As its leadership changes for the first time, the Department of Homeland Security remains hampered by personality conflicts, bureaucratic bottlenecks and an atmosphere of demoralization, undermining its ability to protect the nation against terrorist attack, according to current and former administration officials and independent experts.
Although the 22-month-old department has vast powers over the lives of travelers, immigrants and citizens, it remains a second-tier agency in the clout it commands within President Bush's Cabinet, the officials said. Pockets of dysfunction are scattered throughout the 180,000-employee agency, they said.
...
Homeland Security leaders accept many of the criticisms of the department's performance by government officials and experts but reject others as unfair. "Nobody fully understands the complexity of our task: to build a department out of 22 agencies, operate it, reorganize it, and design and build networks and systems that will defend the nation in perpetuity," said Ridge, who stepped down yesterday. Ridge is widely credited with managing the first phase of the most complicated government reorganization since the 1940s. But the former Pennsylvania governor also is noted for having a politician's desire to please all comers, which resulted in some policy quandaries remaining unaddressed for long periods, officials and experts said.
Top DHS officials point out that much of their time has been spent crafting eight huge internal initiatives. Finished in some cases only in recent weeks, they map out the department's new information technology, payroll, personnel, procurement and other systems.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55552-2005Feb1.html
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
