FROM THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to address the Select Committee today. I am pleased to address the Committee on behalf of the President’s proposal to establish a new Department of Homeland Security and to offer my wholehearted support for transforming our government in order to fight terrorism more effectively and protect our nation.

During my tenure at Alcoa, we constantly sought to rethink the way we did business. Throughout the company, we tried to adjust our methods and models to changing circumstances. Companies that survive, decade after decade, do so through constant adaptation. In a sense, they exemplify a deep-rooted corporate tradition—and, truly, a deep-rooted American tradition—of questioning every tradition.

Change, of course, is often difficult, whether in a business or in government. Some people worry that change will require too much from them, or that it will deprive them of too much clout. President Truman faced such forces in 1947 when he set out to reorganize the military. The entrenched interests argued that the American military had just defeated the Axis; why change what worked? But President Truman recognized that the nature of warfare was changing. The intense and relatively brief fighting of World War II was giving way to the Cold War, which entailed decades of surrogate warfare, positioning for global supremacy, and the constant possibility of total war. Not all of this was apparent in 1947, but President Truman recognized enough of it to realize that things had to change: It was time for a joint or unified command. He was right.

Now, the nature of warfare has changed once again. The enemy is no longer necessarily a state. Instead, we face individuals and small groups, sometimes aided by a state, but not necessarily clad in its uniform or following its flag. Indeed, that is the great challenge of the new form of warfare—knowing who our enemies are. As the investigation into the attacks of September 11 has demonstrated, they walk among us.

Only their violent and misguided ideology distinguishes them from our fellow citizens, and, not surprisingly, they keep that ideology to themselves. Their weaponry, too, is different. Before September 11, passenger jetliners had never been weapons of war.

But our weapons have also changed. Technology is giving us tools for tracking the possible terrorists among us. Flight manifest and passenger information, once recorded manually, now is automated through APIS, the Advanced Passenger Information System. This provides a system for tracking individuals entering our country. Technology also gives us the ability to integrate our databases and rapidly communicate our information. Thanks to new powers that Congress provided under the USA Patriot Act, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network can blast-fax information about suspected terrorists to hundreds of financial institutions, which in turn can provide any pertinent information back to us. An investigation that might have taken weeks a few decades ago now takes hours.

September 11 has forced on us the sort of creative thinking that President Truman did in 1947. We have had to ask ourselves how this could have happened, what might happen next, and how we can prevent any further attacks. And the conclusion is clear: We cannot fight this war using structures designed for the Cold War, at the military level, and the varieties of indigenous and foreign crimes, at the law-enforcement level. Now, as then, new threats require new structures and new responses.

Today, responsibility for homeland security is scattered across the government. Lines of communication are not always open; lines of authority are not always sharply defined; and redundancies and inefficiencies are built in. One law-enforcement agency sometimes launches an operation and then must step aside—not because it finds no evidence of criminality, but rather because it finds evidence of the wrong sort of criminality. Last week, for example, the Customs Service stopped a suspicious boat and searched it for illegal drugs and other contraband. However, the Customs agents found illegal aliens. Customs transferred the aliens to the Coast Guard – currently part of the Department of Transportation. The Coast Guard, upon reaching land, then turned over the aliens to the Immigration and Naturalization Service – currently part of the Department of Justice. Under the President’s reorganization proposal, a single entity would be responsible for all border issues.

The new Department will have homeland security as its primary mission. It will bring together within one Department the key entities to fight the war on terrorism, and ensure that we have a unified, coherent plan for protecting our citizens and our borders against the new breed of threats. And, crucially, it will be accountable. Citizens and public servants will know where the responsibility lies.

All the parts must work together at the same time and under the same direction to get things done. We cannot respond to the terrorist threats simply by pledging more cooperation or by making marginal changes.

We must be willing to make a dramatic transformation in light of the dramatic threats we face. Indeed, this Select Committee provides a good example. Although many committees have jurisdiction over the issues covered by the proposed new Department, you realized that responsibility could not be parceled out as before. This Select Committee centralizes authority. We must engage in this type of fresh thinking in order to respond to the new threats.

Yes, the challenge is great. To defend our freedom in this new era, we must work together as never before. We must put aside notions of turf and tradition and the-way-we’ve-always-done-it, and work collectively for the common security. In some cases, we must say goodbye to valued colleagues. I have deeply enjoyed my time working alongside the fine public servants in the Customs Service and the Secret Service, for example, two Treasury agencies that, under the President’s proposal, will be part of the new Department. But by and large, these hard-working people recognize the wisdom in centralizing responsibility for homeland security. They are excited over the prospect of helping start the new Department.

• leverages the strengths of the many component parts,
• provides clear and workable lines of authority, and
• creates the most efficient possible structure.

The importance of our work demands nothing less.