Agency turf battles persist in counterterrorism race

Senior government officials on Monday sought to detail efforts in the race to develop new counterterrorism technologies. But in their testimony before a House subcommittee, the officials revealed that efforts to develop the technologies remain complicated by the creation of the Homeland Security Department.

Homeland Security was designed with a research and development arm that follows a Defense Department model. Concern was raised in a Monday subcommittee hearing that the new agency created overlap and duplication since the federal government already had an interagency process for handling new technologies across government.

The interagency Technical Support Working Group (TSWG) involves more than 80 offices and agencies across the federal government. It is run out of State Department, is funded by the State and Defense departments and has about 70 employees.

"I'm just having a little bit of a difficult time visualizing how it works in practice," Connecticut Republican Chris Shays, chairman of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations.

Edward McCallum, director of the Defense Department Combating Terrorism Technology Support Office, said the working group's Defense Department ties made it necessary to keep it apart from Homeland Security.

Technologies developed by TSWG program are found in equipment used in the military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to protect embassies and military bases.

David Bolka, director of the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA), said the area of greatest overlap with TSWG is in rapid prototyping. Bolka acknowledged overlap in responsibilities but sought to dispel concerns about his agency's existence.

"I don't see the overlap as particularly debilitating or wasteful," Bolka said. "There's enough [work] for all of us."

Bolka, who took office on Sept. 2, was unable to answer a question from subcommittee ranking Democrat John Tierney of Massachusetts as to what the Bush administration is doing to improve the inability of the communications equipment of first responders to emergencies to communicate with each other. But Bolka said it is not an initiative of the Homeland Security Department, leading Tierney to reply, "Is it not homeland security?"

Tierney said he was "frustrated" to see little progress by the administration on identifying and addressing security concerns. Tierney also criticized Bolka for having no list of homeland security technologies based on needs.

"I guess I'm a little mystified," Tierney said. "We're two years in [since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks] and we've been asking since the beginning for a needs assessment and it's still not done."

HSARPA will have about 135 staff members ultimately, 62 of which will be government employees, Bolka said. That represents a third of the total of 180 Homeland Security science and technology directorate employees. Homeland Security has established partnership with TSWG, he said.

Michael Jakub, director for technical programs at the TSWG office of the coordinator for counterterrorism, said, "We need to be prepared for the evolving nature of the terrorist threat."