TOPICS
TOPICS
Bush signs homeland bill; fills top jobs in department
President Bush Monday signed legislation establishing a Homeland Security Department and announced he will nominate White House homeland security adviser Tom Ridge to be its first secretary.
Bush also announced that Navy Secretary Gordon England will be nominated for the post of deputy secretary and that Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Asa Hutchinson, a former House member, will be nominated to serve as undersecretary for border and transportation security.
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer pledged the Bush administration would work cooperatively with Congress next year as it considers whether to strip out last-minute provisions added to the bill that would protect vaccine makers and offer other benefits to businesses.
Senate Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.; House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas; House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas; Senate Minority Whip Don Nickles, R-Okla.; and Reps. Rob Portman, R- Ohio; and Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif.; were among those on stage as Bush signed the bill.
President Bush now has up to 60 days to submit a reorganization plan that will serve as a blueprint for creating the department. He can begin transferring agencies 90 days after the plan is put forward. All agencies must be transferred within a year of Bush's submission of the reorganization plan.
Fleischer today said it would therefore be "at least a year" before the department is fully up to speed. But he said it would become "operational" piecemeal as various agencies move in.
"There's no question the new agency will go through growing pains," Fleischer said, but he denied there would be any diminution of security during the transition.
COMMENTS
- The new Homeland Security Department is a farce. It will take several years to implement. It's a huge bureaucracy. Meanwhile, we are in dire need of securing our borders, shipping ports, coordinating intelligence, etc. to prevent or prepare for another terrorist attack. Anonymous Posted March 3, 2003 12:06 PM
- The department, and by extension, homeland security itself, is doomed to failure unless official Washington stops glossing over a key component of security: the integrity of our borders. My home is about seven miles from the Mexican border, so illegal immigration is not an abstraction to me, as it is to the majority of folks in our national government. The Border Patrol, on foot, in their cars and helicopters, is everywhere, but they cannot stem the tide if the rest of government makes it easy and desirable to sneak in here. What do they not understand about human nature? When you reward something, you get MORE of it. Thus—bottom line—our border defenses are so ineffective and overworked, they cannot be expected to keep out terrorists. Anonymous Posted March 3, 2003 12:06 PM
- One of the first priorities of Congress and the new Department of Homeland Security should be to honor funding commitments made to the cash-strapped state and local communities for security training and equipment. After an attack, local coordination of first responders is critical in preventing chaos, saving lives and catching the attackers. More than a year after 9/11, state and local officials have been left dangerously "dangling in the wind" and ill-prepared for further terrorist actions. Paul C. DaVia Posted March 3, 2003 12:06 PM
