committee on homeland security will come to order the committee is meeting today to consider what the future of homeland security listen making at the white house should look like and whether or not they exist in national security council and homeland security council structures should be reconsidered the homeland security council was stood up in two thousand and one in the wake of september eleventh attacks to enhance our nation's ability to  deter prevent and respond to terrorism later that year when congress authorized the creation of the department of homeland security the decision was made to also codified into law the homeland security council the language of tyana and said for the composition and mission of the council the homeland security council is responsible for providing advice to the president on homeland security policies based on assessments of our nation's it is also charged with overseeing reviewing and making recommendations to the president on federal homeland security policies in its short history the homeland security council by most accounts has been an important driver for peritonitis and response activities throughout the nation with a change it in a stray sion the timing is right for asking key questions about whether how x key questions about whether how we've been doing homeland security policy making over the past eight years is still the right way to go the president is to be commended for ishan presidential directive a started team to examine how to improve security policy making at the white house as the study team is hard at work developing its recommendations i thought it would benefit the committee for us to hear from people who know all too well about the challenges of the current homeland security policy making apparatus i think are the sting panel of witnesses for being here to participate in one of our favorite washington pastime the game of speculation for my part i been given some thought to the potential outcomes of the study which would emerge in late april and see it going one of three ways number one they could propose dissolving the homeland security council into the national security council number two they could propose retaining two council system that is more integrated or number three they could propose eliminating both councils in favor of creating a new council to handle a full continuum of security issues everything from nonproliferation to emergency response there are strong cases to be made for better integration of homeland security and national security policies whether the structural merger of the two white house counsels is the best way to achieve better integration remains to be seen however this committee given our oversight responsibility has a vested interest in making certain that whatever comes out of the white house review actually enhances homeland security findings should be able to pass a basic three part test number one first will the findings enhanced the nation's security second will the department of homeland security is effectiveness be boasted and will the findings enhanced a voice of state local and tr our nation's first preventives in the white house i look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on this important issue and now recognize a ranking member of the full committee the gentleman from new york mr king for an opening statement fully formed opinion on this my inclination right now my belief is that we should not be separating out the homeland security council from the national security council and having said that i don't think it's any guaranteed system which ensure success or one which would bring about failure access would work and a lot does depend on the personalities involved a lot does depend on the extent the relationship will depend on other people at the council including the head of the n s a my concern though is putting in place a system which would work even if all of the actors all the characters are not doing their job perfectly have a system in place where things do go wrong the system itself would better provide for  success and i just have a number of concerns about what would happen if there were a merger and there were not this excellent relationship between the president and the homeland security advisor for instance my concern is this is true of the congress of the country that each day we go beyond september eleventh the issue of homeland security recesses into people's minds they forget the significance of i forget but they put it away and it doesn't have that cutting edge importance that i believe should have it all time that's just human nature and we are going to be having ongoing conflicts whether to iraq or afghanistan or rather that's just the reality of the world we live in where we're going to have i'm going foreign crises and human nature for more the day is and i just see that could more and more be foreign policy is supposed to homeland security and i know they're overlapping i know the interlacing ship between the two obviously but on the other hand there are also real distinctions between the two and so again i would have the concern that those distinctions wouldn't be could run the risk of not being fully appreciated realize as we go forward and also i say this and i know that ms harman probably disagrees with influence ministration that homeland security would not have that sense of importance that it obviously had after september eleventh and the years after that because of that inclination right now is to think that the   as assistant for homeland security intact counterterrorism he's previously served in leadership positions at the f b i and a first assistant attorney general for national security at the u s department of justice  miss townsend served as assistant to president george bush for homeland security and counterterrorism from two thousand and four to two thousand and eight as of sometime this week  she is now with baker botts l p as a partner congratulations nothing like a real job right congratulations and prior to her service at the white house she's strategic preparedness and has authored major papers in the area of emergency preparedness mr fraser is executive director of the major cities chiefs association which represents the police chief of the fifty six largest police agencies in the united states and canada welcome also mr frazier mr hoffman is currently a professor at the school of foreign service at georgetown university he is a thought leader and a recognized scholar in counterterrorism and national security affairs without objection the witnesses for statement will be inserted in the record now recognize each witness to summarize here her statement for five minutes beginning chairman thompson ranking member king members of the committee thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today i want to thank the committee for holding this hearing and for its invaluable work over the years to build this homeland security infrastructure that protects our nation  people i applaud president obama's decision to undertake a review of the structure of the homeland security council this time i also completely agree with his statement that quote homeland security is indistinguishable from national security if there's one lesson that we learned from the attacks of september eleventh it was that the traditional distinctions between international security and domestic security have lost much of their meaning while it is true that homeland security is part and parcel of national security it does not necessarily follow that there has to be a single unified coordinating mechanism for both converse lee the fact that homeland security is a priority doesn't necessarily mean that the white house has to devote interagency council to that mission whenever we undertake to organize or to reorganize government operations there's a natural tension between the interest in having all relevant operations in a unitary structure and the countervailing interest in separating those operations to ensure the each has its own identity and the resources support and high level attention that often come with that separate identity i've seen this issue play out in different contexts at other points in my career when i served at the f b i for example the nine eleven commission and others engaged in a lengthy debate over whether