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American Morning

Bush Says Plan to Restructure Homeland Security Part of Titanic Struggle Against Terror

Aired June 07, 2002 - 08:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Up front this morning, President Bush says his plan to restructure homeland security is a part of what he calls the titanic struggle against terror. Now, while most members of Congress support the plan, some of them say it amounts to little more than reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.

CNN congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl is standing by with more reaction from Capitol Hill -- good morning, Jonathan.

JONATHAN KARL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

You know, that Titanic reference came from Senator Kennedy. But even Senator Kennedy also said that he thought that this was a step in the right direction. And, as a matter of fact, yesterday, within hours yesterday morning of the White House announcing that they would make an announcement on this, my in box was stuffed with statements from the big four congressional leaders, Republicans Lott and Hastert, Democrats Daschle and Gephardt all putting out statements saying that they believe that this is a step in the right direction, this is a positive thing, offering their enthusiastic support for the idea of creating a Department of Homeland Security.

And perhaps the most enthusiastic support up here on Capitol Hill has come from the president's old rival from campaign 2000, Joe Lieberman.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: I'm very grateful the president has made this proposal tonight. I think the sooner we get it adopted, the sooner the American people can feel safer. The position that Tom Ridge was given is the most important and difficult one in the federal government today, but he wasn't given any power to get the job done. It wasn't working. And I think this will help him make it work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: But despite those initial glowing reviews, getting this thing through Congress any time soon is going to be a monumental task. Consider the jurisdictional problem here. You have 88 committees on Capitol Hill that have some -- committees and subcommittees that have some form of jurisdiction over what the president wants to put into this new department. There's the chart. That chart was included in the president's plan to underscore this point. Everybody from the appropriations committees to committees like the agriculture subcommittee on livestock and horticulture have some form of jurisdiction over this.

So the biggest question here to begin with, Paula, is which committee will get the power to begin crafting this legislation, trying to turn this into legislation that could then be signed into law to create that new department? This is a big task, Paula, and I'll tell you, there are only 60 legislative days left in the Senate, only 50 legislative days left in the House this year, so there's not a lot of time to get this through to meet the president's deadline. Remember, he wants this thing up and running by January 1.

ZAHN: I heard someone this morning saying that even if it did get up and running by the first of the year, it will take five years before it's even running as a smooth department.

KARL: That's right. Paul Lightman (ph) said that. He's an expert on the federal bureaucracy at the Brookings Institution. He said that this is, you know, pointing out what a lot of people are saying, when is this is the biggest restructuring of the federal government since WWII. It doesn't happen overnight.

ZAHN: All right, Jonathan Karl, thanks so much.

Thanks for the good day here in Washington, too.

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