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YET HE IGNORED THE REPORT 1 1/2 years ago
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Date Posted: 20:01:19 06/07/02 Fri
Author Host/IP: 65.57.70.106
Bush blew off the Hart/Rudman congressional committe recommendations a year ago! WHAT A FOOL AND LIAR!!!
PATHETIC!
June 7 — Give President Bush some credit. He said all the right things in his speech, and his government reorganization plan is necessary (though not sufficient) for improving the war on terrorism. But for the White House to say that Bush has always been “open-minded” about a Cabinet-level department of homeland security is pure spin.
IN FACT, the president is more than a year late in executing an urgent reform that was clearly laid out for him by a presidential commission. The best that can be said for the plan now is: Better late than never.
The reorganization outlined by Bush Thursday night — almost certain to be approved by Congress — will improve accountability by consolidating agencies from nine different Cabinet departments into a new major department. It closely resembles the plan recommended in early 2001 by the Hart-Rudman Commission on Homeland Security, co-chaired by former Sens. Gary Hart, a Colorado Democrat, and Warren Rudman, a New Hampshire Republican.
But don’t expect the White House to admit that. According to Hart, it took Hart and Rudman five long months after September 11 even to get a meeting with Tom Ridge. How pathetic.
Here’s a short and depressing history of the report, now the blueprint for the most important government reorganization in more than half a century:
In 1995, Hart wrote President Clinton urging a reorganization of the national defense bureaucracy. “I used the analogy of 1946-47,” Hart told me this week, just hours before the president used the same post-World War II analogy in his speech. “I said, ‘It’s now five years after the Cold War. Why not appoint a half dozen people to think about it?”
Hart heard no reply from his fellow Democrat. In 1998, however, House Speaker Newt Gingrich had the same notion, and when Gingrich floated it, the Clinton White House jumped at the idea and appointed the Hart-Rudman Commission.
In September of 1999, two years before the terrorist attacks, the commission offered a preliminary conclusion about the terror threat: Without dramatic bureaucratic changes, “Americans will die on American soil — possibly in large numbers.” The reaction from the Clinton administration? More meetings on terrorism, but no great urgency.
The final report — recommending a Cabinet-level department — was delivered on January 31, 2001, eleven days after President Bush took the oath. Bush and his aides, especially Karl Rove, bore a grudge against Rudman, who had chaired John McCain’s presidential campaign in 2000. And Hart is a Democrat. So it was no surprise that they totally ignored the report.
President Bush is proposing a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security with a $37.4 billion budget. Under the proposal, the department would be organized into four broad divisions, plus the Secret Service and an office for coordination with state, local and private-sector efforts. Here are the divisions, with the agencies to be brought under their umbrellas and where those agencies are now.
Immigration and Naturalization Service: (Justice Department) Regulates immigration, travel into the country and provides border security.
Customs Service: (Treasury Department)
Regulates importation of goods and combats smuggling.
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service: (Agriculture Department)
Monitors and manages animal and plant pests and diseases.
Coast Guard: (Transportation Department) Provides coastline and waterway security and rescues.
Federal Protective Service: (General Services Administration) Works to keep federal buildings safe.
Transportation Security Administration: (Transportation Department) Ensure security for nation’s transportation systems.
Federal Emergency Management Agency: (Independent agency) Provides assistance before, during and after disasters
Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear response assets: Various agencies and groups respond to specific disasters and threats.
Domestic Emergency Support Team: (Interagency group) Interagency team responds to domestic terrorism.
Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response: (Energy Department) Sets nuclear security policy and regulates handling of nuclear materials.
Office for Domestic Preparedness: (Justice Department) Works with state and local jurisdictions to prepare for and respond to terrorism.
National Domestic Preparedness Office: (FBI) Clearinghouse for information on weapons of mass destruction.
Civilian biodefense research programs: (Health and Human Services Department) Oversees research into defenses against biological weapons.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: (Energy Department) Scientific and engineering research targeted toward national security.
Plum Island Animal Disease Center: (Agriculture Department) Research and diagnosis to help stop foreign animal diseases.
National Biowarfare Defense Analysis Center (new)
Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office: (Commerce Department) Coordinates federal initiatives to protect U.S. infrastructure.
Federal Computer Incident Response Center: (General Services Administration) Coordinates response and analysis of computer security threats for federal agencies.
National Communications System: (Defense Department) Prepares for and coordinates communications in national emergencies.
National Infrastructure Protection Center: (FBI) Assesses and coordinates response to threats to critical infrastructure.
National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center: (Energy Department) Studies U.S. infrastructure systems for interdependence and vulnerabilities.
WE’LL GET BACK TO YOU
One far-sighted member of Congress, Rep. Mac Thornberry, Republican of Texas, took Hart-Rudman seriously. He offered legislation proposing a Cabinet-level department of homeland security. But in May 2001, Bush said that reorganization was “premature” and asked Vice President Cheney to report back to him on the matter. “This was a de facto statement to Congress — ‘Don’t do anything until you hear from us,’ ” Hart recalls.
They never did hear back. Over the summer, the Bush White House did nothing. Today, Cheney claims he was just about to act when the terrorists struck on September 11. The best evidence that this is untrue is that the administration barely even acted afterward.
Instead of a Cabinet-level department, Bush established a White House Office of Homeland Security, with Ridge as the chief. From the start, Democrats and a few Republicans complained that without a budget and some accountability on Capitol Hill, Ridge could do nothing significant to reshape the government’s anti-terrorism efforts. This has proven to be true.
But the conservative wing of the GOP was against a new Cabinet department, and politics-even after September 11 — trumped reform in the Bush White House. Bush said repeatedly that he opposed a Cabinet-level agency, and he opted for a tepid homeland security plan recommended by Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, a GOP loyalist. The results were predictable. While the war in Afghanistan went well, the effort to secure American borders fell short.
As for finding out what went wrong before 9/11, the policy here was to stonewall. Bush now says he supports the inquiry by the Joint Committee on Intelligence, but as recently as two months ago he was dead-set against it. And he continues to oppose the kind of independent outside commission established after Pearl Harbor.
DAMAGE CONTROL
The White House says today that it has been planning this announcement for weeks, and simply moved it up from July. Perhaps so, but it looks more like old-fashioned damage control. If this had been in the works so long, why was FBI Director Robert Mueller allowed to step out last week with an FBI reform plan? Normally, the president speaks first when it comes to sweeping reorganization of this kind. More likely, Bush finally recognized that he made a mistake, and moved this week to correct it.
The next big bureaucratic question — perhaps requiring its own commission — is painfully clear: Is the culture of the FBI so entrenched that the bureau should be abolished, renamed and reconstituted? When Mueller says, as he did Thursday, that it will take two to three years just to install a new computer system, the answer may be yes.
The president has begun the reorganization of the federal government. That’s good. But let the lesson be — think harder, bolder and earlier about the tough choices.
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A Year Later Bush Admits Bipartisan Committees Reccomendations on terror were Correct!
