White House Finds Homeland Security Jobs a Tough Sell

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

Forwarded from: William Knowles <wk () c4i org>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7298-2003Feb26.html

By Brian Krebs
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
February 27, 2003

Just two days before 22 federal agencies are set to move to the new 
Department of Homeland Security, the White House has yet to fill three 
top positions responsible for protecting the nation's physical and 
digital infrastructure and managing the department's 
intelligence-gathering activities. 

The vacant posts are in DHS's Directorate for Information Analysis and 
Infrastructure Protection (IAIP), a terrorist threat assessment and 
warning unit that includes five cybersecurity divisions previously 
scattered across other federal agencies. March 1 is the deadline for 
most federal agencies reassigned to DHS to have completed the move to 
the department. 

The Bush administration's top pick for the IAIP undersecretary 
position, former Defense Intelligence Agency Director James Clapper, 
turned down the job last month. Two assistant secretary positions -- 
one charged with managing intelligence gathering and the other 
responsible for infrastructure protection -- also must be filled. 

Confusion about the IAIP's mission and authority is handicapping the 
White House search, according to people who have been approached to 
fill the positions, as well as observers closely following the massive 
homeland security reorganization. 

As envisioned in the Homeland Security Act, IAIP is to serve as the 
gathering place for all information related to possible threats to the 
homeland. The architects of the law believed that a central 
clearinghouse for intelligence data would help avoid a repeat of 
events that led to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, where 
anti-terror agencies missed clues and failed to share information. 

But recent Bush administration actions are casting doubt on IAIP's 
mission. Earlier this month, the president announced that a new terror 
threat intelligence center would be created and run by Central 
Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet, signaling that DSH's role 
in intelligence assessment would be limited. 

One former Bush administration official approached about a key post 
within IAIP said he declined the job "when it became obvious that 
there was not going to be a serious investment of resources" in the 
division's intelligence-gathering mission. The source asked that his 
name not be printed. 

Another former high-ranking Bush administration official who walked 
away from one of the top three positions in the division described 
working at IAIP as "the ultimate thankless job, where the people in 
charge will be raked over the coals by Congress the next time things 
go wrong." 

"An even bigger concern is there seems to be a real lack of clarity as 
to what the directorate's mission is, and when you factor those two 
elements together it adds up to a real turkey," said the official, who 
asked not to be named. 

James B. Steinberg, former deputy national security adviser under the 
Clinton administration, called the IAIP recruiting problems 
unsurprising, adding that the creation of the threat integration 
center under CIA leadership leaves the undersecretary for IAIP with a 
great deal of accountability but little authority on intelligence 
matters. 

"Anyone qualified enough who would want to lead IAIP would naturally 
want to be where the action is, but with the administration's decision 
to put intelligence squarely in the hands of (the director of the 
CIA), I can't imagine why anybody would think IAIP is going to be 
where the action is," said Steinberg, who is currently vice president 
and director of foreign policy studies at The Brookings Institution. 
"It's clear from this move that the administration sees a very limited 
role for the directorate." 

"Whoever takes this job is probably not going to be the guy in the 
room with the president, or if you are, it's going to be only because 
the CIA or FBI invited you," said Stewart Baker, former general 
counsel at the National Security Agency. 

Until the administration sorts where IAIP ranks in the intelligence 
community, anyone who takes the helm at IAIP will be playing from a 
weak hand, Baker said. "It's like drawing the queen of spades in game 
of Hearts: If you're not careful, everyone will decide you're the one 
who didn't do his job." 

The White House has also had trouble competing with the private sector 
for talented help, according to friends and close associates of 
several potential nominees who turned down assignments at IAIP. 

Most of the qualified candidates the administration has approached are 
20- to 30-year veteran military and intelligence officers who have 
since taken lucrative consulting jobs in the private sector. For many, 
returning to work for the government would mean not only much smaller 
salaries, but the loss of their government pensions -- since Uncle Sam 
generally prohibits "double dipping," or collecting pensions while on 
the government's active payroll. 

"In some cases it's like asking people to take at least a 40 percent 
pay cut to come back and work for the government," said Mark Rasch, 
former head of the Justice Department's computer crimes unit and now 
senior vice president and chief security counsel for security vendor 
Solutionary Inc. "That's almost never an attractive option." 

Such considerations likely played a role in influencing Clapper to 
turn down the IAIP top position. A retired Air Force lieutenant 
general who currently serves as director of the National Imagery and 
Mapping Agency, Clapper was hired at NIMA under a benefits and salary 
package comparable to that of a private-sector contractor. He did not 
explain why he declined the job, but former co-workers say Clapper 
would have had to sacrifice his pension and his generous salary at 
NIMA to take a job with the new department. 

Sources inside the Bush administration and outside observers who 
closely track the intelligence community said John Grimes, a top 
executive at Raytheon's intelligence and information systems unit, is 
a possible choice for the undersecretary job or for assistant 
secretary for infrastructure protection. Grimes was formerly deputy 
assistant secretary of defense under the previous two administrations. 

The same sources said Paul Redmond, the former chief of CIA 
counterintelligence whose work led to the uncovering of CIA spy 
Aldrich Ames, is on the short list of candidates for assistant 
secretary for information analysis. Redmond is currently finishing up 
a report to Congress on the damage done to U.S. intelligence efforts 
by Robert Hanssen, the FBI counterintelligence expert convicted of 
spying for Russia. 

Both Grimes and Redmond acknowledged being contacted by the White 
House about the positions but declined to comment further. 


 
*==============================================================*
"Communications without intelligence is noise;  Intelligence
without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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