the bureau's intelligence function to remain consolidated with its law  law enforcement function or be separated out and assigned to a new agency similarly several years back there was a debate between the debate whether the department of justice intelligence attorneys and national security prosecutors remain in separate divisions or be consolidated into a single new division and issue that congress result by creating the national security division i had the honor to lead each of these debates highlighted the tradeoffs of play when deciding whether to separate or consolidate government functions  organizational issue before the committee today highlights the same tradeoffs in deciding whether to keep or to change the current structure it's useful to review the accomplishments that the current structure has achieved these include first and foremost the fact of the very existence of the h s c send a clear message that homeland security was and remains a high priority second the homeland security council coordinated and oversaw the growth of myriad homeland security functions they were under developed nascent or simply non existent pride nine eleven third to stand up to the allow the white house to assemble a staff with expertise in homeland security fields like port security pandemic planning and disaster response some of which understandably did not figure very prominently in the white house staffing prior to that time also the agency played an important role in fostering the growth of maturation of the newly established department of homeland security by helping d h us work to difficult interdisciplinary issues with other agencies and departments in keeping its issues and concerns on the president's agenda and lastly the existence of the agency relieve the national security advisor the responsibility of overseeing the homeland security buildup i cite these benefits not to suggest that they will accrue only if we retain the current structure but rather to ensure that these benefits are considered and taken into account when deciding how to reconfigure that structure my experience is homeland security adviser let me firmly convinced that the white house must exercise a strong coronated role among the various players that share in that mission are there for believe that any new policy coordinate structure should meet the following prerequisites first the person serving the function of the homeland security advisor no matter what his or her title should be vested with the requisite authority and stature to coordinate and broker agreements among cabinet officers and departments second to homeland security advisor should have said actually the president there are the interagency process devoted to homeland security issues no matter whether conducted under agency or under a combined entity should have the same status an authority is that devoted to national security issues also those who work within the homeland within the new structure will need to work cooperatively inclusion in those areas are shared and overlapping responsibilities that necessarily arise between the homeland national security portfolios and finally the white house should make sure to devote the resources necessary to build and maintain a homeland security staff with the requisite expertise and size to handle the vast  portfolio mission any organizational model that follows these operating principles has the potential both to maintain the priority of homeland security and to build upon and improve the performance of the agency under the current structure i thank the committee for soliciting my views on this important subject and i applaud you for holding this hearing your concern about the subject is a strong reminder that homeland security is and must remain a front burner issue and it helps to ensure the homeland security cordon aiding structure of the future will be strong effective and recognized biology a critically important piece of our national security apparatus thank you mr chairman and ranking member king and i look forward to answering your questions thank you very much for your testimony and i recognize miss townsend to s statement for five minutes thank you mr chairman i'd like to thank you for the opportunity at that particular privilege for me to appear before this committee mr chairman because congressman king is my hometown congressman and i have had the privilege of working with not only you sir but i'm not i will hold that against a number of members on the committee congresswoman harman congressman carney so it's a real privilege for me to be here today there is no more solemn responsibility that the president  protect the american people and during my four and a half years at the white house i came to believe that for this reason organization should be dictated by effectiveness how best to maximize effectiveness will inevitably change over time as we as a country continue to weaken al qaeda and other enemies and as the department of homeland security gains strength you will not be surprised based on your experience with me therefore that my view of this issue is a pragmatic one this is not one that i think lends itself to sort of an easy assessment of an organizational chart and i'd like to just suggest to you a framework in which you might consider this issue i think it really comes down to three fundamental criteria of any organization first there has to be a single person who is both responsible and accountable to the president who monitors threat information and who has the authority to marshal all instruments of national power military intelligence law enforcement e economic diplomatic and public diplomacy to defeat the threat the individual cannot wait until threats arrive on our shores but must have the responsibility and means to identify those threats where they originate into and ensure a coordinated response to them the president's homeland security adviser must not be constrained by geographic boundaries that our enemies do not respect second the homeland security adviser must have direct immediate access to the president ultimately if terrorist successfully were to strike the united states it is the president not his staff who will be held rightly held accountable by the american people for the failure the homeland security adviser must be able to get to the president quickly without the clearance from his or her colleagues in the white house unfortunately there will be times when american lives are at stake and the president will need to be advised and operational decisions taken and communicated to the relevant cabinet secretary in real time these sorts of crises do not lend themselves to normal bureaucratic process third the homeland the homeland security issues faced by our government are diverse and many they range from preparedness and response to natural disasters to pandemic planning and biological and nuclear threats these issues are often distinct from the more traditional foreign policy issues faced by the national security council and require experienced staff with significant expertise the staff must understand state and local emergency management policy issues and concerns and in that regard during time i had the privilege to work with mr frazier and a number of other state and local local officials the white house must be organized not simply to facilitate the homeland security policy process but also to anticipate and respond to state and local political political leaders in times of crisis the homeland security adviser requires adequate staffing to deal with both counterterrorism and homeland security issues mr chairman i do believe we remain a nation at war with a very determined enemy we have troops deployed in both iraq and afghanistan but the national security leaks curat advisor has many important responsibilities in addition to those two theaters for example he must contend with the middle east peace process counterproliferation around the world in places like iran and north korea i worry that increasing the span of control of the national security adviser could dilute the news of the homeland security mission and make it just one more item on an already overburdened list that said i wish to be clear we should judge any reorganization by the substance and criteria that i have suggested above we must be careful not to assume that