[ISN] At Homeland Security, Doubts Arise Over Intelligence

From: InfoSec News (isnat_private)
Date: Mon Jul 21 2003 - 01:28:16 PDT

  • Next message: InfoSec News: "[ISN] Attacks already exploiting Cisco IOS vulnerability"

    Forwarded from: William Knowles <wkat_private>
    
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20594-2003Jul20.html
    
    By John Mintz
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Monday, July 21, 2003
    
    The intelligence unit of the four-month-old Department of Homeland
    Security is understaffed, unorganized and weak-willed in bureaucratic
    struggles with other government agencies, diminishing its role in
    pursuing terrorists, according to some members of Congress and
    independent national security experts.
    
    The vast majority of the department's intelligence analysts lack
    computers that are able to receive data classified "top secret" and
    above. The department has only three experts on biological terrorism,
    a number that lawmakers said falls far short of expectations, given
    U.S. officials' grave concern about that kind of attack.
    
    In passing the law establishing the department last year, Congress
    intended Homeland Security to be the focal point for handling
    intelligence to protect America from terrorists. The current
    controversy over its intelligence unit shows how elusive that goal has
    become since the Bush administration decided in January that the
    agency should not have the standing of the CIA or FBI in analyzing
    intelligence about terror threats.
    
    Homeland Security officials acknowledged growing pains in their
    intelligence wing, citing the difficulty of creating a full-fledged
    member of the U.S. intelligence community from scratch. They also
    point out that the head of their intelligence section, retired Marine
    Lt. Gen. Frank Libutti, was sworn in only on June 26.
    
    Libutti, the undersecretary in charge of the department's information
    analysis and infrastructure protection unit, said that far from
    avoiding its key missions, the intelligence wing is "aggressively,
    crisply" acting on them. Critics of the department in Congress and
    outside government gave Libutti high marks for moving quickly to
    address the complaints in his first days on the job.
    
    Frustration over the department's performance in intelligence work
    boiled over June 5, when Paul Redmond, then the head of Homeland
    Security's intelligence analysis unit, testified before the House
    Select Committee on Homeland Security.
    
    Redmond -- a storied 33-year CIA veteran who exposed some of the
    nation's most notorious traitors -- angered committee members who said
    he seemed cavalier in describing the department's limited progress in
    intelligence work.
    
    Redmond testified that his office then had only 26 analysts and lacked
    the secure communications lines required to receive many classified
    CIA and FBI reports. Asked when this would change, he replied, "That
    will depend on us getting larger quarters and things like that."
    
    Committee members said they had hoped the department would have
    several times that number of analysts by then, or at least a number
    closer to the several hundred CIA and FBI terrorism analysts.
    
    Committee members from both parties were incensed by what they viewed
    as the intelligence office's lethargy and lack of focus. "I'm going to
    be forgiving for a very limited amount of time," Chairman Christopher
    Cox (R-Calif.) said in an interview.
    
    Rep. Jim Turner (Tex.), the committee's ranking Democrat, told
    President Bush in a letter last month that "a disturbing hearing . . .  
    revealed that there are serious problems" with the department's
    intelligence unit. The department, he wrote, "is not remotely close to
    having the tools it needs to meet its critical mandate."
    
    Redmond resigned three weeks after the hearing, citing his health.  
    Members of Congress passed on their blunt observations to Homeland
    Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who is hastening to address them,
    officials said.
    
    Cox said he was most frustrated that Homeland Security officials have
    accepted an arrangement in which the CIA, the FBI and the new
    Terrorist Threat Information Center (TTIC) pass intelligence reports
    about possible terrorist threats to the department. Homeland Security,
    in turn, analyzes the information and transmits warnings to state and
    local law enforcement agencies, as well as U.S. industry.
    
    Cox and a number of other members of Congress, such as Sen. Joseph I.  
    Lieberman (D-Conn.), said that in last year's Homeland Security Act,
    which established the department, Congress intended that it would be
    responsible for sifting through terrorism intelligence and ensuring it
    was acted upon around the country. But now TTIC does most of that,
    leaving the department with the smaller job of tightening security on
    Main Street, USA.
    
