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Abolish FEMA?
By Richard White, Author of "The Department of Homeland Security"
On April 28, 2006, the Senate Committee On Homeland Security And Governmental Affairs released excerpts of its report, Hurricane Katrina: A Nation Still Unprepared, recommending the elimination of FEMA. While the Executive Summary rightfully exposes FEMA’s failure to adequately prepare and respond to the August 2005 disaster, the Senate’s solution to create a new National Preparedness and Response Authority (NPRA) begs the question whether this is a serious proposal or so much political posturing during an election year. The seeds of doubt are sown within the Senate report itself.
According to the report, Hurricane Katrina was the most destructive natural disaster in American history, laying waste to an area the size of the United Kingdom. In Mississippi, the storm surge obliterated coastal communities and left thousands destitute. New Orleans was overwhelmed by flooding. All told, more than 1500 people died.
Overarching failures cited by the Senate Committee as exasperating this tragedy are perhaps exemplified by the problem of evacuating New Orleans. The City of New Orleans had primary responsibility for evacuating its citizens. It had language in its emergency management plan stating the city’s intent to assist those who needed transportation, but had no actual provisions to implement that intent.
Compounding this oversight was the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, whose Secretary had personally accepted responsibility to arrange transportation for emergencies, but done nothing to prepare prior to Katrina. Between 2000 and 2003, FEMA’s own regional staff repeatedly advised FEMA headquarters in Washington that planning for evacuation and shelter for the “New Orleans scenario” was incomplete and inadequate, but FEMA failed to approach other federal agencies for help with transportation and shelter or to ensure that the City and State had the matters in hand.
Two days before Katrina made landfall, Governor Blanco stated in a letter to President Bush that she anticipated the resources of the state would be overwhelmed, but she made no specific request for assistance in evacuating the known tens of thousands of people without means of transportation, and a senior state official identified no unmet needs in response to a federal offer of assistance the following day. After Katrina struck, flooding in New Orleans drove thousands of survivors to attics and rooftops to await rescue. Some people were trapped in attics and nursing homes and drowned as the dirty waters rose around them.
The Senate solution to prevent future problems is to replace FEMA with NPRA. NPRA would replace FEMA substantially in name only. NPRA would be subordinate to the Department of Homeland Security, same as FEMA. NPRA would be responsible for centrally directing federal disaster relief, same as FEMA, and would apply the “all hazards” approach to emergency management – mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery –same as FEMA.
The NPRA Director would be in charge of a regionally distributed organization, same as FEMA, and the NPRA Director would deploy emergency response teams, though called regional strike teams, the same as FEMA. Amazingly, the one significant departure for the new organization is that the NPRA Director would have direct access to the President, purposely bypassing the Secretary of Homeland Security for which Director Michael Brown was seriously criticized in the Senate report. How can the Senate propose an organization change to fix a leadership problem?
Perhaps the Senate’s proposed solution is so much political posturing. Maybe after 8 months, 325 witnesses, 838,000 pages of documentation, and 22 hearings the Senate felt it necessary to justify its efforts to the public, especially during an election year. As the Senate labored on its investigation, the leadership problem was being worked with personnel changes, lessons learned, and a paradigm shift regarding major disasters.
The effects were evident by the significantly improved response to Hurricane Wilma a month later in October 2005. While it is important to consider the Senate’s proposal, it would be prudent not to launch an organizational upheaval that could potentially induce further confusion and lose some important gains, especially one month before the start of the 2006 hurricane season.
SBInet Meets The Multisector Workforce
By Jeff Erlichman, Publisher
Who is going to be doing the work that the government buys using the future SBInet contract? If you said “contractors” then you would be right. And that means contractors are going to be doing the work for which government managers are ultimately responsible and accountable.
Welcome to the world of the “Multisector or Blended Workforce”. And to make sure the contract works smoothly, the government has asked the main bidders – Northrop Grumman IT, Lockheed Martin IT, Ericcson and Raytheon – to include as part of the RFP their management plan. The RFP says:
“Provide a detailed management plan that describes the application of proactive and predictive management tools and techniques to manage the SBInet effort. This plan must include a discussion on the offeror's approach to: implementing transparent governance and reporting, a sound partnering approach grounded on shared goals and objectives, proactive problem identification and resolution, sourcing plan, approach and methodology for selecting the providers of goods and services under this effort, including certifications.”