a merger means the president cares less about homeland security and we must resist as i have said this easy organizational chart test and look to the substance of how responsibilities are allocated and how we are being protected again i would suggest that the committee look at three fundamental questions one is there one person responsible and accountable to the president who looks around the world at threats and advis the president second does this one person have direct and immediate access to the president and third does this person have adequate staff to fulfill his or her responsibilities both at a national level and to state and local leaders these are the questions that we should be asking in the criteria against which we should judge this effort mr chairman ranking member king i appreciate the opportunity to be here and i look forward to answering your question thank you very much for your testimony i now recognize m to summarize his statement for five minutes chairman thompson ranking member king members of the committee as i have reviewed the plethora of reports and recommendations on how we might reorganize homeland security council and as i've listened carefully to the rumors emerging from the p s t one interview process i have become concerned that well intended parties are trying to remove politics from homeland security this would be a serious mistake i hope we can minimize partisanship in homeland security but in my judgment we need more not less politics in homeland security and the homeland security council is uniquely positioned to play a crucial role in domestic political organization for homeland security the homeland security council is a political creature it is the legitimate child of the executive and the legislature both mother and father wanted it the executive has been inclined i think to treat the h s c as its sole creation but congress was wise enough to enshrine h s c in title nine of the homeland security act there is joint custody this joint custody gives the h s c its legitimacy and provides the foundation for its potential coming of age as a profoundly important political player i suggest three special the important roles for homeland security council first supporting the president's role in prevention mitigation response and recovery to see catastrophic threats of every sort intentional accidental and natural second supporting the president's role and working with the governors and the homeland security leadership of the states in framing and executing a shared strategy of prevention mitigation response and recovery and third fulfilling the risk assessment role of the homeland security council as set out in title nine the congress perhaps someone on this committee bestowed on your child a crucial responsibility section nine zero four the title states that the first function of the h s c is to assess the objectives commitments and risks to the united states in the interest of homeland security this is precisely right assessing our comparative risk is the essential foundation of homeland security assessing risk is a profoundly political process risk assessment can and must draw on technical resources but choosing which risk is most risky is a political choice by which i mean it is a choice that can only be made by people of different perspectives who come together to reason with one another it is especially important that the federal government reason together with the states on preparedness prevention mitigation response recovery and other activities that will seem exotic to specialists in the national security sphere practically the states have the local resources to prevent mitigate respond and recover constitutionally the states are where the founders meant for such power and authority principly to reside this nuanced and gauge ment in domestic politics strikes me is ill matched to the strengths of the national security council than n s c behaves as it ought to support the president's role as commander in chief the role of the president and his administration in working with the state is an entirely different matter the federal and state governments need to reason together the department of homeland security cannot do this alone as a former governor secretary in a politician no can do it better the mo d the sky and the new assistant secretary for intergovernmental programs will contribute a great deal but the department to do its work work effectively must have an ongoing and meaningful dialogue going on between the white house and the governor's mansion on shared homeland security policy and strategy as you know so well politics is about building coalitions and motivating support for tough choices when the choices are too tough politics cultivates self interested compliance through a process of shared choosing in homeland security we must make tough choices the president's homeland security adviser and his or her h s c just staff should be and are needed to be the president's trusted agents in crafting the political compact of the state to make those tough choices i look forward to answering your question thank you very much for your testimony and i recognize mr frazier to summarize his statement for five minutes german johnson ranking member carrying members of the community thank you for the opportunity to discuss a potential merger the national security council and the homeland security council my name is tom frazier i'm the executive director of the major city police chiefs association m c c is the association of chiefs of the fifty six largest municipal police departments in the united states they're the chief executive officers of departments located in metropolitan areas of more than half a million and employ more than a thousand law enforcement officers collectively these departments are first responders to over fifty million residents in our country  february twenty third of this year president obama issued presidential directive one on organizing homeland security and counterterrorism the assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism was instructed to lead an inner agency review of ways to reform the organization the directive requires this review to be completed within sixty days before discussing our specific views on the potential merger of the n s c and the h s c i'd like to set the stage a bit by articulating our perspective of these two organizations and how we as local first responders fit into their respective missions first the n s c established by the national defense act in one thousand nine hundred eighty seven the n s c was originally defined as an organization dealing in military and diplomatic issues beyond the u s borders the n s c was and is staffed by personnel from d o d the state department and subject matter experts with an intelligence community background in a speedy one signed by president george bush on february thirteenth one reiterated this in a sea focus by stating national security includes the defense of united states of america protection of our constitutional system of government and the advancement of u s interests around the globe national security also depends on america's opportunity to prosper and the world economy external focus fulfills a vital national need but has no components with backgrounds or experience in dealing with the vastly different needs  mission was defined as ensuring coordination of all homeland security related activities among executive departments and agencies in promoting the effective development and implementation of all homeland security policies we see the missions of these two bodies as being fundamentally different these differences become clear when you look at the backgrounds of the principal decision makers national security decision makers are primarily federal and accustomed to working at a high level of federal engagement homeland security decision constitutional responsibilities of state governments of these partners on nearly every issue now let's consider jurisdictions a fundamental concept in law enforcement the n s c deals with military and diplomatic issues beyond the jurisdictions of state tribal governments deals in an entirely different environment where states have constitutionally defined responsibilities over domestic incidents that the federal government may not share response to disasters belongs with