According to then-General Dwight D. Eisenhower, "The right organization will not guarantee success. But the wrong organization will guarantee failure." Right now the U.S. government is organized for failure in its war on terrorism. Border-- security agencies use 11 different databases, none of which is compatible with the others; procedures between the nuclear-response teams from the Department of Energy and the radiological-weapons response teams from the Department of Health and Human Services are not coordinated; and at least seven agencies have jurisdiction over a cargo ship when she enters U.S. waters.
President George W. Bush's proposal to create a new cabinet office for homeland security to integrate 22 or more existing federal programs and agencies with security-related responsibilities, scattered across eight cabinet departments, under one roof is the right thing to do to provide for the nation's security needs. The new Department of Homeland Security places these agencies into four mission areas: border and transportation security; emergency preparedness and response; chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear countermeasures; and information analysis and infrastructure protection.
To carry out its transportation and border security mission, the Department of Homeland Security would incorporate the U.S. Coast Guard (Department of Transportation), the U.S. Customs Service (Department of Treasury), the Immigration and Naturalization Service and Border Patrol (Department of Justice), the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (Department of Agriculture), and the Transportation Security Administration (Department of Transportation).
To secure our nation's territorial waters, including our ports and waterways, the Department of Homeland Security must assume authority over the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is responsible for the security and safety of the nation's inland waterways, ports, and harbors; more than 95,000 miles of U.S. coastlines; U.S. territorial seas; 3.4 million square miles of ocean defining our exclusive economic zones; as well as other maritime regions of importance to the United States. The Coast Guard is the only federal law enforcement agency with jurisdiction in both U.S. waters and on the high seas, and is the only armed service with law enforcement authority. For the maritime component of homeland security, the Coast Guard ideally is suited to act as the lead federal agency.
Grouping the Coast Guard together with these other agencies is a necessary, sensible, and prudent measure to solve the problems created by our porous borders. In the war on terrorism the nation has a compelling need to bring these agencies together for unity of effort and to leverage the Coast Guard's unique status as a law enforcement agency, military service, and member of the intelligence community to secure the nation's maritime domain.
For too long the Coast Guard has had a poor and awkward fit in the Department of Transportation, which never placed Coast Guard missions and issues at its center of concerns. Relocating the Coast Guard in the Department of Homeland Security positions the Coast Guard's mission set, values, character, and culture at the epicenter of its new parent organization. For the Department of Homeland Security to be successful at its core functions, it must ensure that the Coast Guard is strong and also successful. That is not the case with the Coast Guard in the Department of Transportation.
The Department of Homeland Security likely will better appreciate and understand operations and the budgetary requirements of operational agencies such as the Coast Guard. Eventually, the new department will generate significant savings through the efficiencies of bringing together the three law enforcement agencies—Border Patrol, Customs Service, and Coast Guard—each operating boats, airplanes, command nodes, intelligence centers, and communications networks.
The incorporation of the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration into the Department of Homeland Security also allows the Department of Transportation to remain focused on its core mandate of ensuring that the nation has a strong and efficient transportation infrastructure that keeps pace with modern technology and the nation's demographic and economic growth.
In this new reorganization the Coast Guard would maintain its existing independent identity as a military organization under the leadership of its Commandant. On declaration of war, or when the President so directs, the Coast Guard would operate as an element of the Department of Defense.
Currently, there are more than 46 federal agencies and programs with homeland security responsibilities. There needs to be one government department that has homeland security as its primary mission, and the agencies responsible for securing the nation's borders—from the Coast Guard to the Immigration and Naturalization Service—must be melded into a cohesive whole to fight and win the war on terrorism.
Retired Coast Guard Captain Stubbs has been published widely on Coast Guard-related issues, recently in the April 2002 Proceedings with “We Are Lifesavers, Guardians, and Warriors.” He now works for the Anteon Corporation in Arlington, Virginia.