Homeland Insecurity
DIIULIO, JOHN J. Jr.
Homeland Insecurity By all means, let's have a vigorous debate about internal security. BY JOHN J. DIIULIO JR. SIX MONTHS after establishing the Office of Homeland Security, President Bush...
...Still, are America's airports, seaports, nuclear facilities, dams, water and sewer systems, electric power plants, bridges, national monuments, government buildings, skyscrapers, big cities, small towns, sports arenas, and suburban shopping centers safer today than they were in the immediate aftermath of September 11, and, if so, are they safer at least in part thanks to federal initiatives as coordinated by Governor Ridge...
...Meanwhile, Senators Joseph Lieberman and Arlen Specter have introduced legislation to establish a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security that would encompass the Coast Guard, Customs Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, and parts of the INS and the FBI...
...But I don't have operational authority...
...As explained in Improving Government Performance, a 1993 Brookings Institution study I co-authored, because of congressional, not executive, decision-making, "the federal bureaucracy has evolved through agency-by-agency, procedure-by-procedure, program-by-program responses to problems as they appeared...
...In particular, the administration, which has indicated its willingness to consider replacing Ridge's office with a full-dress federal department, should openly debate the Lieberman-Specter bill and other plans for accomplishing this...
...Shortly after September 11, most Democrats were prepared to support federalizing airport security workers...
...See how quickly CDC responded...
...Thus, the diagram below is only a slight caricature of the impossible "coordination" challenge that Ridge faces...
...Asked at an October 18 press conference about public anxiety over flying and anthrax, Ridge candidly replied: I don't have tactical or operational authority...
...Despite some public stumbles (the five-color alert system, for example) Contributing editor John J. DiIulio Jr...
...The administration's 2003 budget almost doubles total homeland security spending to $37.7 billion, and would advance the entire spectrum of homeland security priorities—purchasing smallpox vaccines, doing more to ensure drinking water safety, increasing border patrols, and dozens of other needs...
...military, not state militias or neighborhood crimewatch patrols, invaded Afghanistan...
...The administration has rejected their requests, citing Ridge's non-cabinet role as a West Wing presidential confidant...
...Members of Congress, not just administration officials, have lots of fresh thinking to do...
...First, it unsparingly describes just how "vulnerable to terrorism of catastrophic proportions" we are, defining the threat as a "permanent condition" that is bound to grow, not shrink, in the years ahead...
...Battling state-sponsored terrorism on the domestic front arguably also requires government agencies at all levels to administer reliable jurisdiction-specific and inter-governmental emergency-response, disaster-relief, information-sharing, and other homeland security-focused agencies and programs that do not rely overmuch on citizen-volunteers or private contractors...
...It is strong...
...SIX MONTHS after establishing the Office of Homeland Security, President Bush praised its head, former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, for his service in a March 27 speech in South Carolina...
...Rather than stand on separation-of-powers ceremony, the administration should welcome Ridge's testifying in public on Capitol Hill, and use the occasion forth-rightly to challenge congressional leaders in both parties on what exactly they would have the executive branch do on homeland security...
...Second, it smartly identifies four intersecting paths to achieving greater homeland security: supporting first-responders, defending against biological terrorism, securing America's borders, and using the best information technologies...
...It was the New York City Fire Department, a large local bureaucracy peopled by trained professionals with heroic hearts, that rushed to ground zero...
...Recently, the White House has been negotiating with Senate Democrats who want Ridge to testify...
...Ridge's Senate interrogators, however, will need to explain how merging a few agencies and parts of agencies into a single department will improve anyone's ability to "coordinate the executive branch's efforts to detect, prepare for, prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks within the United States...
...These men and women are doing an extraordinary job...
...I think so...
...Their homeland security blueprint (available at www.whitehouse.gov) has several strengths...
...For instance, the administration's homeland security blueprint emphasizes that "the structure of American governance" makes it "impossible to achieve the goal of homeland security through Federal activity and expense alone...
...The U.S...
...is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute...
...Ridge's mission is a huge one: "to develop and coordinate the implementation of a comprehensive national strategy to secure the United States from terrorist threats or attacks...
...For all we know or may ever know, Ridge's office may have greatly reduced our susceptibility to all manner of threats and attacks...
...and far too many other homeland security dangers remain largely or completely unabated...
...More fundamentally, most would agree that battling state-sponsored terrorism abroad requires the nation to exercise certain big-government muscles...
...For, truth be told, the biggest barriers to an effective federal homeland security effort do not reside in the executive branch...
...Some bigger questions of governance lurk right beneath the surface of this pending debate...
...True, but does it follow thereby that the effort to keep terrorists at bay must rely almost entirely on "the principle of partnership with state and local governments, the private sector, and citizens...
...But what if, after careful debate and examination, it seems that the best way for the federal government to promote homeland security in the danger-filled decades ahead is to develop a brand new department complete with, say, a half-million fulltime federal public health, border patrol, information technology, law enforcement, crisis management, and other workers...
...and a few embarrassments (like Immigration and Naturalization Service paper-pushers' welcoming dead terrorists to stay in America), Ridge's office and the rest of the administration should be credited with quickly translating parts of the homeland security blueprint into new laws and administrative actions, from more sky marshals to more Coast Guard cutters, from tougher anti-money-laundering statutes to stronger surveillance of electronic communications...
...Whatever the politics involved, it is prudent and in the public interest for Congress to debate whether Ridge's office is the best means in the long term of achieving a more secure homeland...
...The president said to me, "Make it stronger...
...public health systems as ill-organized and underfunded today as they were on September 10...
...FBI and the CIA and the Department of Justice, everybody collaborating in their efforts...
...continued communication failures between federal and local law enforcement...
...Third, it wisely acknowledges that "securing the homeland from future terrorist attacks" will necessitate "major new programs and significant reforms by the Federal government," as well as "new or expanded efforts by states and local governments, private industry, non-governmental organizations, and citizens...
...The president's praise is well deserved, but Ridge's historic work has only just begun, and questions remain about how best to do it...
...Rather, Congress itself, acting over many decades, has created, overseen, and politically protected an absolutely hidebound, turf-conscious, government-by-proxy bureaucratic crazy-quilt...
...That's my task...
...If Ridge steps up, members of Congress had better be prepared...
...Nevertheless, the still sorry state of airport security...
...For example, in the event of a major bioterrorist attack some mid-afternoon on a big city, are we really to rely heavily on volunteer first-responders and "Citizen Preparedness Councils," or ought we not create a national network of full-time, trained professionals whose job it is to respond first, last, and always...
...By all accounts, Ridge and his staff have worked incredibly hard...
...These men and women throughout this government have for years—for years have had experience in the areas for which they presently work for the United States Government and for the American people...
Vol. 7 • April 2002 • No. 31
