Former homeland security leaders participate in forum cosponsored by AU’s School of Public Affairs

BY MIKE UNGER

Proclaiming that much has been done to strengthen the security of the country, yet much remains unfinished, former Homeland Security department secretary Tom Ridge reviewed the past and looked toward the future during a recent panel discussion cosponsored by American University’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation.

Appearing with members of the nation’s first homeland security team, Ridge said that his finest accomplishment during his stint as secretary was the formation of partnerships between federal, state, and local governments and the private sector.

“We began with a notion that our job was to raise an awareness of a new norm,” Ridge said. “We can’t do it all from inside the Beltway. We have to build bridges with the kind of partners we need to prevent a terrorist attack.”

Robert Tobias, director of AU’s Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation, was one of two moderators for the event, held at the St. Regis Hotel in downtown Washington.

“The whole idea of this institute is to focus on the implementation of public policy,” he said. “We had the opportunity to talk to the people who did that and listen and learn from them about the challenges they faced. It is just an incredible opportunity.”

A Vietnam veteran, former prosecutor, U.S. representative, and governor of Pennsylvania, Ridge was sworn in Oct. 8, 2001, as the first Office of Homeland Security advisor in U.S. history. President Bush assigned him the gargantuan task of becoming the inaugural secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which enveloped 22 separate agencies and reports to more than 80 congressional committees.

“There is no day off for homeland security,” Ridge said. “After 9/11, everyone understood that homeland security was something more than just a new federal agency. We were the first federal organization that had to talk about [terrorism, which] people aren’t comfortable with.”

From day one, Ridge had to dodge political and tactical challenges lurking around every corner as he shaped an organization with 180,000 employees.

“We understood that creating the department wasn’t about creating something large, it was about solving something that needed fixing,” he said.

One of Ridge’s most visible accomplishments was the creation of the color-coded threat advisory scale. Many critics laughed off the plan, but Ridge defended it.

“Our department more often than not was less inclined to raise the threat level and more inclined to push out more information,” he said. “It’s about keeping the country open as much as it’s about keeping the country secure. We understood that you have to use that tool of communication very sparingly.”

Responding to questions from Tobias and David Abel, a partner in Homeland Security Industry for IBM Business Consulting Services, which also sponsored the event, former DHS leaders offered their perspectives on the difficulties they—and now their successors—faced.

“You can’t protect everything all the time, you protect what is critical,” said Frank Libutti, former DHS under secretary for information analysis and infrastructure protection.

Ridge also spoke to the inexact science of homeland security.

“You cannot guarantee that we will develop a fail-safe system,” he said. “The continuing challenge for everyone in perpetuity is the notion that we are in the risk management business.”

Ridge’s former deputy secretary, Jim Loy, joined others on the panel in calling for the creation of a senior policy group to advise the secretary. He also said Congress should be careful not to appropriate money to combat only threats involving the airline industry.

“Had 9/11 occurred at a port or a train station, my suggestion is there would be a radically different flow of dollars,” Loy said. “It’s not just a matter of stopping planes from flying into buildings.”

Michael Chertoff now controls the reins at DHS, but Ridge always will be closely associated with it. He is somewhat philosophical when discussing the state of the country’s security today.

“It is a new norm,” Ridge said. “We now understand this is a part of the global environment. But we will not compromise the way we live.”