the jurisdiction in which it occurs the homeland security continuum of present prevent protect respond recover one in which the federal role is to plan and coordinate and support effective programs which build their collective national capacity for implementation of the activities mentioned earlier our recent experience with the new federal energy specifically the national counterterrorism center and its state and local analytic cell is also instructive presidential advis whose sole civility was home homeland security was critically important to our nation's internal ability to identify domestic security threats as our newly combined efforts come to maturity policy and funding issues that would be lost in an international effort will still receive the focus and importance it is required when viewed from these perspectives it is clear to state and local at the state local level of government that our role in the n o c is minimal our partners in the emergency management and fire professions agree it is equally clear that our collective roles in the agency are fundamental we do not advocate preservation of the status quo there are clearly areas where the h s c can be significantly improved which may be a good topic for a follow on hearing but we see a let's pursue these first of all also working to improve the budget staffing and subject matter expertise within the agency itself on behalf of the major city chiefs association i want to thank you for allowing him c c to submit his comments on the important work that you do we look forward to continued interaction with the committee on strategies to address this in future issues and i would be happy to answer any questions you may have thank you very much for your testimony i now recognize professor hoffman to summarize his statement for five minutes thank you mr chairman and ranking member king for the opportunity to testify before the committee on this important issue bob i'm in somalia don't worry about me i'm ok with how seventeen year old  worried mother discovered where her saw that god weeks after he and five other somali american youths disappeared from their homes in the minneapolis st paul area according to up the solomon a teacher and community leader up to now no one knows who recruited them but they obvious we did not wake up one morning and decide to go to somalia suspicions of focused on a largely unknown radical somali organization called al shabaab interestingly the most credible terrorist threat that had surrounded b nonetheless showed important light on the al be it obscure terrorist group that in fact presents u s authorities with the most serious evidence today of a homegrown terrorist recruitment problem right here in the american heartland more worrisome still is the fact that the first time authorities reportedly learned of this potential threat was when the families of the three boys came forward with information about their departure recently new evidence has come to light which suggests that the six somali americans were only part of a larger contingent of u s citizens lured to somalia as many as thirty persons are believed to have left the united states to train in terrorism and guerrilla warfare in that violence plagued east african country indications that recruitment of u s nationals to train in somalia was not a problem restricted to the minneapolis st paul area have also surface these developments raise a new serious concerns about america's homeland security and the threat of new terrorist attacks protecting and securing the united states from terrorism it has long been argued ultimately depends on state local and tribal law enforcement officers who are both the first and last lines of homeland defense the familiarity with the communities which they patrol enables these officers to observe and detect criminal activity that may indicate a terrorist plot and the story it's commission hence effectively countering terrorism is more than a technical issue involving top down federal guidance direction and intelligence dissemination rather acquirers that state local and tribal agencies have the requisite training education knowledge and up to date intelligence to identify and respond effectively and appropriately to these threats given that my expertise is on terrorists and their behavior not on the u s government and its bureaucratic national security structure i cannot provide a definitive answer in respect of the proposal to fold the h s c into the n s c what does though seem clear is that this proposed consolidation will only work provided that state local tribal law enforcement have a strong forceful and credible representative and advocate on the n s e governing all matters pertaining to homeland security that is not only terrorism but disaster preparedness and response infrastructure protection border security immigration incident management and health and medical planning and response the united states has of course come a long way since the establishment of the h s c in the d h s s in terms of both the capacity and capability to defend our nation against terrorist attack but as the somali case and the surprising international reach of a hit a true obscure and local terrorist movement demonstrates we are faced with a continuing terrorist threat from al  associated movements that as it once is operationally durable as it is evolutionary and elusive in character accordingly and so dynamic a threat environment our responses and preparations need to be equally as evolutionary flexible and robust president obama's first presidential study directive embraces this notion and it's call for a comprehensive interagency review of our national and homeland security architecture although the logic behind the statement is priority acknowledge that homeland security incompetence concepts and missions that do not necessarily fit confortable with traditionally defined national security priorities and concerns for the president and congress will need to be convinced that state local and tribal homeland security authorities we'll have a forceful champion any reorganization of the h s c who could effectively serve as their advocate explaining their needs and expectations and ensuring federal response of this these needs will invariably be different from traditional national security concerns because states and localities not federal agencies will often be in the lead in many homeland security missions in some the cop on the street may likely be the key player in disrupting and preventing a terrorist incident police offices not only need to know what to look for but what they are looking for may be a small piece of a larger puzzle that may reveal broader links with terrorists either in this country  for and i guess to the five of you if you could for me if the president ultimately decided to dissolve the homeland security council and if legislations require  going forward what can you tell us as to how we can best ensure state and local tribal partners will be integrated into the policy making apparatus  entity that are liaison to state local and tribal or an advisory committee for both and there have been some look back to the eight sack advisory committee that was instituted seven years ago and how that fared wh was the extent to which was effective or not it not sufficiently effective in keeping state local and linked up and my sense is in talking to the folks who are doing the study for president obama as a day are looking at a number from mechanisms like that and are very focused on the concern of keeping a tight connection with state local and tribal so they propose might well have some feature like that which i guess could become a piece of any resulting legislation that comes out of  congress my concern about liaison's and advisory committees is that they tend not to be have daily input sort of be part of the d n a of the new organization sufficient and bring sufficient muscle to it  one of the things that i had tried to do was very difficult at the time but i think needs to be looked at is actually integrating state and local officials into the council whatever the structure is actually having them serve so there's a daily  a daily reminder one of the most beneficial things in my background was the fact that i had been a local prosecutor before i entered the federal government and my