White House to Review Homeland Security Office

Homeland: Can Card Save the Incredible Shrinking Czar?

Emphasizing that he wanted the entire U.S. government mobilized to prevent future attacks, President George W. Bush after September 11 created a new White House office to ride herd on federal agencies, and installed his pal Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge as the homeland-security ìczar.î But eight months later, after repeated clashes with other agency chiefs and a chorus of criticism from Capitol Hill, top White House staffers have concluded that Ridgeís office isnít working. In an effort to fix the problem, Newsweek has learned, White House chief of staff Andrew Card has assigned a small team to study possible alternativesóranging from eliminating the post altogether to transforming it into a separate cabinet-level department with Ridge in charge. ìEverything is on the table,î said one Bush staffer. Ý

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The White House initiated the review reluctantlyóand only after complaints that Ridge lacked any clout and was rapidly losing influence inside the Beltway. Sources say Ridge himself did not disagree. In recent months Ridge has suffered a series of embarrassments. When he floated a plan in January to combine federal agencies responsible for border security, cabinet secretaries brushed it aside and told Ridge he was moving too quickly. The final plan, forwarded to Bush in March, was much smaller in scope than Ridge wanted. Pressed in a recent meeting by Missouri Sen. Chris Bond to meet with private contractors in the security business, Ridge gave a ìwhatís the point?î response. ìTheyíll all be disappointed,î Ridge said. ìWe donít have any contracting authority.î Meanwhile, staffers from other federal agencies have rotated in and out of Ridgeís office, creating a perception of disarrayóa problem exacerbated by Bushís insistence that Ridge, as a White House staffer, not testify publicly before Congress. That fight blew up last week when Ridge was a no-show at Sen. Robert Byrdís appropriations hearing, appearing instead at a staged briefing for a handful of senators and a large contingent of reporters. Byrd publicly rebuked Ridge for trivializing homeland security with ìsophomoric political antics.î ìPart of the problem is, nobody knows what theyíre doing,î said a government consultant about Ridgeís office. ìItís just this black hole.î The one recent public move by Ridgeóa color-coded security warning systemówas ridiculed by security experts and became instant fodder for a ìSaturday Night Liveî skit.

The Card-ordered review is being kept quiet because aides fear too much public disclosure could make the restructuring job impossible. Some officialsóincluding aides close to Ridgeóhave argued that the job wonít work without giving Ridge control of key federal agencies involved with his mission, such as the border police, the U.S. Customs Service and the Coast Guard. But any move to transfer the agencies into a new Ridge-headed department would cause an epic turf war. Creating a new agency would also be politically problematic for Bush, whose conservative base is dedicated to the principle of smaller government.

Still, aides say, because of the importance of the mission, Card wants the problem fixed soon. Ridge is expected to announce his new job description in July as part of his long-awaited ìnational strategyî to guard against future terror attacks.