Having this as part of the RFP is no accident. Today’s government program is a lot more about how you manage the contractor, then having a staff to do the work.
That means spelling out everything from who talks to who (and are they on the same level?) to how personnel conflicts are handled and everything in-between. When you have two workforces working together, often in the same space, with different sets of employee rules, regulations, behaviors, reporting structures and performance measures, then you are bound to have issues.
That’s why think tanks such as the National Academy of Public Administration have made the Multisector Workforce an initiative. It’s not that we all of a sudden have a government-contractor relationship to deal with, contractors have been around since the Revolutionary War. What government is realizing that it’s a different world managing rather than doing. And they better have the management skills to succeed in this “new-old” environment.
So, it’s no surprise that the most successful programs are the ones where a great attention is paid to interpersonal skills and communications – both oral and written. These are things that can’t be written into the contract, but are essential to the success of the program. What is heartening is that DHS recognizes the importance of having the government and the contractor on the same page. A lot of that hinges on being able to maximize the goals, and seek compromise, not conflict.
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VIEWPOINT: ROBERT GREEN, SENIOR EDITOR |
DOD’s Global Information Grid (GIG)
 If anything reliably distinguishes users of technology from builders it is that the sense of urgency always goes to the user. For office workers, factors such as productivity or efficiency might be at stake. These factors soar off the chart in the crucible of war. This is especially true in Iraq, where al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi holds sway over a hybrid insurgency that trades as much on terror as conventional tactics of war.
Read Robert Green's 3 part series on DOD's GIG.
(1): Technology In the Crucible of War
(2): The Future of War Is Now
(3): The Allure of Something New
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SAFE E-MAIL: DEES STALLINGS |
The Safe Side of the Send Button
 E-mail is the fastest, most convenient and cost-effective means of communicating in writing today. We write more today than in yesterday's paper-based environment. Our writing is read by more people, from more varied backgrounds. Our writing is less routine, demanding more thought in composing. The ease of composing and sending messages is unprecedented. MORE
March 24, 2006 • Volume 4 • Number 4
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SPECIAL ISSUE!
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Was Dubai Such A Bad Idea?
 Now that the Dubai ports deal has been squelched, questions remain as to whether Arab management of major U.S. ports constituted a unique threat to homeland security? Or would the Persian Gulf company set to take over operation of shipping hubs been under even greater pressure to install tough new security systems? MORE
Terrorist Hunter Addresses IntelCon, May 7-9
 Rita Katz, the author of Terrorist Hunter: The Extraordinary Story of a Woman Who Went Undercover to Infiltrate the Radical Islamic Groups Operating in America will speak at the IntelCon Conference, May 7-9. Katz has operated the Site Institute and its exhaustive www.siteinstitute.org resource since 2002, tracking the online doings of al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist groups. MORE
Next Generation Intel Now
 In 1994, the US intelligence community (IC) built an extensive intranet to deal with information overload. The “Intelink” is used to integrate and disseminate virtually every piece of information that the intelligence agencies report to their “customers,” from the White House to the warfighter. But that was then, and this is post-9/11. To meet this new challenge, the Intelink Management Office (IMO) has partnered with MetaCarta to build a next-generation intelligence dissemination and collaboration service called Intelligent Delivery Services (IDS). MORE
 Piracy - Down, Up (In Iraq), Foiled by LRAD
The good news is that 2005 marked a significant downturn in piracy events worldwide (but up in Iraq), with 276 total attacks at sea reported compared to 2004, when there were 329. Perhaps the best news about piracy in 2005 followed a November event when a luxury cruise ship reportedly used a newly deployed Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) to send an ear-splitting signal to would-be attackers, driving them back in the waters off Somalia. MORE
Freedom vs. Security
 “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.” – Benjamin Franklin
In the aftermath of September 11, a consensus quickly emerged that the tragedies were due in part to a breakdown in intelligence. Leaders from across the political spectrum questioned how al-Qaeda—a known terrorist network—had been able to plan and execute the September 11 attacks without attracting the attention of the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA), the Department of Defense, and other agencies charged with tracking terrorist threats. MORE
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Commentary from Richard White
Author of the New Book: "The Department of Homeland Security" |
National Security Service: American MI-5?