understanding was based on my own experience and so bring in people like that i work with commissioner kelly of the n y p d to have an officer assigned so that i had somebody constantly looking at every issue and bringing that perspective to it and i think that's important and it's not sufficient for just to be in the department the department does have an inner inner governmental liaison you need somebody at the political level at the white house who's engaging with political leaders at the state and local level including chiefs of police and elected officials german it is as the brings the state and local perspective to national counterterrorism center and a valuable perspective the traditional intelligence collection world does not see things through the same lens that an experienced state and local investigator or or executive does and i use an example to say that that inside the n s c it would be necessary to have a a and i agree with this townsend full time component that can represent that point of view  our perpetual difficulty with with department homeland security is that there are so few law and fire practitioners in the decision making machinery th e things occur that when you have to put them into practice on the ground they just don't make sense and the only way to in my view  prevent those kinds of mistakes from occurring is to have someone out of level to provide input before decisions are made thank you professor hoffman well the benefits of going last i agree completely of frasier i think the stakeholders in homeland security issues are very different from those in stereotypical national security issues and there has to be that strong representation present in the white house as well as at the d h s s thank you gentleman from new till now has strong personalities competing interests best of intentions but turf battles become reality and based on your experience if the homeland security advisor is not at that independent status what are the chances a dominant personality as a head of the n s a does not share your concerns on homeland security and be very well intentioned could that freeze you out or minimize the importance of the homeland security congressman king you're absolutely right i mean i enjoyed an extraordinary relationship both with secretary rice when she was the national security advisor and remember steve hadley was a deputy an equal of mine before he was promoted and then he and i were both his assistance to the president so i didn't have that problem i will tell you my concern about the merger is if that's why i said one of my fundamental criteria is direct access to the president if  a reorganization and a merger is that the homeland security has to report through the national security adviser yeah you do have the opportunity for that person if there's a conflict or if there's a personality problem between the two to be frozen out of the out of the process to influence directly the i didn't i don't i have a lot of confidence in both jim jones and john brennan so i don't imagine that even in this administration but you do worry the second point to that i would say is rank actually as you are well aware in this town really matters and so if you want the individual who's got responsibility for the homeland security matters to be able to resolve either a conflict between cabinet members or a conflict between federal policy and state locals and by the way the i tagged is the perfect example here is a case where congresswoman harman called me was very exercised about having ensuring that we had local representation at the end and we were able to resolve that but that was a conflict between at the federal level over policy that required the homeland security adviser to actually sit down with a cabinet secretary and break through it to make sure we got that done and so you need somebody with the rank and the access to be able to actually break through all that and get a cabinet secretary or cabinet secretaries to answer the phone call and resolve   in those positions now share that approach but it is a real concern and there are a number of different ways of addressing and making sure that the subordination of homeland security issues doesn't come to pass in the future and fran i think has touched on many of them but i can't under emphasize how important is that the homeland security adviser and his or her people are fully represented in national security council meetings if there's this ends up being in a national security council the home ministry advisor needs to be spend as much time but need to have those designated times he or she is in the oval office that make sure there's an opportunity to get those issues on the president's plate and make sure that the profile stays high so that's why as i  homeland security problem but human nature being what it is i do know from dealing with the clinton ration the bush administration with some of those conflicts in foreign policy that was out and was excluded and human nature being what it is is no reason why that couldn't also apply to homeland security that's the concern i have my time is running out i just would add also that foreign policy is in the news i mean people know what's going on afghanistan know what's going on in iraq homeland security as you well know could be off the front attention won't be lost without your back and i thank you thank you very much as i indicated we have a series of votes on the way right now to take about an hour so the committee will stand in we'd like to reconvene the recessed hearing and i apologize to our witnesses but when we sit hearing as if you know they don't necessarily correspond with townsend i thought your service in the white house was exemplary and you were always available to counsel on a bipartisan basis or a nonpartisan basis about what we ought to do to protect the homeland  and i miss you i want you to know that and you are a reason why i think there needs to be someone exactly like you in the white house whether that person works for the national security council or not someone with that level of counselor and continue to be on how to get some of our legislation right how to navigate the shoals out there which are some times difficult some of you tuned in to yesterday's hearing and you've got full the the frontal view of that but all of us up here think that the terrorists aren't going to check our party registration before they blow us up and to peter king who is not here right now i do actively use the word terrorism i served at the homeland security department i'm very glad she's going there and i do worry just as bruce does about what what's happening to kids in in minneapolis or pick another place and when are we going to learn about that on the front end before it's too late so i freely use the word i on the other hand however think we have overplayed the fear card and what we should do is prepare not scare the public in a marriage about the real terror threats we face so that's the end of that little speech let me put come some my thoughts out about this and invite comments from anybody on number one i agree with the testimony that the organization should be dictated by effectiveness i'm i i'm not sure how the boxes should line up i am sure that we need a fran townsend equivalent in the white house and boy she proved that power comes in small size so i have great regard affection for the national security adviser jim jones i know he's working hard at realigning his authorities because it is true that in the past the national security council is operated mostly by using a tiny budget and it may not be the most effective it is not the most effective organization but we can't let it eat the homeland security function in a way that puts homeland as number forty six on a list of forty five priorities that would be dreadful that would compromise our security more americans are at risk from terror attacks here than anywhere else in the world and so we have to keep the focus on expertise here let me just probe with you having friendly suggestion from here to name someone with a law enforcement background as the new head of intelligence analysis we think i think that that would send the right message about reorganizing that function number two there is a homeland advisory committee that has existed in function well for some