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Release Date: 03/02/05 00:00:00
March 2, 2005
(Remarks as Prepared)
Mr. Chairman, Representative Sabo, and Members of the Sub-Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to present and discuss the President’s FY 2006 budget for the Department of Homeland Security. I understand the important relationship that exists between this Committee and the Department. Your strong support and the resources you have provided have made it possible for the Department of Homeland Security to carry out a vigorous and ambitious slate of security initiatives that have made our country and our citizens safer and more secure than ever before.
And, in the coming months, I look forward to working with you to further our shared goal of an America that is safe and secure, while at the same time protecting civil rights and civil liberties. For almost two years now, it has been the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security to lead the unified national effort to daily and consistently improve our security and preparedness measures to protect our country and our citizens from all manner of threats.
I’m grateful to the President for the privilege of joining the thousands of dedicated men and women who have labored on the frontlines of this endeavor. I look forward to serving along side them.
In the aftermath of the deadly and unconscionable attacks on 9/11, the Office of Homeland Security and then the Department of Homeland Security were created. The primary mission was and continues to be protecting the American people from further deadly and even catastrophic terrorist attacks.
This is a difficult mission. My predecessor’s task was described by some as akin to building an airplane while flying it at the same time. Tom Ridge, Jim Loy, Asa Hutchinson and the other pioneers of the Department of Homeland Security have done great work in building the Department from the ground up while at the same time protecting our homeland on a daily basis. Of all of their many accomplishments, one stands out – over the two years that the Department has been in existence, there has not been a major terrorist attack here on American soil. That is a record of accomplishment that seemed unlikely – if not impossible – in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
But amidst this record of success, we must remember one chilling fact – America’s enemies remain as resolute as ever in their desire to destroy our freedoms and our way of life. The terrorists who seek to attack us are not ready to concede defeat. Rather, they appear determined to adapt their methods to create new threats to our homeland. In order to meet this evolving threat, we must be willing and eager to think anew as well. We must, and will, look not only at the past practices of the terrorists and existing intelligence information. We must also think creatively about the dynamic threats that the terrorists will pose in future.
At the same time we must also take a fresh, creative look at the Department itself – including its organization, its operations, and its policies. As the Department of Homeland Security marks its two-year anniversary this month, we now have the opportunity and obligation to benefit from experience and hindsight, look at how the pieces are fitting together, and see if the structure and systems we have in place today enable us to perform our core mission of protecting and safeguarding this nation.
Accordingly, I am initiating a comprehensive review of the Department’s organization, operations, and policies. I look forward to working with this Committee and the Congress regarding proposals that might come out of that review. Our review of the Department is driven by our singular purpose of meeting the threats – both current and future – that face our nation. Any changes we make or recommend as a result of this review will be designed to better enable us to identify, prevent, and, if necessary, mitigate and respond to attacks on our homeland.
I want to emphasize that our analysis of the threats and risks will drive the structure, operations, policies, and missions of the Department, and not the other way around. We will not look at the threats and our mission through the prisms of the Department’s existing structures and functions. Instead, we will analyze the threats and define our mission holistically and exhaustively, then seek to adapt the Department to meet those threats and execute that mission. We must move away from stovepipe solutions. Instead, we need to look at the entirety of the threat picture when calculating risk and implementing protections.
The Department, working with the Congress, needs to ensure that our efforts and resources are targeted, effective, and efficient. Our philosophy, our decision-making, our operational activities, and our spending must be grounded in risk management as we determine how to best organize to prevent, respond, and recover from attacks. I also want to emphasize that while fighting terrorism was the reason for the Department’s creation, it is not our sole function. The Department’s other functions, including responding to natural disasters, securing our coasts, and providing immigration services and enforcement are all essential parts of our mission. We owe it to the American people to bring the same dedication and energy to these tasks as we do to preventing terrorist attacks.
While I have inherited a Department with a dedicated workforce and a strong foundation of excellence, ours is a job that does not lessen in urgency with the passing of days and months and years. There are challenges to confront and important work ahead to make the great promise of this still new Department an enduring reality.
The President, in this year’s budget, affirmed his staunch commitment to these missions of DHS. Through the allocation of $41.1 billion in new resources, a 7 percent increase over the current year, we will expand and improve existing programs as well as put in place new initiatives that will further strengthen and protect our homeland. I look forward to working with this Committee and the Congress in the coming months and years ahead in our shared effort to secure the blessings of peace and freedom for future generations of Americans.
Thank you.
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