Insider interview: What to expect from the Office of Homeland Security
Q. What do you think Ridge's most challenging bureaucratic obstacle is going to be as the director of Homeland Security?
A. Actually, bureaucratically I would sound a note of optimism compared to many of the voices that are more pessimistic at the moment. I think that the issue of homeland security has become so obviously central in our nation's and George Bush's current moments in history that there will be the ability for Governor Ridge to mobilize resources and to establish clout and to get his recommendations largely through the executive branch when he comes up with such recommendations--even though he has no direct power over the purse. So that doesn't fully answer your question, but I think it's worth emphasizing and starting with that central point. I think he will be able to be effective despite his lack of direct power of the purse.
Q. Are there any specific reasons why you are optimistic? Is there anything you've heard in talking to people?
A. Well, there's just nothing more important to George Bush and his presidency at this moment. And if you have the president's ear, you're in pretty good shape, if it's the top priority of the president. When you look back to certain kinds of presidencies where the priorities are very clear going in, whether its Reagan's presidency, which sort of focused on two or three main themes, or earlier presidencies focused on a Great Society or world war or what have you, usually once the president declares a top priority, the people who work on that priority within his administration, it's not so important what their actual titular jobs are. They're able to be effective based on the fact that the president has a keen interest in that issue, and it's less than critical that they have power over people below them because they're going to have the person above them to come to bat when necessary.
Q. Is this a Cabinet position or Cabinet-level position, and how will that affect Ridge's ability to wield authority?
A. Well, I'm not as much of an expert on this as people like Paul Light or my colleague Ivo Daalder here at Brookings, but my understanding is that this is not a Cabinet-level position in the sense that Governor Ridge will not command the same sort of bureaucracy that proper Cabinet officials sort of traditionally defined....
Q. How much power will Ridge wield in order to persuade other agency heads such as the CIA's George Tenet or the FBI's Robert Mueller to get what he needs done?
A. Well, I think that you have put your finger on a challenge. I think that coordination of information will be a challenge because there are obviously some issues with the intelligence agencies being sensitive about giving up their sources and methods with law enforcement, being sensitive about sharing certain kinds of intelligence with a national security-oriented establishment like the CIA. I think there you could see the need for some pretty difficult and protracted negotiations ahead. But I think that we all realize that with at least half the hijackers having been in this country without proper legal certification, there has to be much better coordination. So I would expect there will be improvements even if there are also some limitations that people will fight over.
Q. Even in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, do you still think the CIA and FBI and the rest of the 40-plus agencies that Tom Ridge will deal with will still be reluctant to share information?
A. Well, yes, there will be at some levels.... Just to make the concern as vivid as possible, let me try to give an example. Let's say the CIA has acquired intelligence about a certain person. And the intelligence was acquired through a very specific kind of monitoring station. Let's say it wasn't even one of the overhead satellites that anybody can pick up a book and read about even though they're still classified officially. Let's say it was some monitoring station somewhere near Afghanistan, a ground station of some kind, maybe even monitoring equipment that was carried by special forces. And we heard a conversation that somebody in al Qaida didn't really think we even had the capability to hear, and that was the only time you had that kind of insight into what that particular person was thinking or doing or saying. And you wanted to use that evidence in a court of law... and U.S. law enforcement wanted the information that was obtained by the CIA in order to convict that person. But the CIA might worry that we have this special capability, and we don't want the world to realize we've got it.
And even though you can try to keep some of this kind of information secret in trials, it's not nearly as easy as when you keep the information just inside the intelligence world. And there may be bigger fish to fry out there that the CIA may want to keep its methods secret in order to be able to go after and hopefully catch those people making similar mistakes with their communications....
I'm not sure if my example's very vivid, but that's the sort of thing where you have a little bit of information about somebody, the CIA acquired it, and then the FBI would like to use that or somebody else domestically would like to use that in a court of law. But there's the concern [that] by using that information to go after that particular person, are you potentially risking that others who are more important in the al Qaida organization will realize what your capabilities are, and then shut up and deny you information they might have inadvertently provided.
