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Bush seeks department { June 7 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8545-2002Jun6.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8545-2002Jun6.html
Bush Seeks Security Department
Cabinet-Level Agency Would Coordinate Anti-Terrorism Effort
By Mike Allen and Bill Miller
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 7, 2002; Page A01
President Bush, outlining the most ambitious reorganization of the government's national security structure in a half-century, urged Congress last night to create a Department of Homeland Security to coordinate intelligence about terrorism and tighten the nation's domestic defenses.
The department would absorb a huge swath of the executive branch, including all of the Coast Guard, Secret Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Immigration and Naturalization Service and Customs Service, as well as the new agency in charge of airport security, the Transportation Security Administration. Only the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs would have more employees.
"As we have learned more about the plans and capabilities of the terrorist network, we have concluded that our government must be reorganized to deal more effectively with the new threats of the 21st century," Bush said from the White House in remarks carried live in prime time on commercial networks.
With the proposal to create another Cabinet department, Bush embraced an idea he had long resisted. In the frantic days after Sept. 11, Bush established a small Office of Homeland Security within the White House and named Tom Ridge, then Pennsylvania's governor, as its director.
But officials concluded that this structure was unworkable because Ridge did not have clear authority over the agencies charged with homeland protection.
In presenting his new plan last night, Bush navigated between trying to reassure Americans about the government's efforts to protect them over the past nine months and building the case for major change.
"Based on everything I've seen, I do not believe anyone could have prevented the horror of September the 11th," Bush said. "Yet we now know that thousands of trained killers are plotting to attack us, and this terrible knowledge requires us to act differently."
Bush's 13-minute speech came days after Congress opened hearings to examine intelligence failures before the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Democrats said the timing suggested a massive effort to control damage to the White House following revelations about lack of communication among intelligence officials before Sept. 11. And it came hours after Coleen Rowley, the FBI whistle-blower from Minneapolis who accuses the agency of mishandling warnings, testified before a televised hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Bush, under pressure from Congress to show the administration will be better prepared to prevent and respond to terrorists' strikes, called his plan the largest overhaul of the government since 1947, when President Harry S. Truman combined the War and Navy departments into a new Defense Department. Experts called that a bit of an overstatement, pointing to ambitious restructuring proposals by presidents Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton.
The department was planned in secret by a small group of White House officials led by Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., with Ridge's help. Many of the officials who would lose substantial power under the plan did not learn about it until yesterday. Administration officials said the announcement was scheduled hurriedly, as support built on Capitol Hill for Democratic proposals for such a department.
Ridge, a close friend of Bush's with his desk near the Oval Office, was considered weak by Capitol Hill and the bureaucracy because he had no control over budgets for the agencies he was supposed to coordinate. He became a late-night talk show punch line for his best-known accomplishment -- the creation of a color-coded warning system.
In a conspicuous omission, Bush did not say who he wanted to lead the department, although several senior officials said they believed it would be Ridge. Ridge has not said publicly whether he wants the job. Bush plans to retain a separate homeland security adviser, not accountable to Congress, under the new structure.
Reaction from Capitol Hill was largely positive, with Republican leaders promising to work toward passage of the reorganization. Democrats generally embraced the plan and some even took credit for it, although some critics said the department would be unwieldy and would have the effect of combining dysfunctional agencies.
Some lawmakers questioned the need for so much secrecy about such an important plan.
"I'm concerned that Congress was not consulted," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who has done much recent work on border issues. "This proposal could have benefited from the great expertise and significant work already underway in Congress to create a new Cabinet agency responsible for closing intelligence gaps, increasing information-sharing and improving border security."
Ridge outlined the proposal to more than 50 governors, homeland security directors and mayors in conference calls yesterday. Those participating in the calls said he got a good reception from officials who have been clamoring for months about the need for better coordination and a single place to turn to for grants for their own efforts.
The Homeland Security Department would be the first new Cabinet agency since the Veterans Affairs Department was created in 1989. Administration officials said it would eventually have its own building. Bush wants to combine workers from eight departments into his creation, from the Agriculture Department agents who check fruit at the border to scientists working in Energy Department laboratories.
The proposal, which Bush wants passed in time for the department to open Jan. 1, with the director confirmed by the Senate, answers persistent calls from Congress for more oversight of this new focus of the government. It also is intended to help remedy bureaucratic overlapping that was hampering the protection of 350 official ports of entry.
The administration said the department would add no employees or expenses to the government, but would take over 169,000 employees and $37.4 billion from existing agencies. It would have four divisions, responsible for controlling borders and keeping out terrorists and explosives; working with state and local authorities to prepare for emergencies; developing technologies to detect chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, and to treat those who are exposed; and analyzing intelligence and law enforcement information.
The FBI and CIA are to keep their current functions, but the department would have an "intelligence and threat analysis" unit to combine intelligence from those agencies and others to assess threats, take preventive action and issue public warnings. White House officials described the unit as "a customer" of the FBI and CIA, which have been historically reluctant to share information with each other, let alone a third entity.
"This new department will review intelligence and law enforcement information from all agencies of government and produce a single daily picture of threats against our homeland," Bush said. "Analysts will be responsible for imagining the worst and planing to counter it."
Administration officials said the department would allow officials assessing threats to talk directly to counterparts who are responsible for the security of nuclear, chemical and wastewater treatment plans, and other critical parts of the nation's infrastructure.
Bush's plan is so broad that it is likely to ignite months of turf battles. The White House said 88 congressional committees and subcommittees have jurisdiction over elements of homeland security, and the department incorporate parts of the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, State, Transportation and Treasury.
Bush's plan went far beyond the proposals by several lawmakers to give Ridge more authority by creating a Cabinet-level department. The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), voted along party lines last month to create a Homeland Security Department. A national security official said the White House had concluded in recent weeks that the Lieberman bill "was gaining traction, and the worst of all worlds was that it would be passed by veto-proof majorities with the president in a reactive position."
Ridge and other administration officials had begun to indicate their openness to changes as support built for them on Capitol Hill. Ridge was to deliver his homeland security strategy in July, and Card began examining alternatives to the current homeland security apparatus in April.
Lieberman praised Bush's plan, but said he expects "opposition from the bureaucracies that are being put under the new secretary of homeland security and from members of Congress who are close to those bureaucracies."
Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), the Appropriations Committee Chairman, had repeatedly demanded that Ridge testify before his committee about spending on homeland defenses. The White House had refused on the grounds that Ridge was a presidential adviser, who traditionally are shielded from calls for formal testimony.
Byrd renewed his complaint about "stubborn stonewalling" but endorsed the proposal. "It is about time, and I hope that it is not too late," he said.
One of the few critics was Rep. David R. Obey (Wis.), ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, who said the plan might prove unworkable. "These kind of slapdash plans often are diversions," he said. Obey's office also issued a statement saying the plan loads the department down with responsibilities that have nothing to do with preventing terrorism, including oil spills, currency fraud and mad-cow disease.
An aide to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said the plan would force Congress to revamp its lines of authority for funding and oversight of civil defense. "You can't have this sort of profound change in the agencies without profound changes in the Congress as well," the aide said.
Bush's plan for improving homeland security dates to May 8, 2001, when he directed Vice President Cheney to coordinate the nation's protection from weapons of mass destruction. During Bush's address to Congress on Sept. 20, he announced Ridge's appointment to head the new office, and Ridge was sworn in Oct. 8.
Such ideas have been studied for years. Early last year, a panel led by former senators Gary Hart (D-Colo.) and Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), recommended a National Homeland Security Agency, but that entity would not have approached the size or reach of the department Bush proposes.
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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