National Security Watch: DHS (second edition)
The lights were hot on Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff Wednesday when he unveiled his plan to drastically restructure the 180,000-person department in his charge.
In announcing the results of his Second Stage Review, a comprehensive multimonth analysis of the department that marked his biggest project so far as DHS secretary, Chertoff unveiled that he would, among other things, elevate DHS's cybersecurity czar, create a chief medical officer to consider hospital needs during mass-casualty events, and create new divisions of the department focused on "preparedness" and large-scale policy matters. The Transportation Security Administration, sometimes called the poster child of dysfunction within DHS, grew a little bigger, absorbing the Federal Air Marshals Service.
But some were surprised the secretary didn't offer more specifics on how he would focus on preventing and responding to catastrophic terrorists attacks, like those involving nuclear or chemical facilities. Chertoff has repeatedly defined his unique philosophy toward homeland security as one involving "the trio of threat, vulnerability, and consequence," meaning he plans to focus his energy on targets that he knows are in the eyes of terrorists, areas that are uniquely unprotected, and those that would produce hundreds or thousands of deaths if attacked [A new sheriff in town (7/18/05)].
Some changes were long expected. For months, news reports said Chertoff was fascinated by a report titled DHS 2.0, a series of recommendations for change within DHS authored by James Carafano, a think-tanker with the conservative Heritage Foundation, and David Heyman, director of the homeland security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"When I met him, he told me our report was the very first thing he read" on the job, Carafano recently told U.S. News. The secretary's choice to eliminate some undersecretary positions in the department—including the undersecretary for border and transportation security—and to create a policy guru that would report directly to the DHS secretary, similar to command structure already in place at the Pentagon, can be directly traced to the report. Republican Rep. Hal Rogers, chair of the House's Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said Chertoff's plan "seems to recall Congress's original intent in creating the department, which was to streamline all homeland security functions and build a single, cohesive unit that effectively and efficiently protects our nation."
During his 40-minute speech, Chertoff pushed this philosophy: "Simple common sense counsels that we begin by concentrating on the events with the greatest potential consequences." He later emphasized that a new office outlined in President Bush's budget proposal, the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, would report directly to him under the new DHS organization. Chemical facilities, however, were not mentioned.
"What we need now is risk-based homeland security action, not just risk-based bureaucratic shuffling," Massachusetts Rep. Edward Markey said of the event.
For the average American, Chertoff's announcement won't produce a ripple of change in their daily lives—at least not immediately. Although Chertoff vowed that DHS is "developing a new approach to controlling the border," one that involves a "mix of additional staffing" and "new technology," the speech did not outline a specific plan.
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