A great start to what is going to be a multi-part series on DHS in the WaPo today:
Born out of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, DHS was initially expected to synthesize intelligence, secure borders, protect infrastructure and prepare for the next catastrophe. For most of those missions, the bipartisan Sept. 11 commission recently gave the Bush administration D’s or F’s. To some extent, the department was set up to fail. It was assigned the awesome responsibility of defending the homeland without the investigative, intelligence and military powers of the FBI, CIA and the Pentagon; it was also repeatedly undermined by the White House that initially opposed its creation. But the department has also struggled to execute even seemingly basic tasks, such as prioritizing America’s most critical infrastructure.
It is nice to see someone reporting on one of the more adverse (even if it seems trivial) situations facing the folks at DHS headquarters: Finding a place to actually do some work:
Just before the department’s official March 1 start date, the Chantilly deal fell through and DHS ended up in a decrepit Navy complex on Nebraska Avenue in Upper Northwest, several miles from the rest of federal Washington. Top DHS officials had to share desks in a “gulag-like” hangar at Building 3; the White House initially told them it was temporary quarters until a new “campus” was commissioned. But the talk of a new home for the department quickly stopped.
I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the story, and I’m sure that my colleagues who accepted what seemed like attractive jobs at DHS are looking forward to some action.
