[Washington Post - 11/21/01] The Bush administration yesterday presented the core of its homeland security team, a diverse group dominated by officials with strong loyalties to Vice President Cheney, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
After more than two months of frenetic responding to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent anthrax crisis, administration officials now are turning their attention to drafting a detailed plan for combating terrorism. That proposal will include a major overhaul of intelligence gathering and sharing as well as potentially profound changes in public and private security measures.
Cheney, who headed the administration's National Preparedness Review before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, put his stamp on the new homeland security office by installing retired Adm. Steve Abbot, a senior aide, as Ridge's chief deputy. Abbot will oversee the office's day-to-day operations and the development of the long-term strategy, with the goal of presenting the plan to President Bush for consideration next spring.
Maj. Gen. Bruce Lawlor, the first commander of a sensitive new military operation that would respond if the United States were struck by a chemical, germ or nuclear attack, is the homeland security office's senior director of protection and prevention. Michael Byrne, a former New York firefighter and Federal Emergency Management Agency official, was appointed senior director of response and recovery.
Mark Holman, chief of staff to Ridge during his years as a member of Congress and governor of Pennsylvania, is deputy assistant to the president for homeland security, responsible for communications, legislative affairs and general political troubleshooting. Susan Neely, Ridge's press secretary, managed the "Harry and Louise" ad campaign for the Health Insurance Association of America from 1994 to 1996 that blocked Clinton administration health care initiatives.
"We have a very gregarious, outspoken group of talented people that are going to be willing to mix it up quickly," Holman told reporters yesterday. "Governor Ridge's style has always been to welcome people of diverse opinions and ask them to speak up."
Many lawmakers and anti-terrorism experts have warned that Ridge is being set up to fail unless Congress acts to create a permanent homeland security post with a large staff and consolidated government agencies under it. But Ridge and other White House officials disagree, saying that Ridge can do more as a senior adviser with the president's mandate and a large staff of people detailed from other agencies than as the head of a separate bureaucracy.
Ridge has been operating with a skeletal staff of about 30 aides, with 18 others about to come on board. The operation is planned to expand to nearly 100 members by early next year, about the size of the National Security Council staff.
Holman said Ridge may also temporarily hire a number of "special employees" from private industry and business who would serve for 60 to 90 days to help in preparing the new homeland defense policies. Such a move would raise questions of accountability, since these people would not be subject to the same screening as permanent hires.
Under the Oct. 8 executive order that created the homeland security office, Ridge was mandated to prepare a comprehensive national plan for securing the nation's borders, improving intelligence gathering and sharing of information by federal agencies, and beefing up law enforcement agencies' efforts to detect and apprehend terrorists seeking to harm U.S. citizens and property.
The plan is likely to have a profound impact on government, industry and the lives of average citizens, yet it will not be subject to congressional approval. While members of Congress will be asked to provide advice and input, according to Ridge aides, the final decision on the details of the plan will be left to Bush.
Holman vowed that the process would be open and that the administration, for example, would disclose the business affiliations and other background information of the special employees retained to help shape the government policy. However, the administration has clashed before with members of Congress, the General Accounting Office and environmental groups by refusing to divulge the names of industry officials who advised a White House energy policy task force that was headed by Cheney.
Comptroller General David M. Walker, reluctant to challenge the administration in the midst of a war, recently put on hold a lawsuit seeking to force Cheney to turn over records from his energy task force. However, Walker said the GAO wants to focus more on homeland security.
"There's no doubt that Congress feels much stronger about the need to exercise reasonable oversight in the critical area of homeland security than it does about" the Cheney task force, Walker said recently. "This could become the new battleground."
Ridge and roughly two dozen of his senior staff will work out of the White House and the adjacent Eisenhower Executive Office Building, while the remainder of the new staff will be housed several miles away in Upper Northwest Washington, in a highly secure naval building near Massachusetts and Nebraska avenues NW.
Ridge's emerging team also includes:
€ Richard Falkenrath, a biological and chemical terrorism expert at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, who was named senior director of policy and plans. Falkenrath is taking the lead in developing budget proposals for strengthening anti-terrorism efforts.
€ Ed McNally, a former partner and trial lawyer with the firm of Altheimer & Gray in Chicago, is Ridge's general counsel. McNally previously served as assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York and was a speechwriter for President George Bush.
€ Frank Cilluffo, a prominent author and speaker on counterterrorism, was retained as a special assistant to the president and adviser for external affairs on homeland security.
Others are Becky Halkias, the legislative affairs director; Carl Buckholz, a lawyer who will serve as executive secretary; and Barbara Chaffee, the office's public liaison. Halkias and Chaffee both served Ridge while he was governor, and Buckholz was an aide to the late Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.).
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
[posted 11/21/01]
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