Chertoff discusses goals, responds to critics

In February 2005, Michael Chertoff stepped down from a lifetime appointment to the federal bench to lead one of the most far-flung and disjointed bureaucracies in the federal government. Only six months into the job, Hurricane Katrina put the Homeland Security Department's disaster planning and response mission to the test -- and by most accounts it failed in almost every measurable way.

DHS's performance has "improved quite a bit in the past two years," Chertoff said in a December 5 interview with National Journal. But he acknowledged that he didn't anticipate just how high a hill he would have to climb when he became department secretary. "I don't think when I came in I had a clear sense of all the individual tasks that would have to be undertaken."

Looking at the final two years of the Bush administration, Chertoff said that much more needs to be done. He described some of his major goals, responded to his critics, and talked about what lawmakers and the public should -- and shouldn't -- expect from the Homeland Security Department. An edited transcript follows.

NJ: How do you rate the department's performance in one of its key missions, keeping terrorists out of the country?

Chertoff: We've got the watch lists for the known terrorists collected in one place and accessible across the government, which was an issue raised by the 9/11 commission. That's been done.

The next challenge is finding the unknown terrorist. There are two elements to doing that. One is getting more biographical information about people who want to come into the country. We did that by reaching an agreement on passenger name record data with the Europeans. [Homeland Security will collect certain personal information on European airline passengers and screen it for terrorist risk.] And then the second step is biometric data, collecting 10 fingerprints from visitors, which we can run against latent prints that we hold in databases from safe houses, or training camps, or battlefields all over the world. We're rolling out the 10-print collection at consulates in Riyadh, London, and El Salvador.

NJ: How did the new requirement that airline passengers pack carry-on liquids and gels in quart-size plastic bags fare during the biggest travel period of the year, the Thanksgiving holiday?

Chertoff: Since there was very little in the news about it, I think it was a smashing success. There were some bumps in the road, but it was not the story that it was predicted to be. We would ideally like to get to a technology that would allow us to screen all liquids mechanically [for explosives], but it's got to be one that does it efficiently without becoming cumbersome and slow. I constantly have the experience of people telling me that they have a magic bullet, if only we would see it and buy it.

But it works great in a lab, and it doesn't work operationally. If you have to take every bottle out and scan it separately, you're going to be waiting three hours to get on your airplane.

There was a lot of work done training and preparing and communicating to the public [about the new liquids requirements], and the public responded well. One of the keys to success for us is communication and message, and getting it out there and making sure people understand what we're doing.

NJ: In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, does the public understand that the federal government will not respond immediately to a major catastrophe?

Chertoff: I think everyone intellectually knew that the feds weren't going to be there immediately. The federal government does not own all the response resources. The National Guard is the single biggest response resource. That is controlled by the governors. If you want to send a governor into orbit, suggest that maybe we should have the federal government reach out to control the National Guard in an emergency. They will go ballistic, and that's as it should be. But they must then take the responsibility to make sure that the National Guard is properly trained and able to work. What we have to do is make sure the National Guard training and planning is integrated with ours.

NJ: Does there need to be some public education program for preparing for a disaster?

Chertoff: The basics of preparedness, having a plan, should be the kind of thing we teach in school, in the same way that you were taught in fire drills to stop, drop, and roll. Everybody should have those basics down. I think Katrina shook people up. A lot of messaging and a lot of education, particularly at the local level, is the key.

NJ: What's the most underrated threat right now?

Chertoff: We put a lot of resources into nuclear, radiological, biological countermeasures. That doesn't get a lot of media attention, because the media tend to focus on plots that have already occurred -- aviation, rail. The problem is, the return on investments may never be visible. Maybe terrorists will never get their hands on a nuclear bomb. But if they did, the consequence of not being ready would be catastrophic.

NJ: What's a criticism you most often hear about the department, and how do you respond?

Chertoff: A typical criticism is contract management. Part of that is we get inconsistent signals. Going back to 2002, there were stories about TSA contracts. [Congress required the Transportation Security Administration, now part of DHS, to quickly hire tens of thousands of airport security screeners. Government audits found that contracts with private hiring firms were severely mismanaged and over budget.] What can I tell you? If you tell people you've got to build an organization and get it up and running, and it's a national emergency, you're not going to do the ordinary contracting process, because that takes about a year.

We have to be honest with Congress and the public. We ought to ask the question very directly: Do you want us to short-circuit the contracting rules in a time of national emergency? I don't think it's fair to tell the people in this department, "It's an emergency, get it done yesterday, but when you get it done then we're going to criticize you because you didn't do the full process." That's not fair to people. That's basically saying, heads I win, tails you lose. And that's not right.

I've become more and more convinced that one of the best things I can do is to be completely crystal clear about what it is you want us to do: What are our capabilities, what are you prepared to give us or not give us, what's it going to cost, and what can we deliver? Accountability is not about gotcha. It's about clarity of goal, accurate assessment of capability and of cost, and the deliberate decision-making about what you want to do.

NJ: How are your first interactions going with incoming House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and other congressional overseers?

Chertoff: We're off to a very good start. I'm very happy to meet with everybody involved on the committee, either separately or together. I want to hear what's on their minds.

I want to tell them what's on my mind. We are all going to win or lose together on homeland security. We all share this responsibility. If we protect this country as much as reasonably possible, then we can all say we did the job the American public sent us here to do. I completely believe that everybody on the committee, on both sides, is seriously interested in doing the job and have the right goals. I don't have any doubt about people's objective and motives.

NJ: Nancy Pelosi has said that one of her top priorities will be enacting all of the 9/11 commission recommendations. Where is the department on enacting those?

Chertoff: On the ones that affect us, we're implementing, as far as I know, all of them. I feel comfortable that any impulse to enact those recommendations is going to validate what we're doing.

NJ: Are you anticipating any areas where she's going to say that you're dragging your feet, not doing enough?

Chertoff: I'm not going to put myself in someone else's head. The challenge for us is always implementation. I'm as impatient as everyone else. I fully understand the frustration people feel; I would like everything done yesterday. But I also know that rushing something too quickly is going to wind up breaking it or not have it work properly. My task is to set a deadline and put things just a little bit out of reach so that people are always stretching, but not so far out of reach that I'm imposing a demand that can't possibly be met.