This
is the twelfth year that I have done some sort of year end summary of homeland
security (HLS) progress. It has been by
far the most difficult to prepare.
Let me begin with good news about
what did not happen.
·
In
2012 the United States did not suffer a major international or “home grown”
terrorist attack. This is not because the enemy has quit trying to attack or
ceased to exist. The Bengazi attack was a well-planned and well-coordinated act
of international terrorism. The forces that prepared and conducted it remained
focused on attacking us at home. That has not happened because of successful
intelligence and Counter Terrorism efforts world-wide, to include DHS efforts.
This is good news and those working national and domestic security at the
federal, state and local levels deserve credit for the results.
·
The
US did not suffer a crippling cyber attack (a “Cyber Pearl Harbor”) which
defense officials tell us becomes more likely every day. Terrorists are not the
only potential perpetrators – foreign states, transnational criminals, or even
disgruntled insiders all pose a challenge. Whether we have been good or merely
lucky remains to be seen, but the absence of a major event is a major victory.
Now two non-events that reflect news of
a less positive nature.
·
For
the second time in a row, an aggressive, high–profile presidential campaign was
conducted where not one candidate in the primary or national presidential elections spoke
the words ‘homeland security” a single time. Not one question was asked
publicly about homeland security; not one public statement by any candidate
addressed it. Even when presidential candidates talked about federal actions in
response to Hurricane Sandy – clearly a DHS function – the words “homeland
security” were not used. Clearly the
candidates believed that even mentioning homeland security to voters has more
negative than positive connotations.
·
A
major storm struck northeast population centers exactly as predicted years ago
in the federal 15 National Planning Scenarios. These scenarios were supposed to drive federal,
state and local preparedness. But state and local officials failed take these scenarios, and their
preparedness and response responsibilities seriously, resulting in major losses
to individuals and our society. Yet the media failed to realize that something
was wrong at the state/local level and let the responsible leaders escape
public outrage over their sad performance.
Taken together, these four
“non-happenings” indicate something significant about US homeland security: the
national bureaucracy is becoming more competent and less visible (and thus less
accountable) at the same time. From the Office of Information and Analysis
(I&A), to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Border and Customs
Protection (BCP), planning, budgeting, training and operations became more
sophisticated and standardized this year – and less transparent. Public
interest was down, so was reporting, and so was the ability of Congress to get
answers to some pretty important questions.
·
When
a congressional committee attempted to ask about TSA progress and practices,
the head of the agency simply ignored the request to testify – without
consequence.
·
When
DHS was asked about unusual purchases of more than a BILLION rounds of
ammunition, the department produced several obviously incorrect answers, then
quit answering the question at all.
·
When
spokespersons were asked whether 1600 graduates of the new “FEMA Corps” were
employed in response to Hurricane Sandy, they simply sidestepped the question .
. . and the press quit asking.
·
When
questions were raised about what exactly we have received for more than a
billion dollars of investment in biodefense, the answers were vague and
incomplete.
·
Meanwhile,
DHS and CBP continue to claim that the US southern border is “the safest in
years,” to the guffaws of local law enforcement on both sides of the border.
To be clear, the DHS bureaucracy appears
to become more competent at the ins and outs of administration each year. To
their credit, DHS offices and officials were largely spared the public scandal
that tainted so many other federal agencies in 2012. (The one astonishing
exception was the Secret Service scandal in Colombia, which had all the
hallmarks of a continuing, long term cultural problem, but which was addressed
as a narrow, one time anomaly.) And once you understand that the role of the
federal government is primarily to help RECOVER from a disaster, and NOT to act
as a RESPONSE agency (response being primarily a state and local
responsibility), then their efforts in Hurricane Sandy look relatively
successful.
My concern is that the broad degree
of oversight that attends other federal security organizations (like DOD and
the intelligence agencies) is largely missing in the case of DHS. And this inattention is growing as the
national media loses interest in homeland security issues, at the same time
that DHS grows more adept at using classification and other forms of
obfuscation to restrict information required for outside analysis.
For the Secretary of Defense (Sec Def)
and the Director of National Intelligence (DNO) this oversight is not provided
only by Congress – or even primarily by the legislative branch. Hundreds of
universities offer programs in security studies and international relations,
dozens of think tanks review DOD strategy, operations and doctrine constantly,
and many bloggers and independent observers (not to mention authors, reporters
and specialty publications) track and
discuss Pentagon activities on a nearly real time basis. DOD may have some
valid national security secrets, but at least until recently, the educational
community and others offered theories, research and analysis, so they could
enter into a national debate about DOD size, expenditures, and activities.
Their work provides the basis for media education and public analysis, so the
public and Congress may engage is debating how DOD does business.
There is no such network for
graduate level analysis of what DHS does and how it does it.
Several hundred “civilian” colleges
and universities are tied loosely to DHS through the University and Agency
Partnership Initiative (UAPI) of the Center for Homeland Defense and Security
at the Naval Postgraduate School. And
FEMA and other DHS agencies continued to invigorate their own internal training
programs during 2012. But the broad sustained effort by which upper tier
research institutions exchange ideas with the DOD, and even school senior defense
leaders, is missing from the entire DHS homeland security effort.
As a result, DHS is growing more
technically proficient and more intellectually insulated from outside review
and analysis at the same time. This approach paid off for DHS with some
important successes in 2012. But the result does not bode well for the
Department or the nation in the long run.
No comments:
Post a Comment