Few details, many challenges for new security agency

The Homeland Security Department proposed by the Bush administration is nothing if not bold. The new Cabinet-level agency focused on protecting Americans from terrorist attacks would dwarf most federal agencies in size and assume many non-security functions as well. Only the Defense and Veterans' Affairs departments are larger. The administration has called it the most significant realignment of government since President Harry Truman asked Congress to combine the military departments into a single Defense Department in 1945. And while President Bush asked Congress to pass legislation creating the new department this year, administration officials might want to keep in mind that it took Truman two years to get his Defense Department. Merging the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Border Patrol, Coast Guard, Customs Service, Transportation Security Administration and elements of other federal agencies will be enormously complex, by any account. "You don't want to underestimate the challenge of this," says retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of Drug Control Policy in the Clinton administration. McCaffrey, who has worked closely with most of the agencies that would make up the new department, said it would take anywhere from three to five years to make the new department work properly, and he believes it would take at least a year of thoughtful debate before Congress could write appropriate legislation. "I am impressed and encouraged by what they're trying to take on," he said. If the new agency is to be successful, however, McCaffrey believes two things will be needed: a new immigration policy that recognizes the nation's reliance on Mexican workers; and more money and personnel for the new agency. "There's no question this will cost a ton of money," McCaffrey says. "We've got inadequate manpower and resources in the Border Patrol. The Coast Guard is way too small and [in need of] capital investment. The Coast Guard probably ought to double in size; the Border Patrol ought to quadruple in size. And the INS, which is absolutely screwed up-and not because of malfeasance by its employees-needs an organizational structure that works and a training system to allow them to succeed." During his tenure as drug czar, McCaffrey was continually frustrated by the complex web of agencies he had to deal with as he coordinated counter-narcotics efforts. "If you look at any point on the border, there are four major departments of government at a minimum involved: Agriculture, Treasury, Justice and Defense, and then maybe Interior, Commerce and Transportation [depending on the jurisdiction]. It's crazy. There is absolutely no one in charge. You go to a given border crossing and you ask for a briefing and you'll get four briefings," he said. Many critical details about the new Department of Homeland Security, such as how the field management structures of Customs, the Border Patrol and the INS might be merged, will be left to whomever assumes leadership of the agency, said an administration official in a Friday background briefing for reporters. "We hope the new secretary, whoever that may be, will have maximum flexibility" to organize the workforce as he or she sees fit, the official said. James Lee Witt, former director the Federal Emergency Management Agency, says that while he supports the idea of a single agency housing homeland security functions, he is concerned that critical, non-homeland security functions will be neglected in the new agency. "Under FEMA right now you have the National Flood Insurance Program, the Emergency Management Institute and the Fire Training Academy and programs for earthquakes, hurricanes. You have a lot of things that have to be ongoing programs everyday that need to maintain an identity independent of homeland security," Witt says. Witt's and other concerns will likely dominate the debate over creation of a new homeland security agency over the coming months. It's no surprise that the Clinton administration rejected large-scale federal reorganizations. In the first report of the National Performance Review, then-Vice President Al Gore wrote: "The traditional solution is to shuffle the organizational chart. But in Washington, such proposals set off monumental turf wars between agencies in the executive branch, and between committees in Congress. After years of struggle, one or two agencies are reorganized-or a new department is created. Meanwhile, the nation's problems keep changing, so the new structure is soon out of date. In a rapidly changing world, the best solution is not to keep redesigning the organizational chart; it is to melt the rigid boundaries between organizations."