June 07, 2002|By Tom Bowman and Ellen Gamerman | Tom Bowman and Ellen Gamerman,SUN NATIONAL STAFF
WASHINGTON - Against a backdrop of U.S. intelligence failures, President Bush called last night for the creation of a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security to coordinate the nation's efforts to fight terrorism.
The new department, which would require congressional approval, would absorb 21 existing agencies and offices, including the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, the Secret Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It would have 170,000 employees.
"We have concluded that our government must be reorganized to deal most effectively with the new threats of the 21st century," the president said.
"I ask Congress to join me in creating a single permanent department with an overriding and urgent mission: securing the American homeland and protecting the American people," he said.
Bush made his proposal in a nationally televised address from the White House that was carried live on the major cable and broadcast networks. His plan would create the first new Cabinet department since the Department of Veterans Affairs was established in 1989.
Administration officials said there were no immediate plans to hire new employees for the department or to spend additional money beyond the transition costs.
The president had previously resisted efforts in Congress to create a Cabinet-level department focused on homeland security. His decision to do so now came after reports that U.S. intelligence agencies missed numerous warning signs of the Sept. 11 attacks. And it came on the day when public hearings into those lapses began on Capitol Hill.
The reaction from lawmakers was mostly positive. Democrats said it was vital that the nation do a better job of coordinating homeland security; such responsibilities are now split among 100 different agencies.
"It is encouraging that President Bush recognizes the need for a fundamental overhaul of the way in which we approach America's homeland security," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat who has introduced a similar bill that is working its way through the Senate, said, "I'm looking forward to working with the president."
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, also a Connecticut Democrat, said of Bush: "Frankly, I wish he'd done it sooner. Questions continue to linger regarding efforts taken by our law enforcement and intelligence services before Sept. 11. And, unfortunately, we only seem to be learning of them in dribs and drabs."
The Bush plan is more sweeping than those in Congress, though proposals for a homeland security agency to guard against terrorists predate the Sept. 11 attacks. In February 2001, a commission led by former Sens. Gary Hart and Warren B. Rudman proposed a "Homeland Security Agency" that would oversee many of the same federal agencies, and it warned that "a direct attack ... on American soil" was likely in the next quarter-century.
Still, soon after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush and some Republicans resisted calls on Capitol Hill for a new Cabinet department. Instead, the president created a White House Office of Homeland Security under former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. Some lawmakers and other critics at the time belittled the move, saying Ridge would lack the funding and the authority to make necessary changes throughout the federal government.
With last night's announcement, some analysts say, the White House is acknowledging that without Cabinet stature, Ridge has lacked the muscle to make lasting changes. He is expected to be named the secretary of the new department, though the White House also plans to name a homeland security adviser.
"It's a victory for the `Free Tom Ridge' movement," said Juliette Kayyem, who runs the domestic preparedness program at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "Now you have a Cabinet-level person who can duke it out with all the other Cabinet-level positions and be on equal footing."
The Secret Service would remain intact after moving from Treasury to the Department of Homeland Security. Like some other agencies, it would continue to carry out its duties unrelated to homeland defense, such as combating counterfeiters.
The FBI and CIA would remain independent agencies, and a senior administration official acknowledged that the new secretary of homeland security would lack the authority to order the two agencies to act on any investigative lead.
In his speech, Bush acknowledged the arguments made by such critics as Coleen M. Rowley, the veteran FBI agent and lawyer who testified on Capitol Hill yesterday. Rowley wrote a scathing memo about how senior FBI officials hampered agents' efforts to act quickly on investigations.
The president said: "We are now learning that before Sept. 11th, the suspicions and insights of some of our front-line agents did not get enough attention."
