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Plan details emerge { June 9 2002 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)    http://webcenter.newssearch.netscape.com/aolns_display.adp?key=200206081604000166615_aolns.src http://webcenter.newssearch.netscape.com/aolns_display.adp?key=200206081604000166615_aolns.src Sunday, June 9, 2002 Homeland Security Plan Details Emerge WASHINGTON (AP) - Details began emerging Saturday of how President Bush's staff devised his plan to revamp the nation's domestic security apparatus, including word that aides considered much more expansive moves than the White House eventually proposed. Meanwhile, the president asked Congress in his Saturday radio address to complete work this year on the new terrorism-fighting Cabinet-level agency. House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt said approval should come by Sept. 11. Presidential aides cast a wide net in working up his presentation for the Department of Homeland Security, a senior White House official said, considering among other changes shifting the FBI from the Justice Department to Homeland Security. The idea never made it to Bush's desk because officials determined that the attorney general, as the nation's chief law enforcement officer, should control the premier law enforcement agency, the official said. Also, the new department never was intended to be a law enforcement agency. Some options reviewed were discarded quickly, such as moving the National Guard out of the Defense Department. It was considered too difficult to segregate guardsmen, who are potential soldiers in combat, and give two agencies responsibility for overseeing such U.S. troops, the official said. Turning over the State Department's power to issue visas was looked at, too. Bush's proposal will give the new department jurisdiction over who gets visas but continues to let foreign service officers issue them and abides by rules set forth in treaties. Thought was given to bringing the Federal Aviation Administration under the new department. The president's plan does put the Transportation Security Administration, created after the Sept. 11 attacks and handling most of the FAA's security functions, into Homeland Security. That new agency's presence accounts for what probably will become a sharply higher number of Homeland Defense employees than the 169,000 Bush suggested. That number includes current projections for staffing at the Transportation Security Administration for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, but most administration officials expect the agency's work force to grow by 30,000 to 40,000 once it is fully staffed to meet congressional requirements. As proposed in Bush's speech to the nation Thursday night, the new department would consolidate the federal bureaucracy's widely scattered domestic security functions under one Cabinet-level umbrella. His plan would exclude the largest intelligence bureaucracies, not only the FBI but the CIA and the National Security Agency. In Gephardt's response for Democrats to the president's radio address, the Missouri congressman said the nation would give the best possible tribute to victims of last year's terror attacks by creating the department by Sept. 11, the first anniversary of their deaths. Sen. Richard Shelby, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sept. 11 is a realistic goal for creating the new department. ``I think we could do this - this is very important - if the Democrats and the Republicans work together,'' the Alabama Republican said during an appearance Saturday on CNN. ``I believe the thrust of it, the central part of it, should be enacted; I'll do everything I can to bring it about,'' Shelby said. ``That doesn't mean we won't change a few things for the better as we get into the details of it.'' The employees of the new department will unite in efforts to keep terrorists and their weapons out of the country and ``produce a single, daily picture of threats against our homeland,'' Bush said in his radio talk. While the thrust of the Bush proposal quickly gathered bipartisan support from Gephardt, Shelby and other lawmakers, the president remained leery that the effort could be sidetracked by lawmakers worried over loss of turf and personal power. White House Correspondent Ron Fournier contributed to this report. On the Net: White House page: http://www.whitehouse.gov

Bush cites fbi cia { June 5 2002 } Bush seeks department { June 7 2002 } Hearing ridge { June 20 2002 } New cabinet quick action { June 7 2002 } Not since 47 Plan cia fbi { June 18 2002 } Plan details emerge { June 9 2002 } Question implementation { June 7 2002 } Utmost secrecy { June 7 2002 } Files Listed: 9

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