WASHINGTON - Against a backdrop of U.S. intelligence failures, President Bush called last night for the creation of a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security to coordinate the nation's efforts to fight terrorism.
The new department, which would require congressional approval, would absorb 21 existing agencies and offices, including the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, the Secret Service, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It would have 170,000 employees.
"We have concluded that our government must be reorganized to deal most effectively with the new threats of the 21st century," the president said.
"I ask Congress to join me in creating a single permanent department with an overriding and urgent mission: securing the American homeland and protecting the American people," he said.
Bush made his proposal in a nationally televised address from the White House that was carried live on the major cable and broadcast networks. His plan would create the first new Cabinet department since the Department of Veterans Affairs was established in 1989.
Administration officials said there were no immediate plans to hire new employees for the department or to spend additional money beyond the transition costs.
The president had previously resisted efforts in Congress to create a Cabinet-level department focused on homeland security. His decision to do so now came after reports that U.S. intelligence agencies missed numerous warning signs of the Sept. 11 attacks. And it came on the day when public hearings into those lapses began on Capitol Hill.
The reaction from lawmakers was mostly positive. Democrats said it was vital that the nation do a better job of coordinating homeland security; such responsibilities are now split among 100 different agencies.
"It is encouraging that President Bush recognizes the need for a fundamental overhaul of the way in which we approach America's homeland security," said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat who has introduced a similar bill that is working its way through the Senate, said, "I'm looking forward to working with the president."
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, also a Connecticut Democrat, said of Bush: "Frankly, I wish he'd done it sooner. Questions continue to linger regarding efforts taken by our law enforcement and intelligence services before Sept. 11. And, unfortunately, we only seem to be learning of them in dribs and drabs."
The Bush plan is more sweeping than those in Congress, though proposals for a homeland security agency to guard against terrorists predate the Sept. 11 attacks. In February 2001, a commission led by former Sens. Gary Hart and Warren B. Rudman proposed a "Homeland Security Agency" that would oversee many of the same federal agencies, and it warned that "a direct attack ... on American soil" was likely in the next quarter-century.
Still, soon after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush and some Republicans resisted calls on Capitol Hill for a new Cabinet department. Instead, the president created a White House Office of Homeland Security under former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. Some lawmakers and other critics at the time belittled the move, saying Ridge would lack the funding and the authority to make necessary changes throughout the federal government.
With last night's announcement, some analysts say, the White House is acknowledging that without Cabinet stature, Ridge has lacked the muscle to make lasting changes. He is expected to be named the secretary of the new department, though the White House also plans to name a homeland security adviser.
"It's a victory for the 'Free Tom Ridge' movement," said Juliette Kayyem, who runs the domestic preparedness program at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "Now you have a Cabinet-level person who can duke it out with all the other Cabinet-level positions and be on equal footing."
The Secret Service would remain intact after moving from Treasury to the Department of Homeland Security. Like some other agencies, it would continue to carry out its duties unrelated to homeland defense, such as combating counterfeiters.
The FBI and CIA would remain independent agencies, and a senior administration official acknowledged that the new secretary of homeland security would lack the authority to order the two agencies to act on any investigative lead.
In his speech, Bush acknowledged the arguments made by such critics as Coleen M. Rowley, the veteran FBI agent and lawyer who testified on Capitol Hill yesterday. Rowley wrote a scathing memo about how senior FBI officials hampered agents' efforts to act quickly on investigations.
The president said: "We are now learning that before Sept. 11th, the suspicions and insights of some of our front-line agents did not get enough attention."
He added: "Information must be fully shared, so we can follow every lead to find the one that may prevent tragedy."
Answering critics who questioned the timing of the announcement, a senior administration official noted that as long ago as October, after the White House Office of Homeland Security was created, Ridge said he planned to study the possibility of a government "reorganization" to meet the threat of terrorism.
Rep. Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, defended the administration. "What they didn't like was everybody pushing them into it," he said. "He was saying, 'Let's go where our research takes us.'"
Yet Bush unveiled his plan for a new department during an embarrassing period for the administration. Besides the criticism by Rowley, the FBI and the CIA have been pointing fingers at each other over missed information that might have alerted officials to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Some congressional staffers and government analysts said the sudden and closely held White House announcement was a way to seize the initiative from Congress on homeland defense and shift the focus away from the CIA and FBI name-calling. The proposal also allows the administration to shift attention away from the past intelligence failures and instead highlight what it plans to do to avoid future acts of terror.
"For the first six months, the administration had people deferring to them on terrorism, but now they're getting criticized and clearly they need to reseize the initiative," said I.M. Destler, a homeland security specialist at the University of Maryland's School of Public Affairs. "The timing is probably driven by that need."
Asked about the suddenness of the announcement, the senior administration official said, "We're making the announcement now because we're done with our work. It's been an ongoing process. It's pretty simple and straightforward."
The White House called the proposal a "key step" in Bush's strategy for homeland security and said more details of that strategy would be unveiled next month. The administration will then have to undergo detailed negotiations with numerous congressional committees that will want to help shape the new department.
Administration officials likened last night's proposal to the 1947 National Security Act, which, among other things, created the CIA, the Defense Department and the White House National Security Council. But the Department of Homeland Security would not involve the creation of any new agencies.
A closer parallel for the new Cabinet agency came in 1977, when President Jimmy Carter, in response to the energy crisis, proposed the Department of Energy, which pulled together a variety of other government offices under one roof.
Some said they wondered whether the Bush proposal was too cosmetic, saying it appeared that it would shift around staff and money without necessarily building a better system for analyzing and acting on threats to homeland security.
"The response to terrorism requires a lot more than shifting around boxes on an organizational chart," said Ivo Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. "It needs integration and coordination and a remolding of the cultures that exist."
Proposed department's makeup
WASHINGTON - President Bush's proposed Department of Homeland Security, if approved by Congress, would draw from the budgets and jurisdictions of eight current Cabinet departments:
Justice Department: Would lose the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Office of Domestic Preparedness and the Domestic Emergency Support Team, as well as the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center.
Treasury Department: Would lose the Customs Service and the Secret Service.
Transportation Department: Would lose the Coast Guard and the fledgling Transportation Security Administration. The TSA is aiming to hire 67,000 workers, including more than 30,000 people to staff airport checkpoints plus air marshals, law enforcement officers, and workers to screen checked baggage for explosives.
Health and Human Services Department: Would lose all workers doing bioterrorism research, preparation and response. That includes the Office of Public Health Preparedness, created last year to consolidate bioterrorism work. It will also affect National Institutes of Health researchers working on vaccines for various deadly agents and epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who respond to public health emergencies such at last fall's anthrax attack.
Agriculture Department: Would lose the Plant Health Inspection Service and the Plum Island Animal Disease Center.
Energy Department: Would lose the nuclear incident response team and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., which researches detection devices and defenses against chemical, biological and radiological attacks.
Commerce Department: Would lose the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office.
Defense Department: Would lose the National Communications Systems division.
In addition, the General Services Administration would lose the Federal Computer Incident Response Center and the Federal Protective Service.