In the wake of the September 2001 attacks, the FBI was strongly criticized for failing to focus on the terrorist threat, for failing to collect and strategically analyze intelligence, and for failing to share intelligence with other intelligence agencies.[i]
An Office of Inspector General (OIG) report released June 9, 2005 found significant deficiencies in the FBI’s handling of intelligence information relating to the September 11 attacks. The OIG focused on the FBI’s handling of the Phoenix Electronic Communication (EC) and information about Hazmi and Mihdhar, two of the September 11 terrorists. [ii]
The Phoenix EC was a memorandum sent by an agent in the FBI's Phoenix office in July 2001 to FBI Headquarters and to the FBI's New York Field Office. The Phoenix EC outlined the agent's theory that there was a coordinated effort by Osama Bin Laden to send students to the United States to attend civil aviation universities and colleges for the purpose of obtaining jobs in the civil aviation industry to conduct terrorist activity.[iii] The FBI did little with the Phoenix EC before the September 11 attacks because of the FBI's inadequate analytical program, insufficient supervision of analysts in the program, the focus on operational priorities at the expense of strategic analysis, the failure to adequately share intelligence information, and the lack of adequate tools to facilitate information sharing within and outside the FBI.[iv]
OIG investigators also learned that prior to the September 11 attacks the Intelligence Community had acquired a significant amount of intelligence about two of the hijackers - Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar.[v] The OIG concluded that the FBI had at least five opportunities to uncover information that could have informed the FBI about these two terrorists' presence in the United States and led the FBI to seek to find them before September 11, 2001. But the FBI did not uncover this information until shortly before the September 11 attacks. The FBI's investigation then was conducted without much urgency or priority, and the FBI failed to locate Hazmi and Mihdhar before they participated in the attacks.[vi]
In response to the 9/11 attacks, Director Mueller vowed that the FBI would refocus its efforts, and concentrate on counterterrorism, counterintelligence and cyber crime as the Bureau’s three priorities. [vii] Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, Mr. Mueller has attempted to restructure the Bureau’s intelligence program. He has created a new Directorate of Intelligence (DI) at Headquarters and established Field Intelligence Groups (FIGs) at each of the FBI’s 56 field offices to improve the Bureau’s intelligence capacity.[viii]
In its July 2004 report, the 9/11 Commission essentially endorsed reforms the FBI initiated following the September 11 attacks, but called for an integrated national security workforce within the Bureau. Specifically, the Commission recommended that the FBI establish a specialized and integrated national security workforce consisting of agents, analysts, linguists, and surveillance specialists who are recruited, trained, rewarded, and retained to ensure the development of an institutional culture with a deep expertise in intelligence and national security. [ix]
In its report to the President, March 31, 2005, the WMD Commission expressed the view that while the FBI has made steps in the right direction since September 11, it still has many miles to travel. [x] The WMD Commission recommended combining the counterterrorism and counterintelligence resources of the Bureau to create a single National Security Service inside the FBI.[xi] The WMD further recommended that policymakers re-evaluate the wisdom of creating a separate agency—an equivalent to the British “MI-5”—dedicated to intelligence collection in the United States should there be a continued failure to institute the reforms necessary to transform the FBI into the intelligence organization it must become.[xii]
On June 29, 2005, the President issued a memorandum stating his acceptance of the WMD Commission’s recommendation that a National Security Service be established within the FBI. The President directed the Attorney General, in cooperation with the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and any other affected agencies, to implement the following initiatives: (1) combine the mission, capabilities and resources of the counterterrorism, counterintelligence and intelligence elements of the FBI into a new National Security Service, (2) obtain the concurrence of the DNI before an individual is appointed as head of the FBI’s National Security Service, (3) ensure the FBI’s National Security Service, both at headquarters and in the field, is funded though the National Intelligence Program ..., and (4) establish programs to build an FBI National Security Service workforce.... The White House directed that National Security Service be headed by an FBI “Executive Assistant Director (EAD) or other senior FBI Official of an equivalent or higher level of authority, experience, and responsibility.[xiii]
[i] Best, Richard A. Jr. (2005). “Intelligence Issues for Congress”. Congressional Research Service Brief for Congress, June 3, 2005. Pg. 14.
