AGA Today
GAO Criticizes Homeland
Security's Efforts to Fulfill Its Mission
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 6, 2007; A10
Hobbled by inadequate funding, unclear
priorities, continuing reorganizations and the absence of an overarching
strategy, the Department of Homeland Security is failing to achieve its
mission of preventing and responding to terrorist attacks or natural
disasters, according to a comprehensive report by the Government
Accountability Office.
The highly critical report disputes
recent upbeat assessments by the Bush administration by concluding that
the DHS has failed to make even moderate progress toward eight of 14
internal government benchmarks more than four years after its creation.
The report is to be released to
lawmakers today, as the Democratic Congress, Republican White House and
presidential candidates from both parties are beginning to debate the
administration's record of accomplishments since the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks, whose sixth anniversary will be on Tuesday.
It echoes a sober report card issued by
the former Sept. 11 commission in December 2005, which awarded mostly
failing and mediocre grades to the administration's efforts to prevent
another terrorist attack
The GAO states that after the largest
government merger in more than half a century, the DHS met fewer than
half of its performance objectives, or 78 of 171 directives identified
by President Bush, Congress and the department's own strategic plans.
The department strongly disputed the report.
In one of its harshest conclusions, the
320-page document states that the DHS has made the least progress toward
some of the fundamental goals identified after the 2001 attacks and
again after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005: improving emergency
preparedness; capitalizing on the nation's wealth and scientific prowess
through "Manhattan project"-style research initiatives; and eliminating
bureaucratic and technical barriers to information-sharing.
Yesterday, Senate Homeland Security
Committee Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) said that although the
DHS "has made important progress," it requires more focused attention
and money. "Clearly, we have a long way to go before the department
achieves the goals we set out for it four and a half years ago," said
Lieberman, who will chair a hearing on the matter this afternoon.
The panel's ranking Republican, Sen.
Susan Collins (Maine), who faces a reelection race next year, also
called on the DHS to "pick up the pace. . . . With so much at stake and
so many areas where progress is still required, America cannot settle
for a mixed report card."
At a hearing before the House Homeland
Security Committee yesterday, Secretary Michael Chertoff sought to
preempt the GAO's findings, saying the Bush administration has
"unequivocally" made the nation safer since 2001 and deserves credit for
the absence of another strike on U.S. soil.
At the time, "no one would have been
bold enough to predict that six years would pass without a further
successful attack on the homeland," Chertoff said. He also complained
that Congress itself has failed to streamline its oversight of the DHS.
Analysts from across the political
spectrum have complained that the DHS has spent $241 billion over four
years without performing a disciplined analysis of threats and
implications.
The GAO report is the most exhaustive
and independent look at the department since its creation, drawing on
more than 400 earlier reviews and 700 recommendations by congressional
investigators and the department's inspector general, as well as the
goals set by the Sept.11 commission, the Century Foundation,
congressional legislation and spending bills, and the administration's
own plans and internal strategic documents, such as the White House's
National Strategy for Homeland Security from July 2002.
GAO analysts acknowledged that DHS's
enormous size and complexity -- spanning 220,000 employees and 22
component agencies -- make the challenge "especially daunting and
important." They also said they do not intend to suggest that the DHS
should have already met all expectations. "Successful transformations of
large organizations, even those faced with less strenuous
reorganizations than DHS, can take at least 5 to 7 years to achieve,"
the GAO stated.
Still, although prior studies focused
on the DHS's many organizational problems -- leading Chertoff to direct
the department to sharpen its focus after he took office in February
2005 -- the report indicates that it still has difficulty carrying out
policy decisions and setting priorities.
The DHS met only five of 24 criteria
for emergency preparedness, failing to implement a national response
plan or develop a program to improve emergency radio communications. The
department met just one of six science and technology goals, such as
developing research and development plans and assessing emerging
threats; and two of 15 computer integration targets, the report says.
Moderate progress, which the GAO
defined as taking action on more than half of identified goals, was made
in only five of 14 areas -- immigration enforcement; aviation, land and
transportation security; securing critical facilities such as bridges,
power plants and computer networks; and property management -- and
substantial progress in just one, maritime and port security.
DHS Undersecretary for Management Paul
A. Schneider said that the GAO should have graded the department higher
on 42 of 171 directives. The GAO relied on a flawed methodology that
"fails to accurately reflect the Department's progress in many specific
program areas," he said in a formal 42-page response.
Schneider also said investigators
relied on outdated reports, applied vague, shifting and inconsistent
grading standards, and set up an unfair, "pass-fail" approach to
assessing a spectrum of progress that should be expected to take many
years.
"The GAO Report treats all of the
performance expectations as if they were of equal significance,"
Schneider said. "In contrast, the Department uses a risk-based approach
to consider its overall priorities," adding that the DHS has met 37 of
50 objectives in securing transportation modes, which were targeted in
the 2001 attacks.
"It's a very damning report," said
Michael Greenberger, director of the University of Maryland's Center for
Health and Homeland Security and a Justice Department official in the
Clinton administration. "If you look at these grades, nearly one-third
fall into the lowest category, and among those third are critically
important, almost foundational tasks upon which the others rest."