Advertisement

Still no date for terror watch list merger

By SHAUN WATERMAN

WASHINGTON, May 8 (UPI) -- Lawmakers reprimanded a senior homeland security official Thursday after learning that there was still no timeline for merging the nation's 12 terrorist watch lists, more than 18 months after gaps between them allowed suicide hijackers to enter the country and kill almost 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001.

Steven I. Cooper, the new department's chief information officer, spoke to members of the House Government Reform Committee, chaired by Tom Davis, R-Va.

Advertisement

Sparks began to fly when Cooper was asked about the progress of work to consolidate the 12 different lists produced by nine different federal agencies. John F. Tierney, D-Mass., wanted to know who was responsible for overseeing the process.

"At the moment," Cooper replied, "it is a coalition."

He said work was being "guided" by the new Terrorist Threat Integration Center, based at the CIA, which had set up a multi-agency working group, including representatives from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, State Department, and other intelligence organizations.

Advertisement

"That group is working to define the process and the governance by which your question can be answered," he told Tierney.

"You're kidding me," replied the congressman, who went on to lambaste the administration for failing to take charge.

"All this time after Sept 11, 2001," Tierney continued, "we're sitting here saying the White House doesn't accept responsibility for this, the Department of Homeland Security doesn't accept responsibility for this. Some bureaucracy, an amalgamation of different agencies or whatever, is getting to the point where they're now trying to sit down and decide who's going to be in charge?"

"Where's the leadership in that?" he asked.

"I think the leadership is in working together to further define and refine a true process for an integrated watch list activity," replied Cooper.

"You say that with a straight face," shot back Tierney, "which I think is admirable, but doesn't that disturb you somewhat, that this is the point we're at?"

When asked to provide a timeline, Cooper asked, "Can I get back to you?"

"I'm just stunned I guess," said Tierney, "To me it's just staggering. I think it's an absolute abdication of leadership from the White House."

Mark A. Forman, of the White House's Office of Management and Budget, leapt to the defense of the administration.

Advertisement

"The leadership is quite clear in the president's budget this year, how he outlined (the leading role of) the Terrorist Threat Integration Center," he told the committee.

Cooper insisted, "I believe that the current state (of affairs) is much, much better than it was 20 months ago."

But this answer did not satisfy everyone.

"As we now know," said ranking minority member Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., "we were unable to prevent the (Sept. 11) attacks ... in part because federal agencies could not or would not share information. Not only did the federal government as a whole fail to connect the dots, but certain agencies wanted to maintain exclusive control over those dots."

The lack of a consolidated, integrated watch list that could be shared between federal government agencies and with local law enforcement had disastrous consequences in 2001.

Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, two of the hijackers who seized American Airlines flight 77 and slammed it into the Pentagon were on the CIA watch list before Sept. 11.

Both men were issued visas by the State Department and lived openly in San Diego while planning for the attacks was going on. Al-Midhar left and re-entered the country, and both were able to renew or extend their visas.

Advertisement

Waxman said the problem was made worse by what he called the administration's "ping pong approach" to solving it, with responsibility for ensuring the dissemination of terrorist information being batted about between agencies, from the White House to the FBI and then "in the latest volley" to the Department of Homeland Security. "This is not a recipe for success," he concluded.

He accused the White House of failing to co-operate with a congressional inquiry into the watch list integration process. "How are we supposed to do our job if the White House refuses to provide information on the substance, status and schedule of the administration's activities?" he asked.

A report last week by Congress' investigative arm, the Government Accounting Office, said little progress was being made on integrating the 12 lists and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge admitted to a congressional panel that he could not give a date when work might be complete.

Rep. Stephen F. Lynch, D-Mass., said that when organizations were expected to operate in secrecy, their officials were often reluctant to share information, even with each other.

"We have a culture here that is directly opposed to the free sharing of information," he said, "and I worry for the American people ... because our national security, especially after Sept. 11, requires the sharing of this information."

Advertisement

"What are we doing," he asked, "to encourage ... a change in that culture of secrecy and obsessive control of information within these agencies?"

Cooper said that to "break down the cultural biases against sharing," the department had created integrated teams, including personnel from all across the intelligence community, "to first agree on a shared vision."

"We've had some good dialogue," he went on, "We've actually reached agreement and that agreement has actually now taken the form of memorandums of understanding, memorandums of agreement signed between and among the FBI and departments and federal agencies at the leadership level that set this forth in writing and do commit those agencies to sharing information."

Lynch asked whether they contained "any specific incentives for agents to share information or any specific penalties if they do not share information that should be shared?"

Cooper said the ones he had seen did not.

Lynch remained unconvinced.

"Until we get to that root problem, all the rest is just window dressing ... If we're not getting at that, all the new computers and all the networks in the world aren't going to help."

Even members of the majority, like Virginia's Tom Davis -- a figure in the GOP house leadership -- seemed unhappy with the rate at which progress was being made.

Advertisement

"We've been a little slow to start," he said of the DHS' information sharing work, "I don't think there's any question about that ... Is that fair?"

Davis asked about the progress of reforms of the old Immigration and Naturalization Service -- now bifurcated into two divisions of the new DHS -- that he said had been, "just a mess."

"What's our status with that?" he asked Cooper, "How long is it going to take and what will it cost?"

"Mr. Chairman," Cooper replied, "I don't have a figure for that yet."

He said that between January and mid-March, his staff had been focused on what he called, "day one activities," getting the new department on its feet.

"The headquarters staff had no facilities ... from an information technology standpoint there was an awful lot of work that had to be done."

He said his staff had set up a Web site, and established a computer infrastructure, e-mail system and intranet for staff. "It's not something that's necessarily visible," he told the committee, "but it's something that took a lot of work and a lot of time."

Cooper said that "over the next 18-24 months" he wanted to consolidate the many and various computer networks that the 22 agencies had. "We certainly don't need the 20-plus human resources applications that existed, legitimately... As a new single department we have the opportunity to consolidate."

Advertisement

Both Cooper and Forman cautioned against "throwing money at the problem," saying careful planning and good communication between stakeholders in information systems was the essential if expensive mistakes were to be avoided.

"Making organizations share information is like trying to glue together thousands of puzzle pieces," said Forman. "If you just apply the glue without an orderly approach to building the puzzle, you could end up with something quite messy."

Forman said the challenge was "to fix what's fundamentally a broken business architecture."

"If a strategic plan ... is effectively and efficiently implemented, we will achieve economies of scale, and be better prepared to protect the nation's physical and cyber infrastructure, ... and respond to terrorist and natural disaster incidents," said Davis. "But that's a considerable 'if' we're talking about," he concluded.

Committee members -- including especially the former chief executive of Baltimore County, C. A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger, D-Md. -- also expressed concern about information sharing between federal, state and local governments.

Latest Headlines