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April 2005                                                                            Volume 8 - Number 3

 Homeland Security Updates...

DHS braces for change: The exodus of managers.

Ron Molway

As of this writing, eight senior managers have formally announced their resignation from the Department of Homeland Security. DHS is bracing for change as key managers that started the department depart, potentially delaying several critical homeland security efforts. An exodus of managers is not surprising when an administration begins a new term but DHS, only two years old, may risk losing critical, corporate knowledge as managers who helped start programs and policies leave all at once.

The resignations included: Secretary Tom Ridge and Deputy Secretary James Loy; Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary for border and transportation security; Frank Libutti, undersecretary for information analysis and infrastructure protection; Robert Liscouski, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection; and C. Suzanne Mencer, executive director of the Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness. Amit Yoran resigned as director of the National Cyber Security Division last fall; Stewart Verdery, the first assistant secretary for border and transportation security policy and planning, resigned this month, and Patrick Hughes, assistant secretary for information analysis, is rumored to be resigning this month as well.

Critical thinkers claim that sweeping changes in DHS’s management structure will also delay the creation of the National Plan for Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources Protection. Under a presidential directive, DHS was to publish the plan in December 2004. The directorate of information analysis and infrastructure protection is responsible for it; However, Libutti and Liscouski, and possibly Hughes, have left.

DHS spokeswoman Kathleen Montgomery said the department will weather the transition to new management. "The ones who are leaving are part of a larger leadership team that is bigger than any one person," she said, adding that some managers, such as Loy and Hutchinson, have agreed to stay on until March 1 in order to help with the transition.

A House bill to make the cyber-security leader an assistant secretary, introduced by Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, is an updated version of a similar bill that was under consideration last year. The bill, once signed into law, would give the assistant secretary authority over all cyber-security programs throughout the department.

President Bush nominated Michael Chertoff, an appeals court judge, to replace Tom Ridge. Bernard Kerik, President Bushs’ first choice as Ridges’ replacement, resigned in October 2004 (almost immediately following his nomination). The unexpected announcement on Capitol hill, where it was all but presumed Kerik would take the post, did not seem to be scrutinized by the media for more than a few days.

The Department of Homeland Security consolidates 22 agencies and 180,000 employees in a single agency dedicated to protecting America from terrorism. President Bush has nearly tripled homeland security discretionary funding, with more than $18 billion awarded to state and local governments to protect the homeland.