    Last year the White House embraced the view of the CIA and the FBI,
    both of which argued that Homeland Security should not routinely
    thrust itself into the minutiae of raw intelligence. That position
    leaves Homeland Security whipsawed between its congressional overseers
    and the White House.
    
    Libutti, who most recently ran the New York City Police Department's
    300-person counterterrorism squad, disputed the notion that his shop
    is a lightweight undertaking.
    
    "Information analysis and infrastructure protection is the center of
    gravity of this entire department," Libutti said. He said he does not
    have the luxury of wishing the White House had settled old
    intelligence debates differently, adding, "TTIC is a fact on the
    ground."
    
    Libutti also said he is swiftly recruiting intelligence analysts.  
    Though there were 26 when Redmond testified last month, there are
    almost 50 now, a total that will double again in about seven months,
    Libutti said.
    
    One ally of Ridge in the administration said the Cox panel has
    self-serving reasons to publicize a showdown with the department.  
    Because some House leaders want Cox's temporary committee terminated,
    the panel is "fighting for relevance," the Ridge ally said.
    
    Some in Congress want Ridge to fight harder for his department. He
    cultivates an image in the Cabinet as a team player, and insiders said
    he has not struggled behind closed doors for more clout in
    intelligence matters.
    
    "The department is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't," said
    Richard A. Clarke, who was a top White House counterterrorism official
    in the Clinton and Bush administrations until his recent departure to
    become a consultant.
    
    "The people in Congress who wrote the legislation creating the
    department wanted a 'Team B' analytical capability" that would
    reexamine every piece of terrorism intelligence assembled by the CIA
    and FBI, he said. But since the White House agreed with the FBI and
    CIA, he added, "that department is going to get squeezed and
    victimized."
    
    Ridge has had a hard time recruiting people for the department's
    intelligence jobs. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr.,
    who runs the secret U.S. National Imagery and Mapping Agency,
    initially agreed to be Ridge's undersecretary for intelligence, but
    reversed himself after concluding the job lacked clout and resources,
    friends said.
    
    At the same time, the department is competing for intelligence
    professionals with the higher-profile FBI, CIA and TTIC.
    
    Libutti said he and Ridge are addressing another problem the Cox panel
    noted: Members of the intelligence team were crammed into offices so
    crowded they were not allowed to have many classified computer
    terminals. Offices handling sensitive material require spacious
    quarters that allow for thick walls and widely spaced computer
    terminals.
    
    Libutti said that in coming days his unit will move into one of the
    biggest buildings at the U.S. Navy facility that the Homeland Security
    Department occupies in Northwest Washington. He said there will be
    space for 250 analysts and links to secure telecommunications lines.
    
    Homeland Security officials also said they connect well with TTIC. Of
    TTIC's 75 analysts, seven are from Homeland Security. Ultimately, the
    department will have 30 analysts there, out of 300. Libutti said they
    have access to all the classified data they need.
    
    William H. Parrish, a retired Marine colonel who recently was named
    Redmond's acting successor, said TTIC and Homeland Security meshed
    well in May, in the hours after al Qaeda suicide bombers attacked
    several western residential compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing
    34. Soon after the synchronized strikes, in which terrorists rammed
    security gates, Homeland Security analysts at TTIC prepared warnings
    about the gate-crashing that were transmitted to state and local
    authorities, he said.
    
    "It's one of our success stories," Parrish said.
    
    
     
    *==============================================================*
    "Communications without intelligence is noise;  Intelligence
    without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
    ----------------------------------------------------------------
    C4I.org - Computer Security, & Intelligence - http://www.c4i.org
    ================================================================
    Help C4I.org with a donation: http://www.c4i.org/contribute.html
    *==============================================================*
    
    
    
    -
    ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org
    
    To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn'
    in the BODY of the mail.
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Jul 21 2003 - 04:36:08 PDT