Former top officials dissect homeland security since 9/11

Coordination among agencies with jurisdiction over homeland security and the intelligence community has improved vastly since Sept. 11, 2001, a panel of current and former government officials said Thursday, even while turf battles in Congress and inconsistent information sharing between the federal government and localities continue to stymie efforts to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks.

It's difficult for career civil servants in intelligence, homeland security and defense to do their jobs effectively when they're getting mixed messages from the political establishment, said former Homeland Security Department Secretary Michael Chertoff during an event on 9/11 management lessons sponsored by the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service and consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. Chertoff and other panelists, including former Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said the Byzantine and complicated congressional committee structure is one cause of the problem. There are more than 80 committees with some jurisdiction over homeland security issues, and they all fiercely protect their turf and have agendas that are often at odds with each other, Harman and Chertoff said.

Speaking of federal employees, Chertoff said, "When you're asked to saddle up and protect us, [and then told] you better watch your back, it's a mixed message." Chertoff is currently senior counsel in Covington and Burling's Washington office and Harman is head of the Woodrow Wilson Center. The two were joined by retired Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA; retired Vice Adm. Mike McConnell, former director of national intelligence; and Lisa Brown, executive director and co-director of the government reform initiative at the Office of Management and Budget. Former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig moderated the discussion.

Talk ranged from individual memories of 9/11 to the relationship between the CIA director and head of national intelligence to the complicated nature of merging disparate agencies to create the Homeland Security Department. All the panelists agreed creating DHS, as painful as it was to stand up a new government department, was a positive move. "As much criticism as DHS has, it was a good thing," said McConnell. "We are better off."

The group agreed communication and unity of effort across the federal government is much stronger than it was before 9/11. But coordination along vertical lines -- between federal, state and local entities -- is still a huge challenge because of different personalities, budget pressures and legal issues. Hayden said the government needs to improve that vertical flow of information and effort.

McConnell was blunt in his assessment that the government is not prepared for a cyberattack and continues to lack imagination when it comes to preparing for a variety of potential threats. "We will talk and not act. We will have a catastrophic event," he said referring to a cyberattack, adding he hopes people eventually learn the lessons that inevitably will come out of such an event.