WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 (UPI) -- Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge is set to leave the agency he set up, several former administration officials said, an exit that looks likely to be just one of a series of departures by senior officials at the troubled organization over the next few months.
"I think at some point in the next year Ridge will leave unless he is offered another post" in the Cabinet, a former official told United Press International.
Another former official, who spoke to Ridge at a recent social function, confirmed Ridge hoped to move on, either to another Cabinet post or into the private sector.
"He sounded like a man looking forward to the next phase of his career," the former official said.
Those close to Ridge point out that ethics regulations mean he cannot legally discuss his plans until he has put on record his intent to seek employment elsewhere.
The provision, designed to prevent conflicts of interest arising, also has the effect of stifling discussion of the subject within the department, and making those privy to officials' plans chary of discussing them, especially on the record.
"We just don't talk about it with them," said one career department employee of their interaction with politically appointed senior officials.
The department's spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
Other senior officials are also keen to move on, according to a private sector executive who has extensive dealings with the department.
Assistant Secretary Robert Liscouski "is going to leave," said the executive.
Liscouski works for the Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate -- the element of the department that has faced perhaps the most glaring scrutiny and harshest criticism from congress.
"Things haven't gone well there," said the executive, adding that Liscouski -- who heads the infrastructure protection side of the directorate -- was frustrated by the pace of work on his gargantuan task of cataloguing the nation's hundreds of thousands of potential terror targets and integrating the data with intelligence about terrorist plans.
One key element of Liscouski's responsibilities is protecting the nation's Internet and Internet-based systems from attack by terrorists and others.
But congressional officials say this important work has lagged, and the department's Internet security chief, Amit Yoran, recently quit suddenly, amid reports that he had clashed with Liscouski.
"The department's cyber security program is not where it needs to be," said John Gannon, staff director of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security.
The committee recently reported out legislation that would raise the post Yoran held to the same assistant secretary level that Liscouski's post has.
"Elevating the post (of cyber-security chief) to assistant secretary level (in the legislation) was a sign of our concern about the progress they were making," Gannon told UPI.
He added that the other half of the directorate, information analysis, which is the department's intelligence component, was "one of the biggest challenges" for officials.
"Congressional oversight is likely to be aggressive on the department's intelligence role," said Gannon.
"(Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis) Pat Hughes has done a terrific job. He's getting there, but he needs the resources and the connectivity with the intelligence community."
The private sector executive said that the man to whom both Liscouski and Hughes report, Undersecretary Frank Libutti, was also "probably ready to move on."
"It's a tough, tough job," added the executive, who said grueling hours and the stress of dealing with the round-the-clock threat of another major terrorist attack had taken their toll on several senior officials.
Nor is the burden likely to ease at all in the coming years. The department has "a pretty heavy agenda" going into the second term, according to Gannon.
A directorate spokeswoman said neither Liscouski nor Libutti were available to answer questions about their future plans.
"Until we get a letter of resignation, as far as we're concerned, they're not going anywhere," said Michelle Petrovich. "It's all speculation."
One factor possibly weighing in the calculations of senior officials is that the department is not seen by Washington insiders as a career-enhancing institution.
"It's a mess," a third former administration official said bluntly.
The former official, who now works with a major communications and government relations agency, says their firm does not take on any clients who want them to lobby Homeland Security.
"There may be some in this town who say they can get you through that maze, but I wouldn't believe them," the former official said.
The temptation any official might feel to leave can only be sharpened by the lucrative compensation packages they could expect in the private sector, according to executive recruitment specialist Evan Scott.
"It's more of a pull than a push," he said, adding senior officials at the department could double or even treble their government salaries by leaving.
"Their biggest assets are their political contacts and their knowledge of how government purchasing decisions are made," Scott told UPI.
Ridge has two children, one attending the prestigious -- and expensive -- Carnegie-Mellon University, and another fast approaching college age, and is reportedly anxious to maximize his earning power.
Another motive for Ridge's desire to leave mentioned by the third former official was the possibility of a run for the White House when President Bush's term expires in 2008.
"He needs to get out of there while his slate is clean," the former official said, referring to the ever-present possibility of another terror strike in the United States.
Barbara Chaffee, a long-time Ridge aide still close to him, said that while she had heard talk about a possible candidacy, it had not come from Ridge himself.
"Frankly, the demands of that job are such that he hasn't even had time to consider his immediate future, much less four years down the line," she told UPI.
Ridge, a moderate Republican in the classic Northeastern mold, has been close to Bush since both were governors.
"If he does decide to run for president, we think he's be an excellent candidate," said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, executive director of the Republican Mainstreet Partnership, a GOP centrist group that Ridge joined in 1998.
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