years headed by bill webster who i think has impeccable credentials which i gather is either going to be replaced or retired i think that's a mistake to i think very able people in both parties serve on that council so in my forty seven seconds i would just invite reactions to what i have said and any suggestions about the specific qualifications  of the person in the white house regardless of what organization box that person is in the person who is charged with focused focusing on homeland security matters for the present thank you very much for your very generous remarks it was a great privilege to me to be able to work on a nonpartisan basis and i had the frankly i had the freedom to do that because of the authority vested in me by the president and so it really was i think we got a lot of good things done  that way i will say that i think it's hard to come up with what the perfect list is of qualifications because whoever it is will come with their own experience and then they'll build their staff around them in some ways based on what their experience is not because you want good smart people around you that cover you where you're weak and so of course you want someone look i was i mentioned earlier i thought it was a great asset to me to have worked at a local level there are in a lot of people as has been pointed out by my other panel members in in senior levels of the federal government who've had local experience but boy it served me very well in terms of understanding the issues and particularly implementation of the field level  i took i will also tell you i was fortunate to have had a legal background and encouraged can to make observations about that my law enforcement legal background and time in the justice department was tremendously useful all of the inner agency experience that you bring to it is very important because you're trying to resolve what essentially amount to either policy disputes of turf battles and so i think all of those things in some measure or another and in your intelligence background are all incredibly important i share your view about the homeland security advisory committee i think we've got to be careful about how much we expect of it because it's not a you know a daily body daily involved but i think that the secretary in particular needs that sort of advice and outside counsel b and and on a nonpartisan basis as you pointed out there are people from both parties who served incredibly well put in a lot of time there and i think it would be a mistake to do without  it i will let me one observation on organization that hasn't really been discussed but i think based on conversations i've had with john brennan the team doing the review is just worth noting one of the ways if you were going to merge the two councils you might consider is to have a deputy who traditionally looks regionally and by country that is the principal deputy job steve hadley occupied it before he was the home of the national adviser and to have a second deputy who looks at issues functionally counterterrorism homeland security and has more of the functional issues counterproliferation that i had when i was at the white house and it's a way if you were going to merge them you could have two deputies two equal rank that is assistant to the president so they would have the gravitas to be able to call necessary meetings cabinet members and have direct access to the president so there's a model by which you could do this i think and have the access and have the rank if you chose to do it that way and i think that's one of the things they're considering and that's why i came back to what i said about look let's let's not worry about boxes let's worry about effectiveness and i do think in fairness to the team that's doing the review that that's their mindset that they want to come up with the right answer and the question is just how to get the thank you very much mr chairman i think this is an important discussion and as well hopefully at the end of the sixty days of the study that the president has authorized that we will have the right answer and i think that is certainly a challenge as townsend i am interested in your theory about making sure that any merger still keeps a direct access to the president is my experience you'll have a threat and it will be breaking very quickly and the president will need to prioritize action and it really does not lend itself to having first defined the national security adviser then to find the cheapest staff then to get to the president and so in gratefully these things don't come up all that often but when they come up it needs to be absolutely crystal clear because there's a process by which you get to the president if he's in the residence and you make a phone call there are people whose job it is to check whether or not you have direct access and there's a list and unless you have direct you've got to get a by your leave permission from somebody else to get through i didn't have to use it often but it was incredibly important  i'm going to weave in and out of terrorism end in disaster so obviously i looked at your tenure and you were quite well known to zero four two zero zero seven help me understand the disconnect in the notification regarding hurricane katrina their direct access to the president what went wrong in fact for one thing there was a whole myriad of factors that contributed to that but at the time the incident while the homeland security council was supporting and getting information from the department of homeland security it was in fact the domestic policy council that had been tagged with responsibility for briefing in the white house and in fact at the time the domestic policy adviser claude allen was the person who went into the briefing room and brief the press initially we were supporting him so i can't tell you exactly how that works when your name was homeland security but it did not it didn't connect to the domestic council be because that was left to them and didn't connect it to a homeland security which is securing in the wake of terrorism but also fema is under homeland security but yours you would distinguish from what the responsibilities of the domestic council which would have addressed the question of a tragedy or a natural disaster in the united states is that what you're saying when we had responses interact we did interact with but there were lots of equities going on in the midst of that crisis one person had to be designated at the time the chief of staff had designated the domestic policy every so there was a single place to feed things in it was early going of that the domestic policy council ok so then i see a fracture right there which is seemingly that was a conspicuously wrong place to put it because i think security equates to urgency and that a study not a review not a quiet report and i'm not suggesting that maybe that was a style mr allen but the point is that was obviously a fractured response and we needed urgent response so i'm not sure what the president's reviews going to include that is well let me just ask quickly it all of you all would comment say something is occurring in pakistan which it has occurred to me how you would see that being reported as relates to all the first thing that would happen was steve hadley and i would have discussed how we're going to integrate the information how we're going to brief the president we typically briefed them together because we had both foreign policy implications to that if there was an incident pakistan it would have the impact that afghanistan it would have  cations steve would be pulling that together the national security adviser i'd be looking at how that threat related outside the region outside of pakistan whether the u k and that we were talking to intelligence services around the world we had the appropriate domestic law enforcement that congresswoman keep in mind structurally the directorate for combating terrorism over at the white house co reported to both the national scrutinizer and the homeland security dollars or so anything having to do with terrorism would kill report and that information would get sent to me and to hadley or to fran and to hadley because obviously there homeland dimensions as well international military intelligence dimensions to any terrorism mentioned throughout the