That's the sort of inherent conflict that does not go away just because you decide that counterterrorism has become a top national security priority. In fact, it is a debate over how to pursue that priority -- not a debate over whether it should be a priority, but a debate over the best way to pursue it. And that kind of conflict, I think, will continue.
Q. What are the financial and political resources that Ridge needs in order to be successful?
A. I think the main thing he needs is the President's and the Vice President's support, and he's got that. He needs their time so they can weigh in on some of the contentious issues that are going to come and loom ahead. And, again, he will receive that, I have no doubt. Secondly, he needs at least several billion dollars a year--not just in a one-time boost for next year's budget, but he needs to be able to spend time over the next 12 to 24 months devising a broader agenda and then get the money for that as necessary. I think that will also be no great problem.
And so I think that for him... those bureaucratic and political challenges will largely be solved. I think for him, the big question is the intellectual one in figuring out what the agenda should be, and making sure he doesn't overlook vulnerabilities that come back to haunt us. I think that's the hard one, much more than the politics.
Q. Is this position analogous to the drug czar position?
A. Well, it's analogous in one sense in that again you have somebody whose direct authority over budgets is limited. But the drug czar was never dealing with the problem that was considered the top national security problem of the United States or one of its top two or three problems. That's where the analogy breaks down. As I say, informal positions of coordination and advising the president are not always very effective if they are about sort of a second-tier issue. But when they are about a first-tier issue and somebody's got the ear of the president -- he's obviously as close to the president as Governor Ridge is to Bush -- and the issue is as important now as homeland security is to the United States, I personally do not think that the bureaucratic analogy means very much. Just because these positions are similar in that sense of lacking immediate power and control over an agency and its budget does not mean that the homeland security czar will be stymied the same way the drug czar sometimes has been.
Q. As governor of Pennsylvania, Ridge was known as someone who understood information technology. What do you think his most challenging technical obstacle will be in terms of coordinating and integrating everything into a usable system?
A. Well, I think it's one of a number of challenges. I'm not sure it's any greater than the challenge of protecting large buildings from truck bombs or protecting subways and sports stadiums from biological attack, or making sure that all luggage going into airplanes is X-rayed and inspected for bombs, or protecting famous individuals at sporting events and other public appearances where they could be potentially assassinated as part of a broader terrorist campaign.
There are a lot of vulnerabilities I can think of, and frankly, I am not convinced that cyber vulnerabilities are necessarily at the top of the list. And even though there is going to be a need for coordination in intelligence information, again, that's the sort of thing we could make progress on now that we recognize the need to do so. I don't think there's any inherent difficulty in the basic idea of sharing information more quickly and expeditiously. There will be challenges, as I mentioned before. There will be disagreements, but I think the basic task is entirely doable.
Q. Is Tom Ridge the right man for this position?
A. I don't know if any one person is the right man for this position because this position is so demanding across many substantive areas. So instead of having somebody who is an expert in any one or two of the areas that relate to homeland security, I'd be most concerned about a person's proximity to the president and his organizational skills and his political reputation.... At this point it looks like Tom Ridge has most of the basic attributes you would want along those lines. So I am optimistic, but of course his job is just beginning.
Q. How quickly can we begin to see some of the results of his efforts?
A. Well, I think we are already seeing some results, clearly with airlines, for example, and with protection in certain public facilities and sports events. I think the answer is right away. The question is not so much will we begin to address vulnerability A, B, C or D, but will there be another large-scale terror attack. So it depends whether you're measuring sort of inputs or outputs. If you're measuring inputs, you will see things right away, and we already are seeing progress. If you're measuring outputs, which of course is the most important thing to do, and judging Ridge by how well we protect the next attempted terrorist attack, then, of course, it's too soon to know.