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Subject: [ISN] White House Finds Homeland Security Jobs a Tough Sell
From: InfoSec News <isn () c4i ! org>
Date: 2003-02-27 6:57:23
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Forwarded from: William Knowles <wk@c4i.org>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7298-2003Feb26.html
By Brian Krebs
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
February 27, 2003
Just two days before 22 federal agencies are set to move to the new
Department of Homeland Security, the White House has yet to fill three
top positions responsible for protecting the nation's physical and
digital infrastructure and managing the department's
intelligence-gathering activities.
The vacant posts are in DHS's Directorate for Information Analysis and
Infrastructure Protection (IAIP), a terrorist threat assessment and
warning unit that includes five cybersecurity divisions previously
scattered across other federal agencies. March 1 is the deadline for
most federal agencies reassigned to DHS to have completed the move to
the department.
The Bush administration's top pick for the IAIP undersecretary
position, former Defense Intelligence Agency Director James Clapper,
turned down the job last month. Two assistant secretary positions --
one charged with managing intelligence gathering and the other
responsible for infrastructure protection -- also must be filled.
Confusion about the IAIP's mission and authority is handicapping the
White House search, according to people who have been approached to
fill the positions, as well as observers closely following the massive
homeland security reorganization.
As envisioned in the Homeland Security Act, IAIP is to serve as the
gathering place for all information related to possible threats to the
homeland. The architects of the law believed that a central
clearinghouse for intelligence data would help avoid a repeat of
events that led to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, where
anti-terror agencies missed clues and failed to share information.
But recent Bush administration actions are casting doubt on IAIP's
mission. Earlier this month, the president announced that a new terror
threat intelligence center would be created and run by Central
Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet, signaling that DSH's role
in intelligence assessment would be limited.
One former Bush administration official approached about a key post
within IAIP said he declined the job "when it became obvious that
there was not going to be a serious investment of resources" in the
division's intelligence-gathering mission. The source asked that his
name not be printed.
Another former high-ranking Bush administration official who walked
away from one of the top three positions in the division described
working at IAIP as "the ultimate thankless job, where the people in
charge will be raked over the coals by Congress the next time things
go wrong."
"An even bigger concern is there seems to be a real lack of clarity as
to what the directorate's mission is, and when you factor those two
elements together it adds up to a real turkey," said the official, who
asked not to be named.
James B. Steinberg, former deputy national security adviser under the
Clinton administration, called the IAIP recruiting problems
unsurprising, adding that the creation of the threat integration
center under CIA leadership leaves the undersecretary for IAIP with a
great deal of accountability but little authority on intelligence
matters.
"Anyone qualified enough who would want to lead IAIP would naturally
want to be where the action is, but with the administration's decision
to put intelligence squarely in the hands of (the director of the
CIA), I can't imagine why anybody would think IAIP is going to be
where the action is," said Steinberg, who is currently vice president
and director of foreign policy studies at The Brookings Institution.
"It's clear from this move that the administration sees a very limited
role for the directorate."
"Whoever takes this job is probably not going to be the guy in the
room with the president, or if you are, it's going to be only because
the CIA or FBI invited you," said Stewart Baker, former general
counsel at the National Security Agency.
Until the administration sorts where IAIP ranks in the intelligence
community, anyone who takes the helm at IAIP will be playing from a
weak hand, Baker said. "It's like drawing the queen of spades in game
of Hearts: If you're not careful, everyone will decide you're the one
who didn't do his job."
The White House has also had trouble competing with the private sector
for talented help, according to friends and close associates of
several potential nominees who turned down assignments at IAIP.
Most of the qualified candidates the administration has approached are
20- to 30-year veteran military and intelligence officers who have
since taken lucrative consulting jobs in the private sector. For many,
returning to work for the government would mean not only much smaller
salaries, but the loss of their government pensions -- since Uncle Sam
generally prohibits "double dipping," or collecting pensions while on
the government's active payroll.
"In some cases it's like asking people to take at least a 40 percent
pay cut to come back and work for the government," said Mark Rasch,
former head of the Justice Department's computer crimes unit and now
senior vice president and chief security counsel for security vendor
Solutionary Inc. "That's almost never an attractive option."
Such considerations likely played a role in influencing Clapper to
turn down the IAIP top position. A retired Air Force lieutenant
general who currently serves as director of the National Imagery and
Mapping Agency, Clapper was hired at NIMA under a benefits and salary
package comparable to that of a private-sector contractor. He did not
explain why he declined the job, but former co-workers say Clapper
would have had to sacrifice his pension and his generous salary at
NIMA to take a job with the new department.
Sources inside the Bush administration and outside observers who
closely track the intelligence community said John Grimes, a top
executive at Raytheon's intelligence and information systems unit, is
a possible choice for the undersecretary job or for assistant
secretary for infrastructure protection. Grimes was formerly deputy
assistant secretary of defense under the previous two administrations.
The same sources said Paul Redmond, the former chief of CIA
counterintelligence whose work led to the uncovering of CIA spy
Aldrich Ames, is on the short list of candidates for assistant
secretary for information analysis. Redmond is currently finishing up
a report to Congress on the damage done to U.S. intelligence efforts
by Robert Hanssen, the FBI counterintelligence expert convicted of
spying for Russia.
Both Grimes and Redmond acknowledged being contacted by the White
House about the positions but declined to comment further.
*==============================================================*
"Communications without intelligence is noise; Intelligence
without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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