MSNBC - Homeland Security changes expected soon

MSNBC - Homeland Security changes expected soon: "
MSNBC.com
Homeland Security changes expected soon
Creation of �policy shop� among top considerations
By Brock N. Meeks
Chief Washington correspondent
MSNBC
Updated: 12:48 a.m. ET June 24, 2005
WASHINGTON - Major changes could be in store for the massive Department of Homeland Security when the results of a long awaited top-to-bottom review of the agency’s mission, procedures and personnel are unveiled as soon as next week.

Department Secretary Michael Chertoff ordered the 60-day review when he took over from Tom Ridge. Eighteen teams will report on their “observations about where we have achieved, what we need to achieve, where we have fallen short, what our gaps are and how we might think of solutions, outcomes that would address those gaps,” Chertoff said Thursday at a meeting with the Homeland Security Advisory Council.



WASHINGTON - Major changes could be in store for the massive Department of Homeland Security when the results of a long awaited top-to-bottom review of the agency�s mission, procedures and personnel are unveiled as soon as next week.
Department Secretary Michael Chertoff ordered the 60-day review when he took over from Tom Ridge. Eighteen teams will report on their �observations about where we have achieved, what we need to achieve, where we have fallen short, what our gaps are and how we might think of solutions, outcomes that would address those gaps,� Chertoff said Thursday at a meeting with the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
�I�ve now begun the process of meeting with the groups and talking through some of the solutions and starting to task out things we might do to report on this,� Chertoff said. �I anticipate that I will have completed this process basically by the end of this month. And then as we move forward, I think we�ll begin to see the fruits of this process.�
Although DHS is just 2 1/2 years old, it�s drawn its share of criticism, both from the private sector and from Congress, for everything from cumbersome airline passenger screening procedures to its inability to funnel money to state and local homeland security agencies to its color-coded terror threat alert system.
Chertoff made it clear from the beginning of the review than everything in the department, from how it purchases office supplies to procedures for screening cargo and passengers to the terror alert system were on the table for change.
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