House panel examines terrorism response scenarios

Bush administration witnesses tried their level best to argue that the new Homeland Security Department will be focused, coherent and fast-moving, but legislators on both sides of the aisle sounded skeptical Wednesday, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing on the administration's bill.

"Let's spin the scene of a tank truck that gets hijacked on I-95, and the hijacker has explosive material that could blow a hole in the tank," said Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J. Suppose the tanker could spew out "chlorine gas that could sicken and kill a large number of people. Who would handle it?"

Stephen Cambone, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, replied that as part of the new department, the Immigration and Naturalization Service would have the job of stopping foreign terrorists from entering the country.

If they got in and hijacked a truck, he said, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, local law enforcement and the secretary of the Homeland Security Department would be involved. Andrews retorted that the proposal "avoids the core question of who's in charge during the precious minutes when there's an opportunity to prevent something. It [the administration's plan] creates more hurdles."

Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., asked how the plan would improve the nuclear emergency support teams' response if an illegal nuclear weapon were suspected. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., asked how the proposed department would cope if terrorists got hold of a crop duster plane and sprayed harmful chemicals on a crowd. Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., asked how the plan would protect Disneyland, which is in her district.

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., questioned how the plan would speed the transfer of military technology, such as sensors to detect burgeoning fires, to local responders, as he had tried to do for years.

Cambone admitted the hijacked crop duster and other scenarios were "more than appropriate concerns." But he and Gen. John Gordon, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, stressed that a new department was crucial to bring the government's existing expertise together so it could react efficiently.

To legislators' concern about creating more bureaucracy, Gordon said the department "is the place to bring the threat and the vulnerabilities together. That's my definition of coherence. The people are there and the intent is there to make that part click." Gordon's NNSA manages the $6 billion nuclear weapons complex for the Energy Department.

He said the nuclear threat assessment program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which handles nuclear threats, would remain there but also report to the secretary of homeland security. So it would work more "coherently" on domestic terrorism, he said, than if it stayed in NNSA at Energy.

Also, Gordon said, the new arrangement would help scientific research to be utilized. As for speedier detection of suspected nuclear weapons, under the president's plan, the Homeland Security chief could command nuclear emergency support teams.

The same day, the administration announced plans to create a new undersecretary of Defense for intelligence. Cambone cited the job as a way to bring more coherence to Defense's sharing of intelligence with the new department and others without adding bureaucracy.

The administration's plan would move Energy programs of $218 million and Defense programs of $560 million to the new department. The two Defense programs to be moved are a new chemical and biological assessment team and a 91-person communications team. Cambone said the transfers would not amount to additions to government personnel.

But Weldon doubted the massive job of homeland security could be done without additional funds. He also expressed concern about ensuring that raw intelligence is mined and sifted better. "Nothing else is more important than intelligence, as [Rep.] John Spratt [D-S.C.] said," Weldon noted.

Armed Services Chairman Bob Stump, R-Ariz., said the committee would report on its part of the administration plan by July 12. House leaders say they can finish action on the whole proposal by mid-July.