Homeland Security opens with a lean headquarters operation

Only about 100 employees of the Homeland Security Department will immediately relocate to the agency's temporary headquarters in Washington, Secretary Tom Ridge said Friday.

"We cannot secure the homeland [from] inside the capital," said Ridge at a press conference after he was sworn in by President Bush. "Now, what we need to do is to get the job done, and what that means is putting resources outside of D.C., employing more people and resources outside of D.C. than inside of D.C., " he said.

The Homeland Security Department officially opened its doors on Friday. The fledgling agency already has a Web site-www.dhs.gov-and an e-mail system, Ridge said. "One of the larger challenges as we set up a 21st century department is to equip it with 21st century technology, and we realize that today marks one step in that process."

Ridge said the department's initial headquarters at the U.S. Naval Security Station in Washington is equipped with a threat monitoring center, computers and secure communication lines to connect Homeland Security with other government agencies and emergency management agencies at the state and local levels. The headquarters "meets the security requirements of the new department," Ridge said.

Ridge said he did not know how long the department would occupy space at the Navy site, located at Nebraska and Massachusetts avenues in Northwest Washington. "It could be four months, it could be six months…I have no idea," he told reporters. "The decision about facilities rests with [the General Services Administration]; it is an ongoing process to get a site that will meet all of our requirements."

The temporary headquarters would not house more than 800 to 1,000 people at full capacity, Ridge estimated. "Our goal is have [a headquarters] organization that is pretty lean," Ridge said.

Ridge said the administration is committed to responding to local and state agencies' concerns over homeland security funding. "I can understand their huge frustration with D.C., because the president sent a budget to Congress last February to increase funding for bioterrorism and first responders… and we haven't seen a dime of that money yet," he said. Ridge said he expected to get funding to state and local officials "as soon as Congress gets the omnibus passed and we've moved into the 2004 budget process."

Under an executive order signed Thursday by President Bush, Ridge will have the authority to coordinate domestic response efforts in the event of a terrorist attack between Jan. 24 and March 1, the date when Homeland Security will assume authority over almost all of the agencies transferred to the department. Those agencies include the Transportation Security Administration, Coast Guard, Customs Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Secret Service and most of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which will be split into two parts in the new department.

The Jan. 23 executive order also allows the president's nominees for top Homeland Security posts, including Deputy Secretary-designate Gordon England, to move immediately into the Washington headquarters in an acting capacity. Ridge is the only nominee who has been confirmed by the Senate so far.