[ii] U.S. Department of Justice (2004). “A Review of the FBI’s Handling of Intelligence Information Related to the September 11 Attacks.” Office of the Inspector general, November 2004, redacted and unclassified (released publicly June 2005). Pg. 368.
[vii] Cumming, Alfred (2005). “Intelligence Reform Implementation at the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Issues and Options for Congress”. Congressional Research Staff Report for Congress, August 16, 2005. Pg. 16.
[x] WMD Commission (2005). “The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction”. Report to the President of the United States, March 31, 2005. Pg. 468.
[xii] WMD Commission (2005). “The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction”. Report to the President of the United States, March 31, 2005. Pg. 468.
[xiii] Cumming, Alfred (2005). “Intelligence Reform Implementation at the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Issues and Options for Congress”. Congressional Research Staff Report for Congress, August 16, 2005. Pg. 7.
Neutralizing the “Dirty Bomb” Threat?
 With all the recent attention focused on natural disasters, news from Australia that authorities arrested 16 suspected al-Qaida terrorists1 serves as a potent reminder of the continuing danger posed by terrorism.
The Homeland Security Council remains rightfully concerned about the detonation of a radiological dispersion device (RDD), commonly referred to as a “dirty bomb”, placing it among its list of top 15 disaster scenarios.2
RDDs fall into a class of devices categorized as weapons of mass destruction (WMD). While the WMD label implies large-scale human casualties, dirty bombs are considered “weapons of mass disruption” because of the far greater economic impact they would have by spreading radioactive contamination and rendering an area uninhabitable. Radioactive materials suitable for building RDDs are found in
everyday applications, including medical therapy, food irradiation, smoke detectors, communication devices, navigation beacons, and oil rigs.3
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has estimated that one licensed U.S. source is lost every day.4 In September 1987, five people died and 249 people were contaminated by cesium-137 when a radiotherapy machine was stolen from an abandoned clinic in Goiânia Brazil.5
In November 1995, Chechen rebels placed a 30-pound container of radioactive cesium in a Moscow park, demonstrating the means and ability of terrorists to build such a device.6 An RDD detonated in a major metropolitan area would kill scores of people, injure many more, and spread highly radioactive particles across some 10 city blocks.7
Many experts believe the health effects would be minimal, resulting in only four additional cancers for every 100,000 people exposed to that level of radiation, but they acknowledge the area would be rendered uninhabitable according to current Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines.8
Conventional decontamination involves removing radioactive material either by washing or demolishing the affected area. Washing or sandblasting is less effective since cesium, strontium, cobalt, and other potential bomb ingredients tend to bond with and seep into surfaces.9 Demolition is cost prohibitive and risks further spread of contamination. New developments, however, portend breakthroughs that may neutralize the threat from RDDs.
In its October 29th issue, Science News reported development of cost effective new materials capable of trapping and lifting radioactive particles from porous surfaces. The Virginia-based Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), a counterterrorism-research branch of the government, is funding research that’s now producing an assortment of prototype radiation-binding and –ridding gels, foams, films, and emulsions that can restore a contaminated zone with unprecedented speed, economy, and gentleness.10 Expected to be fielded within the next few years, these new materials may take the economic bite out of a “dirty bomb”, and render RDDs ineffective as weapons of mass disruption.
Notes:
1 Associated Press (2005). November 8, 2005.
2 The Homeland Security Council. (2004). “Planning Scenarios, Executive Summaries”. July 2004.
3 Peter D. Zimmerman & Cheryl Loeb. (2004) “Dirty Bombs: The Threat Revisited”. Defense Horizons. No. 38, pg. 2. Center for Technology and National Security Policy National Defense University. January 2004.
4 Ibid
5 Ibid, pg. 4.
6 Ford, James. (1998) “Radiological Dispersal Devices, Assessing the Transnational Threat”. Strategic Forum. No. 136. March 1998.
7 Weiss, Peter. (2005) “Ghost Town Busters”. Science News. Vol. 168, No. 18, pg. 282. October 29, 2005.
8 Medalia, Johathan. (2004). “Terrorist “Dirty Bombs”: A Brief Primer. Congressional Research Staff Report for Congress. April 1, 2004.
9 Ibid, pg. 283.
10 Weiss, Peter. (2005) “Ghost Town Busters”. Science News. Vol. 168, No. 18, pg. 282. October 29, 2005.
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