Ridge to take Cabinet post
Friday, January 24, 2003 Posted: 8:13 AM EST (1313 GMT)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Tom Ridge was scheduled to be sworn in Friday as the first secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the new Cabinet department created in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks.
As Homeland Security chief, Ridge will preside over the biggest government restructuring in 50 years, merging all or parts of 22 existing federal agencies into a mammoth operation charged with reducing America's vulnerability to terrorism.
Ridge, 57, said at his Senate confirmation hearing that the United States was "undoubtedly safer" than it was before the September 11 attacks.
But he also acknowledged an enormous challenge ahead, saying far more needed to be done to guard against "a hate-filled, remorseless enemy that takes many forms and has many places to hide."
The former Pennsylvania governor, former congressman and decorated Vietnam combat veteran, has served the past 15 months as an adviser to President Bush as head of the White House Office of Homeland Security.
A chief aim of the new department Ridge is launching will be to avoid breakdowns in communication between the FBI, CIA and other federal agencies exposed by the 2001 hijacked airliner attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington. About 3,000 people were killed in those attacks and a crash in a field in Pennsylvania.
The CIA and the FBI will not be part of the new department. The CIA will continue to gather overseas intelligence and the FBI will still be the lead law enforcement agency to prevent an attack, while Ridge's department will be in charge of analyzing homeland security intelligence and coordinating protection efforts.
Only 100 to 200 people were expected to be on staff as Ridge assumes the helm of the new department. Various agencies, including the Secret Service, Coast Guard, Border Patrol and the Transportation Security Agency, are not due to merge into Homeland Security until March.
The department, with 170,000 employees and an annual budget of $40 billion, was to be fully operational by September 30.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Connecticut Democrat who first proposed a Department of Homeland Security a month after the September 11 attacks, last week criticized White House efforts so far to secure the country.
"It is unacceptable that we have not come further faster," said Lieberman, who was expected to make the matter an issue in his bid for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.
"Almost every independent assessment I have come across says that in almost every way, America is as vulnerable today as we were on September 11," Lieberman said at Ridge's confirmation hearing.
Ridge rejected such assessments, noting improvements in such areas as port, border and airport security.
"But do we have to do more?" he asked. "You bet we do."
