More DHS overhaul details revealed

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is hoping to improve the department's performance by streamlining the top layers of his vast bureaucracy and having more of the department's front-line operational units report directly to him.

Under the new organizational chart, seven agency chiefs who formerly had another layer of bureaucracy between them and the secretary now report directly to Chertoff.

They are the director of the Transportation Security Administration; the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection; the director of the Secret Service; the director of Citizenship and Immigration Services; the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency; the commandant of the Coast Guard; and the commissioner of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Chertoff plans to eliminate the undersecretary positions and directorates for Border and Transportation Security; Emergency Preparedness and Response; and Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection.

One effect of the new structure is that it could require Chertoff himself, rather than his undersecretaries, to testify more often before congressional committees.

Homeland Security oversees so many controversial functions that lawmakers frequently haul agency directors up to Capitol Hill for public hearings. Indeed, the 9/11 commission last summer found that Homeland Security Department leaders were reporting to 88 Hill committees and subcommittees -- spending far too much time testifying rather than fighting the war on terror.