Janet Napolitano's Tough Job at Homeland Security
Everything from terrorism to tornadoes falls under Napolitano's department
Napolitano's first real test as the nation's chief security officer came with the swine flu outbreak in March. She oversaw tracking of the flu's spread across the border from Mexico and coordinated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the departments of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Labor, and Education. Officials from the CDC and the World Health Organization may have received more face time on television, but Napolitano was at the center of the government's response. "We were very clear on the message," she says. "Rely on science; communicate regularly what we know and what we don't know."
The response to the initial flu outbreak (it's still in several countries, and experts predict that it will return in full force to the United States in the winter) received generally high marks from security and public-health experts. "She was able to step up and focus on the swine flu rather than fight the interagency turf wars that emerge during high-profile events," says Daniel Kaniewski, who served as President Bush's special assistant for homeland security. Kaniewski added that the adept handling of the outbreak was also helped by a critical presidential directive, issued in late February, that placed DHS in charge of the national incident management system. It was a little-noticed power shift to DHS that is likely to streamline the response to future national crises.
But for DHS to be truly organized, the agencies within it need to be in one place. This month, the government began the initial stages of converting St. Elizabeth's, a former mental hospital in the southern part of Washington, into a massive campus that will house many of the DHS-affiliated agencies. It will rival the Pentagon as one of the largest government complexes in the area. And although Napolitano will oversee some of the consolidation of the offices, since the complex won't be ready until 2016, it won't ease her commute anytime soon.
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Reader Comments
immigration reform
Okey us stands for justice?making retroactive laws on long time green card holders with non agravated states felonies prior to 1996?It's totally unconstitutional and we all knowed.we really need to make some changes quick and leave politics appart.Mrs Napolitano with all do respect you need to step up to the plate and make this changes.
Napolitano not QUALIFIED?
Janet Napolitano is "not qualified" to be Secty of Homeland Security? Excuse me, but...Janet was Attorney General of Arizona. She was the two-term governor of AZ - a VERY difficult state to govern that has a huge population of wealthy, conservative "gated community" retirees, native Americans, Latinos, etc. It has HUGE water/resource issues, a nightmare of an immigration problem -- along with all the other problems states have at the moment. She is a single woman, a progressive Democratwho, in her second election, carried EVERY SINGLE COUNTY in the state of Goldwater and McCain. She was also the chair of two state Governors' associations and was named by Time as one of the top five governors in 2005. If you don't like her policies, that's one thing -- but to say that she's NOT QUALIFIED shows that you really don't know what you're talking about, and maybe you should read up a little bit before you write?
Memo about Vets
That memo was NOT written by Janet, but by someone in the dept. of Homeland Security. And anyone with half an eye open and half a brain could see that had "GOP Slander' written ALL over it. May I remind you that Janet has twice been seriously considered as the Democratic VP candidate; she was also one of the final few under consideration as US Attorney General and, at the time all that ludicrous tempest in a teapot was made over that memo, she was one of the final 3 people under consideration for SUPREME COURT JUSTICE. The GOP has an ax to grind becase Napolitano has never taken the idea of building a wall between the US and Mexico seriouslY (hello! Hadrian's Wall -- did that work for the Romans? The Berlin Wall -- did that work?) And she rightly went after the EMPLOYERS of illegal immigrants in addition to the immigrants. All of which earned her the hatred of the GOP. When they saw that memo, they saw their opportunity to get the military on their side (over nothing) -- and they went at it with a ridiculous vengeance. Napolitano has the Coast Guard under her jurisdition, for Christ's sake. She commanded the National Guard of AZ - to say that she's anti-military is absurd. As for doing more explaining than backing down: she had to. She was brand new in the office and a woman: had she backed down, the GOP would then have crucified her, saying she was a weakling woman -- which is just what they were hoping to do. Napolitano is no Sarah Palin - she's smart. And she wasn't going to play into the hands of the idiots calling for her head. If I were her it wouldve' made me madder than mad to have the veteran's used like htat. I can't believe that ANYONE can't see right through this.
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