Letters

Homeland Scrutiny

It became apparent to me in 2003, when I was an Immigration and Naturalization Service employee who had earlier worked for the Customs Service, that not only were opportunities missed by how the Homeland Security Department's components were organized, but also what a hodgepodge was created with the establishment of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau ("Round 2," March 1).

First, the missions of INS and Customs are too interrelated for them not to be combined. The fact that some programs were swapped between ICE and Customs' successor agency, Customs and Border Protection, validates that. Second, splitting INS into ICE and Citizenship and Immigration Services replicates the same problem of interrelated missions. Again, these agencies should be joined, not separated.

Finally, folding the Federal Air Marshal Service and the Federal Protective Service into ICE gives that agency a collection of unrelated missions. Both ICE and Citizenship and Immigration Services need to be combined with CBP. The Federal Air Marshal Service needs to return to the Transportation Security Administration, to which it is more closely aligned, and the Federal Protective Service should be shifted out of ICE, perhaps to the Secret Service, making it a protector not only of personnel, but of facilities.

I understand that joining ICE and CBP is under review. I would applaud such a merger, but the other changes should also be considered.

Direct Hit

While "Shield of Dreams" (March 1) focused on the missile defense system's controversial acquisition approach, politics has kept it from achieving its proposed goals.

As detailed in the schematic, "How Missile Defense Works," the interceptor missile must collide precisely with the hostile missile. This direct-hit scenario could be improved dramatically if low-yield nuclear warheads were used on the interceptor missile in lieu of conventional explosives. This would ensure that near-misses would still bring down the hostile missile. Apparently, an incinerated American city is preferable to a minor radioactive release high in the atmosphere.

Doesn't Add Up

The one key fact you didn't identify in "Role Model?" (March 1), was that the Reagan administration used federal employees to bail out Social Security in 1986, because it was deemed to be in big financial trouble. As a result, and you did identify this, every federal worker hired in nearly the past 20 years pays into Social Security.

With the Bush administration, I guess we now wind up with two different

economic-driven retirement programs (three, if you consider that the "third leg" of the stool-personal savings-is also driven by the economy). I've read the articles by AARP, which believes Social Security is solvent throughout the lifetime of my children. I want to believe AARP more than a bunch of politicians.

Thank goodness I get to retire next year.