Chertoff reorganizes DHS, creates policy office
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff Wednesday proposed to eliminate the Border and Transportation Security directorate that oversees the activities of agencies such as Customs and Border Protection as part of a broad effort to streamline policymaking and management and allow him to put his stamp on the two-year-old department.
Under the reorganization plan, CBP, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Transportation Security Administration would report directly to the secretary, or possibly the deputy secretary, without having to go through an intermediate layer of management.
The restructuring plan calls for moving many functions of Border and Transportation Security to a new Directorate of Policy and a Director of Operations Coordination.
The changes come after a three-month top-to-bottom review of the department ordered by Chertoff after he took office in March to find ways to improve how the department is protecting the nation from terrorists.
The Directorate of Policy is designed to set consistent policy throughout the department. Critics had said policymaking was scattered between BTS and various agencies and other offices within the department. DHS has been under pressure to realign its command structure since December when Heritage Foundation and the Center for Strategic and International Studies published a report calling for the elimination of BTS and better policy integration.
Chertoff essentially signed off on a plan announced in February by his predecessor, Tom Ridge, to create a department-wide policy shop devoted to identifying long-term threats and how to bring resources to bear on top priorities. The Directorate of Policy would also encompass the Office of International Affairs, the Office of Private Sector Liaison and the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Ridge's team had proposed the creation of an Office of Policy Planning and International Affairs headed by an assistant secretary, but under Chertoff's plan the directorate would have increased status at the under secretary level.
Chertoff called on Congress to approve the high-level management changes.
Other structural changes include renaming the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate the Directorate for Preparedness and the creation of a new assistant secretary for cyber security and telecommunications.
The reorganization was part of a six-point agenda Chertoff announced for improving the department. Chertoff said new policy initiatives would soon be forthcoming that would add personnel, technology, infrastructure protection and interior immigration enforcement to improve border security.
He said cargo security will be bolstered by a 'Secure Freight' initiative intended to gather historical information about a shipment from its point of origin and better target exams to risky or unverified cargo. The initiative appears to build on the Advanced Trade Data Security Initiative being tested by CBP to get information from importers earlier in the supply chain.
Chertoff said every department decision would be guided by risk-management techniques to more efficiently target resources to areas of greatest vulnerability or threats of national consequence
