Former senator decries DHS as 'mess,' urges reorganization
Warren Rudman cites emergency management and port security as key examples of the department's failures.
Former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., Monday called the Homeland Security Department a "colossal mess" and urged that it be revamped into a leaner agency.
"It's just too big," Rudman said in an interview with CongressDaily and National Journal.
Rudman, now the interim chairman of Stonebridge International, a business advisory firm, said the department was not what he and former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo., had in mind when they issued their prescient February 2001 report warning of the likelihood of terrorist attacks and recommending the creation of a cabinet-level agency to defend against the threat.
Rudman said that in its current form, the department had subverted some of the agencies included in it when it was created. As one prominent casualty of the reorganization, he mentioned the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which he said "has been almost destroyed."
As perhaps the biggest failure of the department, he cited its lack of progress in shoring up port security.
It "is still the No. 1 unsolved problem," he said, adding later that a single nuclear device or other weapon of mass destruction could destroy a city and its economy "for 100 years."
While the government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to improve aviation security since Sept. 11, 2001, "the ports are wide open," he said.
On other issues, Rudman, who is supporting Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for president, said he agreed with his former Senate colleague that war in Iraq, had been "horribly mishandled."
Rudman predicted that although the current "surge" strategy Iraq seemed to be working, the political fallout from the war will continue to hurt Republicans.
"I think Republicans are going to have a very tough time in for some time to come in New Hampshire," said Rudman, who served as senator from the formerly Republican state from 1980 to 1993.
Regarding Iran, Rudman agreed that "we have to throw every roadblock possible" to prevent the country from becoming a nuclear power, but argued that military action would probably not be needed to achieve this goal because the Iranians know they could "be obliterated in the blink of an eye" during a confrontation with the United States.
"They may be rambunctious, but they are not stupid," he said.