New Anti-Terror Cabinet Agency Urged

A blue-ribbon commission on Wednesday called for creation of a Cabinet-level agency to assume responsibility for defending the nation against the increasing likelihood of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

The bipartisan panel, led by former U.S. Sens. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.) and Gary Hart (D-Colo.) and including high-ranking military officers and former Cabinet secretaries, warned bluntly that terrorists probably will attack America with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons at some point within the next 25 years.

The commission proposed a complete redesign of the National Guard to provide the proposed new “Homeland Security Agency” with U.S.-based troops to combat those who threaten a nation that for more than two centuries was isolated from attack by two oceans.

The panel outlined a far-reaching reorganization of the Pentagon, State Department, National Security Council and other agencies, saying that they have become bloated and unfocused. The report even urged Congress to streamline its own committee structure to keep interference in national security matters at a minimum.

The commission acknowledged that implementing the recommendations would be difficult. “We put down what we thought ought to be done,” Rudman said, adding: “Just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”

Congress would have to pass legislation authorizing the changes.

If all of the recommendations were to become law, it would mark the most sweeping renovation of U.S. defense and foreign policy operations since approval of the landmark National Security Act of 1947. Like that measure, which refocused World War II-era agencies on the challenges of the Cold War, the commission’s plan is intended to ready the nation for starkly different threats in a new century.

The commission was established about three years ago by President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich to deal with what they saw as increasing terrorism threats. Its report was sent to President Bush and to Capitol Hill.

In addition to a wide-ranging governmental reorganization, the commission called for an increased emphasis on science and mathematics education. It also appealed to Congress to soften its often-bitter confirmation process so capable people will not shy away from service.

Rudman said that the commission sought to recommend measures that it considered the “best,” rather than the most politically feasible.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of a Senate subcommittee on emerging threats, seconded the panel’s warning. “This nation is not prepared to defend against or adequately respond to threats to our homeland using weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

But Roberts, who did not serve on the panel, indicated how difficult it might be to make the recommended changes. “Some will say [the report] reaches too far, raise their eyebrows and say we can’t do that.”

The panel recommended folding the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Customs Service, Border Patrol and Coast Guard into the new Homeland Security Agency. It said that the National Guard should be “reorganized, properly trained and adequately equipped” to cope with natural disasters and attacks on U.S. targets by weapons of mass destruction.

As things stand now, Guard units have two very different purposes. On a national level, they constitute the Army’s strategic reserve and are supposed to be ready on short notice to fight conventional wars overseas. But between national call-ups, the units function as state militias, with responsibility for disaster relief, riot control and similar tasks.

The commission said that the National Guard should be relieved of the responsibility of participating in overseas deployments and concentrate on security at home.

“The combination of unconventional weapons proliferation with the persistence of international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the U.S. homeland to catastrophic attack,” the report says. “A direct attack against American citizens on American soil is likely over the next quarter century. The risk is not only death and destruction but also a demoralization that could undermine U.S. global leadership.

“In the face of this threat,” it says, “our nation has no coherent or integrated governmental structures.”

U.S. armed forces now are organized and trained to have the capability to fight two major overseas wars at the same time, a contingency the commission called “very remote.” The report recommended abandoning the two-war strategy to permit the Pentagon to prepare for situations like the recent wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, which it characterized as far more likely.

The panel said that both the State Department and the Pentagon need substantial bureaucratic remodeling. It said the Defense Department must streamline weapons acquisition procedures, which have become so cumbersome that years are added to production time and costs are increased by staggering amounts.

“Many innovative high-tech firms are simply unable or unwilling to work with the Defense Department under the weight of its auditing, contracting, profitability, investment and inspection regulations,” the report says.

The commission was sharply critical of Congress for obstructing needed national security programs.

Besides Rudman and Hart, the commission included Gingrich (R-Ga.); former Commerce undersecretary Lionel H. Olmer; former Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.); former Air Force Secretary Donald Rice; Norman Augustine, chairman of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s executive committee; Anne Armstrong, an official in Republican administrations; Gen. John Galvin, former supreme allied commander for Europe; Leslie Gelb, president of the Council on Foreign Relations; former NBC diplomatic correspondent John Dancy; James Schlesinger, a former Democratic Cabinet officer and CIA director; former U.N. ambassador Andrew Young and retired Adm. Harry Train.