world congress run on the mustard threat that came about is a i think a good example of where clearly there is an international dimension that the national security council would be focusing on but there is also a domestic dimension that the homeland security council should be focused on in a strategic way rather than an operational or tactical matter the department should certainly be pulsing the whole system operational tactically on the kind of reports that need to go out but the kind of threat that we have from the sued or others the homeland security advisor homeland security council should be looking at that from a policy strategy point of view and using that as a frankly an opportunity to advance the conversation with state and locals about the implications of that kind of of that strategically for the state and local me i'm sorry if the information take the london train bombings for example is as early as as we knew about those and we were fortunate in a number of the largest of our cities were in one place at one time once they became aware and this is in the middle of the night and the larger cities with the subway systems we had an immediate decision to make about  particularly disseminating intelligence should be iraqi and miss townsend i clearly think there was a breach on the katrina and i think that was the wrong determination to put it on the domestic side because whenever you are in this have all upheaval it is as much fun or both to hurricane katrina as it might be to attacks on al prophecies in the gulf and it might be the time to come and do so so i think it's homeland security and i understand the chiefs were saying that you all happen the idea is to have a structure that gets information to you as quickly as possible if it has a relevance to to your your security of your area yes ma'am moment but i do have a quick question and this is for after you can answer first and then you know take your leave thank you you know you know i've worked together for quite a while what would you do differently  house rules gives them greater flexibility in terms of who they recruit how they get details so if i was going to change it i'd actually change it to more closely mirror the n s c system i'd give it more resources i think you know the kind and i were talking during the break i don't think i ever got it to one quarter the size at its largest of the n s c and that's a problem what sorts  of the kinds of important expertise i needed was very different i needed a lot of technical expertise a doctors on my staff to help me with think through bio issues and the pandemic planning issues and so i just i had a greater need for real technical expertise and i had and i didn't have enough and so it was a combination i need more and i need real particular expertise and you need the flexibility to get that and do an issue and send people back and i didn't have the sort of personnel and budget flexibility that i found they really did have more of on the national security did you share that with the president's review team or did you even talk to the presence of the team i did i would ask me to share will essentially p what france in terms of personnel and resources and you know that's the monster you hear from every good bureaucrat we more resources but i did get a feeling today or i always felt like there were matters of great way it was designed initially i think this is a good opportunity to sit back and step back a minute and think maybe it should be designed differently maybe the personnel authorization should be done differently so we could expand it more easily but i think it's important to keep in mind where we are in sort of a homeland sit home and security mission which is we're still building in a way that we're not necessarily building on the national security side and all these efforts whether it's from pandemic planning to continuity planning to port security this is stuff that's not going to be sort of front burner but it's going to be a constant need and we need people who are not you can't just throw in to deal with an issue as it bubbles up but who are constantly mining that issue and then checking back saying here's where we are on port security and the like so i'm with rand and i've passed this on to the folks who are doing their deal at the white house that yes we definitely maybe don't need the same numbers as the national security council currently has but we do need more people with greater expertise gripping certainly more but i would i would defer potentially from my two colleagues in this and this way it's no longer a start up a lot of the work that you see prior canal was a major effort to simply get the piece started and i think you can especially see that in the way the h s p d s were often taken on by the homeland security council very important work very detailed work work that in at least my judgment should have been done probably by the department but couldn't be done by the department so the homeland security council is doing i think as we move forward having more people that are focused on the homeland security mission that have background in the full continuum of risk counterterrorism and natural hazards but also developing a discipline that profession in and of itself brings a different perspective than an intelligence community professional or military professional and i don't think that the  perspective has has been present in the decision making levels of those areas frankly who you're going to have to deal with in a domestic situation this is not overseas stuff and flexibility these issues come and go so quickly budget flexibility to bring subject matter experts and is important to bring them in rather than have them on staff i you know there heard from life fellow panelists at least in my recollection was part of the vision in the h s c when it was first established i think that's one of the problems is that it's been an unrealized there's an end in fact if it had been as large as robust if it had had the state local representation that was originally planned it would be we would be having this discussion actually would be far less difficult far more difficult to fold it into the n s c the fact that it's been something of a cinderella is exactly the problem so it either has to be plussed up and strengthened or a new organisation is found that still gives it all of these capabilities within the n s c rubric thank you my time is over expired the chair now recognizes the gentleman from maryland mr cleaver five minutes the i don't know what could be worse and so i do have some experience and in mergers where where emotions run high and my great fear when we talk about these departments merging is that there will always be a department with a dominant culture and you know and and and so people will go in with w with war on their minds because the dominant culture consciously or unconsciously consciously will try to impose that culture on the other in the chances are homeland security will be the  you're right any time there's a merger same thing you know whether it's a church or with government components it can be difficult and i actually my direct remarks talked about a couple i've been involved in and there are it's it's tough you've got the human factor you've got to deal with i think in this mitigated by several things for one thing at least the possibility of friction at the front end one thing is you know they're starting with a clean slate this new mr ation they're walking in there with primarily new people at least in the homeland security area obviously new in the like so it's not as though you're going to have to merge two longstanding bodies together with their own cultures exciter a that's one thing secondly the president has made it clear he's firmly behind this effort to to do this review and that makes a big difference people might have concerns about it but the president has isn't one has dictated it nor did it and that makes a huge difference in kind of like a bishop in the church yes i think so and so you know that it's coming from on high and i think also the last the last thing to mention is the process of this review that they're doing right now my so i'm confident that at the end of the day whoever disagrees with the recommendation and the president's decision will least not have be able to