DHS without cyber security head for a year

WASHINGTON, July 13 (UPI) -- The U.S Department of Homeland Security is yet to fill the top cyber security job it created a year ago, says The Washington Post.

The high-level post with the rank of an assistant secretary was announced a year ago this month by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to coordinate the government's efforts to deter attacks on the nation's vital telecommunication and information systems.

"A department that has failed [for a year] to find an assistant secretary, even by Washington standards ... has to be some kind of record," Roger Cressey, former head of the now disbanded presidential critical infrastructure advisory board, was quoted as saying.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who helped create the new cyber job, said: "I think DHS is pathetic and incompetent. It's a complete mystery what's happening over there."

A Homeland Security Department official told the newspaper the agency is "in the final stretch" of approving a candidate.

Guy Copeland, one of the candidates for the job, told the newspaper he knew of about a dozen more candidates who were similarly approached. He said he declined for personal and financial reasons, but that the others were apparently rejected for political or professional reasons.