducted its inquiry into the matter but she did defend the Coast Guard's activity in general.

"We have to keep in mind that Coast Guard is out there training and exercising every single day. That's what we want the Coast Guard to be doing," she said.

At his daily briefing today White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs criticized CNN's handling of the report and defended the Coast Guard's actions.

"We're all safer because of training exercises," Gibbs said. "My only caution would be before we report things like this, checking would be good."

Video of Collins' remarks: