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CNN Live Today
Protecting the Homeland
Aired November 25, 2002 - 11:28 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.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, when President Bush signs the Homeland Security Act today, he will name Tom Ridge to head the new agency. Tom Ridge is currently director of the Office of Homeland Security.
CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider joins us with intrigue behind the scenes of this decision and all the implications.
Actually, it is pretty interesting, Bill, because it took the president quite a while to actually make it official that Ridge was going to be homeland security director. What did you find out?
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, what we found out from John King is that the White House intended to keep Ridge in reserve for a while just in case President Bush might need him to go on the ticket in 2004 to replace Dick Cheney. What they had to figure out was, did Cheney want to continue to stay on the ticket, and would the president decide to keep him on the ticket? It was only after it was clear that Cheney wanted to stay and the president would keep him that the way was clear for Ridge to take the homeland security job. He was known to be the White House' first choice for sometime, but first they had to make a decision about 2004 before it was clear for him to take this appointment.
LIN: Well, if Tom Ridge might have been the VP candidate, did they have a backup plan then.
SCHNEIDER: Well, Joe Albaugh was a possibility for the homeland security job. I'm sure a number of other names would have surfaced. Albaugh, of course,is already in the administration, one of President Bush's closest friends.
If Ridge had gone on the ticket, it would have been very interesting as well, because a lot of people know that Ridge is a supporter of abortion rights, and the president obviously felt secure enough with conservatives that he might have taken a risk putting him on the ticket, something he did not do in 2000 for fear of offending conservatives. But the president's in a far stronger position politically today.
LIN: You get.
SCHNEIDER: All right, let's talk a little bit more about the Office of Homeland Security. I mean, this is a massive reorganization. An editorial over the weekend in "The New York Times" said that it threatens to be the reorganization of the deck chairs on the Titanic, because when you take 22 federal agencies, put them under one roof, almost 200,000 employees, it sounds like the kind of massive bureaucracy that contributed to some of the mistakes made before the 9/11 attacks.
SCHNEIDER: That's what a lot of critics are saying. I think the White House view is the benefit of this in terms of national security is that more of these people will be directly under presidential supervision. They won't have the same civil service rules apply. Therefore, the president can promote people and fire people with greater discretion than he would with other departments.
The criticism you hear is that the two principal agencies in charge of national security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the FBI, are not part of this department. They're separate agencies.
So what people fear, what critics fear is you have yet more bureaucracy, three competing agencies, the CIA, the FBI, and the new Department of Homeland Security, each of whom is independently gathering information and each of whom will competing with the others.
LIN: And competing perhaps with each other for funding from Congress, as well.
So what have you been able to -- taking a look at the makeup of this agency, can you extract anything that supports the Bush administration's contention that we will be safer with the homeland security department?
SCHNEIDER: Well, principally, what I said, the president will have greater discretion, that there will coordination among some agencies that were totally separate agencies, like the Coast Guard, and the Border Patrol and the Customs Service. These are crucial agencies for guarding America's frontiers, and they were under very separate discretion, and in fact were pretty much detached from the intelligence functions.
At least those organizations will be considered primarily security organizations, not tariff collection organizations or immigration regulation, but security organizations. That now is their primary responsibility, and that's probably good.
LIN: Yes, and if the buck stops at the president's office, then it probably will take a couple of years before the department settles into its true role, and guess what, that's 2004. So...
SCHNEIDER: 2004, but the big question is why aren't the CIA and FBI part of this agency.
LIN: Do you have any theories? Yes, we'll find out.
Thank you very much, Bill Schneider, for joining us today.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired November 25, 2002 - 11:28 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, when President Bush signs the Homeland Security Act today, he will name Tom Ridge to head the new agency. Tom Ridge is currently director of the Office of Homeland Security.
CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider joins us with intrigue behind the scenes of this decision and all the implications.
Actually, it is pretty interesting, Bill, because it took the president quite a while to actually make it official that Ridge was going to be homeland security director. What did you find out?
WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, what we found out from John King is that the White House intended to keep Ridge in reserve for a while just in case President Bush might need him to go on the ticket in 2004 to replace Dick Cheney. What they had to figure out was, did Cheney want to continue to stay on the ticket, and would the president decide to keep him on the ticket? It was only after it was clear that Cheney wanted to stay and the president would keep him that the way was clear for Ridge to take the homeland security job. He was known to be the White House' first choice for sometime, but first they had to make a decision about 2004 before it was clear for him to take this appointment.
LIN: Well, if Tom Ridge might have been the VP candidate, did they have a backup plan then.
SCHNEIDER: Well, Joe Albaugh was a possibility for the homeland security job. I'm sure a number of other names would have surfaced. Albaugh, of course,is already in the administration, one of President Bush's closest friends.
If Ridge had gone on the ticket, it would have been very interesting as well, because a lot of people know that Ridge is a supporter of abortion rights, and the president obviously felt secure enough with conservatives that he might have taken a risk putting him on the ticket, something he did not do in 2000 for fear of offending conservatives. But the president's in a far stronger position politically today.
LIN: You get.
SCHNEIDER: All right, let's talk a little bit more about the Office of Homeland Security. I mean, this is a massive reorganization. An editorial over the weekend in "The New York Times" said that it threatens to be the reorganization of the deck chairs on the Titanic, because when you take 22 federal agencies, put them under one roof, almost 200,000 employees, it sounds like the kind of massive bureaucracy that contributed to some of the mistakes made before the 9/11 attacks.
SCHNEIDER: That's what a lot of critics are saying. I think the White House view is the benefit of this in terms of national security is that more of these people will be directly under presidential supervision. They won't have the same civil service rules apply. Therefore, the president can promote people and fire people with greater discretion than he would with other departments.
The criticism you hear is that the two principal agencies in charge of national security, the Central Intelligence Agency and the FBI, are not part of this department. They're separate agencies.
So what people fear, what critics fear is you have yet more bureaucracy, three competing agencies, the CIA, the FBI, and the new Department of Homeland Security, each of whom is independently gathering information and each of whom will competing with the others.
LIN: And competing perhaps with each other for funding from Congress, as well.
So what have you been able to -- taking a look at the makeup of this agency, can you extract anything that supports the Bush administration's contention that we will be safer with the homeland security department?
SCHNEIDER: Well, principally, what I said, the president will have greater discretion, that there will coordination among some agencies that were totally separate agencies, like the Coast Guard, and the Border Patrol and the Customs Service. These are crucial agencies for guarding America's frontiers, and they were under very separate discretion, and in fact were pretty much detached from the intelligence functions.
At least those organizations will be considered primarily security organizations, not tariff collection organizations or immigration regulation, but security organizations. That now is their primary responsibility, and that's probably good.
LIN: Yes, and if the buck stops at the president's office, then it probably will take a couple of years before the department settles into its true role, and guess what, that's 2004. So...
SCHNEIDER: 2004, but the big question is why aren't the CIA and FBI part of this agency.
LIN: Do you have any theories? Yes, we'll find out.
Thank you very much, Bill Schneider, for joining us today.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
