Is homeland security still a priority?

By Kristen Silverberg

This weekend, the Washington Post reported plans by the Obama administration for a "sweeping overhaul" of the National Security Council to give it new authorities and membership. Some of the "reforms" described in the article appear to me to be direct continuation of Bush administration practice, as Will suggests here. The Post, for example, outlined plans to make the NSC "more elastic" by including departments other than State and Defense. This has been the case since the adoption of the National Security Act of 1947. Depending on the issue, NSC meetings under the Bush administration included some combination of the intelligence community, Treasury, Justice, Energy, Commerce, USAID, the ambassador to the United Nations, and so on.   

There is, however, one idea under consideration that would be a genuine and, I think, unwise departure from Bush administration practice. The Obama team is, apparently, still considering subsuming Homeland Security Council functions within the National Security Council. This would mean either that the issues would be managed by a lower-ranking official — presumably a deputy national security advisor — or that General Jones would have ultimate responsibility for both national and homeland security. Either way, it’s a bad idea.    

A deputy national security advisor would not have sufficient heft. The dramatic post-9/11 improvements in our country’s preparedness level have been, in large part, the result of high-level White House attention to the issue. For example, I watched more than once as Vice President Cheney carefully examined officials from Health and Human Services on bioterror contingency plans, sessions that significantly energized that department’s efforts. It is not likely that cabinet-level heads of agencies will be as responsive to an official they outrank. 

The alternative — relying on General Jones to manage both homeland and national security — is equally impractical. No national security advisor, no matter how competent, has the bandwidth to cover both effectively. Almost by definition, homeland security issues won’t seem urgent until there is an attack. Asking the national security advisor to keep one eye on container security and the vaccine stockpile while he is simultaneously coordinating policy on Afghanistan, the Middle East peace process, and Iran will ensure that homeland security issues always get short shrift.

Finally, the proposal is not reassuring in terms of signalling White House priorities. In other areas, President Obama has indicated his commitment to an issue by elevating the rank of the person in charge (Daschle as would-be health czar, Browner as environment czar, Holbrooke as special representative for Afghanistan-Pakistan, Susan Rice in the cabinet as U.N .ambassador, etc.). I don’t think that’s the best indictor of commitment, but it seems to be the one he is using.

What does it tell us, in an administration engaged in rank inflation, that the one area in which the official in charge may be lower level than his predecessor is homeland security?