HOMELAND SECURITY
LEADERS IDENTIFY FUTURE GOALS FOR DEPARTMENT
Stronger, More Integrated Management and Operations
July 12, 2012
A
panel of homeland security leaders told the Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee Thursday that stronger, more integrated
management and operations at the Department of Homeland Security ranks
high among the objectives the Department must accomplish to better
fulfill its mission in the future.
At the second in a series of hearings looking at the past, present, and
future of homeland security and DHS, two former Department leaders and a
former Congresswoman with deep homeland security and intelligence
experience said progress has been made in key areas but operational
coordination, acquisition management, financial management, and IT
management remains splintered among the 22 legacy agencies and offices
that were incorporated into the Department when it was formed in 2003.
“As I look back, the Department has come an awfully long way in its
first decade,” said Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
Chairman Lieberman. “But this is a mission that has no final
destination. It has to continue to get better. The Department still has
a way to go to fully realize what we want it to be. So, in its second
decade the Department of Homeland Security will have to be as agile as
our enemies, and that may mean the Department will have to cut back in
some of its traditional areas of responsibility if they seem less
relevant to the threat and take that money and invest that money in
programs to meet the new threats that come along.”
Ranking
Member Susan Collins, R-Maine said: “The changing threat landscape at
home and abroad will require the Department to be nimble and
imaginative, effective and efficient, qualities not often associated
with large bureaucracies. Yet the men and women of DHS can take pride in
the absence of a successful large-scale attack on our country during the
past decade and in the Department’s contributions to thwarting numerous
terrorists’ plots”.
Witnesses noted that the Department had made substantial progress in a
number of respects, including international border screening, support
for state and local fusion centers, and enlisting the general public in
prevention via the See Something, Say Something program.
Witnesses included Jane Harman, Director of the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars; Admiral Thad Allen, former Commandant
of the U.S. Coast Guard; and Richard Skinner, former DHS Inspector
General and Chief Executive Officer of Richard Skinner Consulting.
