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Plan cia fbi { June 18 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Tuesday, June 18, 2002
Bush Sends Homeland Security Plan to Congress
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush, declaring "we can do better," sent to Capitol Hill on Tuesday suggested legislation to create his proposed Department of Homeland Security to coordinate the war on terrorism.
"Our nation faces a new and changing threat unlike any we have faced before," Bush said in a statement to Congress that accompanied the measure. "We must take action to protect America against the terrorists that seek to kill."
Democratic and Republican leaders promised to work together to pass such legislation quickly so Bush could sign it into law, possibly by the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
"As history has shown, when the Congress of the United States works with the president of the United States, no challenge is too great ... whether it's winning a world war, a Cold War or a war on terrorism," said Tom Ridge, director of Bush's White House Office of Homeland Security.
In joining fellow congressional leaders in accepting the president's proposed legislation, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said, "This is a small bill, but a big task."
"It's going to take strong and real bipartisanship," said Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, vowing to help deliver such an effort.
Said House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican: "We will get this job done right,"
In what would be the biggest reorganization of the federal government in half a century, Bush wants to fold into the new Cabinet-level department all or parts of 22 existing federal agencies -- including the Secret Service, Coast Guard, Border Patrol and Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The CIA and FBI would be left basically unchanged, prompting critics to complain the new department would fail to correct a key problem exposed by the Sept. 11 attacks -- repeated failures by the two agencies to share information.
The administration has said the new department would address the matter by serving as a clearinghouse for information from the FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies.
A number of lawmakers have said that may not be enough and that other possibilities must be explored.
'ALL POSSIBILITIES WILL BE LOOKED AT'
"We need to get the FBI and CIA to work better together," House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, a Missouri Democrat, said on Tuesday.
"I think all possibilities will be looked at," said Gephardt, including putting the two agencies, or part of them, in the new department.
In bringing Bush's suggested bill to Congress, Ridge provided more details about the president's proposal, first announced two weeks ago after months of calls on Capitol Hill, most of them from Democrats, to establish such a department.
Ridge left unanswered a major question: Would he want to head the sprawling new department or stay put at the White House Office of Homeland Security as a presidential adviser?
Bush is believed to favor Ridge, who last year stepped down as Pennsylvania governor to become the first director of the Office of Homeland Security, to head the new department.
With Ridge silent, at least publicly, about whether he would want the job, a number of names have surfaced as possible secretaries of the department.
They include former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; Joe Allbaugh, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
Ridge is to return to Capitol Hill on Thursday to testify about the president's plan to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and the House Government Reform Committee.
Bush, in his statement to Congress on Tuesday, said: "Our nation is stronger and better prepared today than it was on September 11. Yet, we can do better."
"The Department of Homeland Security would make Americans safer because for the first time we would have one department dedicated to securing the homeland," he said.
"One department would secure our borders ... analyze homeland security intelligence ... coordinate communications with state and local governments ... help train and equip our first responders (and) ... manage federal emergency response activities," Bush said.
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