challenge the validity of the process because the folks that i've been working with over there are being very inclusive are talking to everybody from all perspectives all sort of interest groups who might have an interest in this so you know today no one's going be able to say hey you know we got our interest in this got short shrift because they all of us have some input in the process now a long way to giving ensuring its credibility problem if it was just the merger of two churches i would agree with everything yes i think a better knology is the merger of the united methodist seminary with a free methodist seminary what were yes are and the reason for those that might not be aware of was when the ology is the that the  the theory the concepts the practice of national security are very well developed those dogmas and doctrines i have a robustness that we do not yet have in homeland security and there needs to be a period of time to allow that new discipline to develop and i'm afraid that giving over the care of homeland security to the big brother national h and also presidential a mandated mean what happens there who does the coordination that's one of the myriad functions of the homeland security council the home educated visor that will then have to be sort of allocated if that person that council gets merged with the n s c i don't know i assume it would be the homeland security advisor or whatever that persist title is the person who has enormous courage possibilities in this new entity would retain that because that's very much a homeland security but of all the federal agencies do you think that we can chance inside squabbling we can probably you know work it out nobody's going to get hurt you know but we're talking about national security and homeland security and if there's any chance that the infighting which i know for a fact exist even without a merger in the federal government i don't is it worth the risk you know we will hear the answer after which my friends time will have expired so i think that's a very good very good point very good  question my point is sort of aside from looking at the subsidy question as to whether homeland security should be separate from national security in terms of the prospect of friction i think there is that prospect for the reasons i cited i think that that prospect is somewhat diminished here and i think advocates of merger would say that is more than count the concern about that is more than counterbalanced by the infighting that already exists because of the fact that you have two separate councils operating in the same space i actually don't believe that that infighting is all that great i never saw it i never felt it but obviously whenever you have two different groups or two different sets of people working the same area there's a pot possibility of lack of coordination so advocates would say even if there might be some growing pains after the initial merger they're not going to be so much that it outweighs the benefit of getting rid of this you know the jockeying in the rivalry between the agents between the two different counts against him thank you so i come at this with some level of having to do evening preparation and study these questions before us and as i was doing this last night it occurred to me first i applaud the administration for conducting these reviews seems very timely and it seems very appropriate and i believe however that i have arrived at a conclusion that it would be counterproductive to the missions of both councils to merge in a way that would not understand their distinct identities i believe that there are some fundamental conflicts about ensuring homeland security under civilian authority and national security that directs a much more robust involvement of the uniformed military services at all things like posse comitatus accent or that goes back to the very nature of why we have a separate united states coast guard with its origins in the root revenue cutters so professor hop and i would like if i could understand your background to hear your thoughts on that if i might well i think you've hit the nail on the head as you're talking about two different cultures in two different orientations and missions but also in many respects two different sets of stakeholders as well and the national security structure which has been overwhelmingly outward looking that hasn't had to deal with many of the domestic issues even when there's has been overlap with terrorism it's still i think it's it has a very different orientation so i think that what you i used but i think you've identified one of the key concerns which underlies all of this is the fundamental one of civil liberties and about about government that is able to keep us safe and secure while still being mindful of the fundamental rights and freedoms that the united states citizens enjoy and i think you know i don't have an answer question about how we facilitate it but i think your concern though is well found because you're talking about an agency that hasn't had to pay attention to these things to the extent of some of the challenges we see with the department of homeland security for example and even some of the challenges we see with fusion centers who have to deal not just with the mechanics of intelligence sharing but not least with successfully doing all that without being seen little no one has the intention i think to violate civil liberties it's often the perception that perception can and do a lot of good work thank you professor i like that one last specific question a quick follow up mr chairman if i might i sit on the maritime security subcommittee of this full body and there are many many issues before us but as we talk about hostile takeovers and mergers and acquisitions in this environment it occurs to me that perhaps now is a time to ask a question about the closer coordination between the united states naval service and the united states coast guard which has always been very separate but even today if we're going to review at the top most levels should we be discussing the career placement for the maritime security forces as a body mission pailin i would like to hear from you on that i would be inclined to see a continuation of the sea services from the coast guard for many of the same principled reasons that i think homeland security council should the main largely separate from the national security council there is an amazing coast guard culture inside the government it's a command control culture it's a military culture but they have developed an ability to work with state and locals that is much more similar to the way the cops on the beat behaved than any naval officer i've ever had the privilege of working with  the sea services both the marines and the naval services have a very important important outward looking role to play i think the coast guard while they are sometimes tempted they'd like to go overseas a little bit more for their own reasons but their real mission is here at home in their and our home waters even in fargo last week and we want to preserve protect and advance  that very special culture that we have in the coast guard not lose it inside the much bigger broader powerful naval service thank you for that and i jane do agree with you having spent twenty four years in the navy and have developed an incredible respect for the coast guard who frankly often did much more than i was able to do on one tenth the budget so they have certainly are in the admiration of all my fellow naval officers and i'm i appreciate your insight into that and actually concur with you mr chairman i yield back t serve this country and its citizens well let me thank the witnesses for the testimony and their patience in staying around while the votes were being taken let me assure you  you invited because of your contributions you were not invited because you all sing off the same page and we got exactly what we were looking for in your testimony and it will ultimately  think go toward some solution to exactly what we will do based on that testimony again i do thank you for your witnesses feeling good again i thank the witnesses for their valuable testimony and the members for their quest and now the members of the committee may have additional questions for you and we will actually you to respond expeditious