The Democratic Party | 100 Days, 100 Ways

AS SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY, RIDGE BACKED BUSH

Ridge Accompanied Bush to IA for Ganske Event. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge accompanied President Bush to Des Moines, Iowa in June for a speech on creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Representative Greg Ganske [R-IA], challenger to Senator Tom Harkin [D-IA], accompanied President Bush and Director Ridge to the World Pork Expo for the speech.¹

Ridge Visited Mt. Rushmore with Bush for Event with Janklow, Thune. President Bush visited Mt. Rushmore National Memorial in August to deliver a speech about homeland security. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, Governor Bill Janklow, and Representative John Thune, who is running against Senator Tim Johnson [D-SD] to reperesent South Dakota in the Senate, joined President Bush.²

RIDGE MISMANAGED HOMELAND SECURITY

Ridge's Tenure Saw Variety of Failures. "DHS came under criticism repeatedly during Ridge's tenure. Groups ranging from the Government Accountability Office to independent homeland security analysts, privacy advocates and lawmakers found fault with the department and Ridge's leadership of it. He has had to defend the department's work to integrate its own systems, merge terrorist watch lists, create an entry-exit system for the nation's borders, and craft systems for pinpointing risky passengers and cargo."³

DHS Fractured and Poorly Managed Under Ridge. "Homeland Security is fractured into warring fiefdoms -- a competition that's hindering internal intelligence-sharing, between, the Customs and Border Security agency and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement counterpart, for example. And FEMA often freelances without telling top department management what it's up to. The department hasn't even been able to establish an integrated network of field representatives, because each undersecretary already has representatives out there and doesn't want to give them up. ... Staff turnover has been debilitating. The deputy secretary left after less than a year. The chief financial officer quit. Since November, the office responsible for the National Capitol Region has had no leader. The top intelligence officer at the Transportation Security Administration left earlRidge Criticized for Not Handling Terrorist Concerns Well. "But while the foreign policy team has shined in dealing with terrorist threats abroad, Bush's domestic advisers have been less successful dealing with such threats at home. ... And the president's newly appointed director of homeland security, Tom Ridge, has been criticized for not being forceful enough in dealing with local concerns about potential terrorist attacks."⁴

Ridge Ignored Pre-Katrina Warning About FEMA Weaknesses. "On Sept. 15, 2003, one of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's deputies lobbed a bureaucratic hand grenade across his desk. In a seven- page memo, the new department's undersecretary for emergency preparedness and response told Ridge that his organizational plan would cripple America's ability to respond to disasters. The memo, like so many that flew around Washington during the largest government reshuffling in decades, involved turf: Ridge had decided to move some of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's preparedness functions to an office less than one-fifteenth its size. The writer warned that the shift would make a mockery of FEMA's new motto, 'A Nation Prepared,' and would 'fundamentally sever FEMA from its core functions,' 'shatter agency morale,' and 'break longstanding, effective and tested relationships with states and first responder stakeholders.' The inevitable result, he wrote, would be 'an ineffective and uncoordinated response' to a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. The author was Michael D. Brown, who was FEMA's director as well as a Department of Homeland Security undersecretary. Two years later, Brown would lose both titles after Hurricane Katrina, when his prophecies of doom came true."⁵

Ridge Left DHS With "Security Gaps in Every Sector." "ZAHN [Paula, CNN correspondent]: What is your chief concern about our continuing vulnerability here in America as a terrorist target? ERVIN [Clark, former Inspector General for DHS]: Well, my chief concern is that security gaps remain in every sector, in terms of aviation security, in port security, in terms of mass transit security. ... ZAHN (voice-over): Besides aviation security, another investigation revealed huge gaps in screening for nuclear materials at U.S. ports. And then there was the money. One of Ervin's investigations concluded there was $49 million in excessive profit paid to the Boeing company by the Transportation Security Administration for the installation and maintenance of equipment that detects explosives. And his investigation into immigration and customs enforcement concluded the agency couldn't keep track of its money, spending at least $150 million more than I had, which he says didn't leave the agency with enough money to perform its counterterrorism role. ERVIN: To be fair, there was outrage on the part of the relevant congressional committees that, even after pointing out weaknesses and problems and shortcomings like this, we continued to find a pattern of spending abuses and a pattern of inattention on the department's part to correcting these kinds of problems. ZAHN (on camera): Whose fault is that? ERVIN: Well, it's a combination of things. First of all, and most importantly, I think it's a failure of leadership in management attention. ... the department as a whole, the whole leadership of the department, starting with the secretary, I think that the department did not live up to its promise. And I think we have a ways to go, a considerable distance to go before we're as safe as we need to be in this post-9/11 environment with a determined enemy like the one that we have."⁶

"Sec. Duct Tape" -- Ridge Security Solutions Met With Ridicule. "Mr. Ridge was best known as the public face for the nation's color-coded terror alerts, warning for months that another terrorist attack was likely. The government raised the alert to ''high,'' or orange, status six times on his watch, even as domestic security officials sometimes squabbled with the Justice Department about what they felt were overly dire warnings from Attorney General John Ashcroft. His role in issuing the warnings raised the profile of Mr. Ridge -- a confidant of President Bush and former Pennsylvania governor -- but it also brought skepticism and ridicule at times. When his department suggested in 2003 that Americans buy emergency items like duct tape to guard against chemical attacks, Mr. Ridge became fodder for late- night comedians and was roasted at Washington's annual Gridiron dinner by a performer who wrapped himself in plastic before an audience that included Mr. Bush."⁷

Ridge Left DHS With Large Security Deficiencies. "Current and former Bush administration officials, as well as homeland security experts, were divided yesterday in assessing the department's first 20 months. ... a former White House official, who requested anonymity, said, 'There's not a lot of accountability there [at the department] now because people can hide behind the fact that the kinks haven't been worked out. . . . With the new secretary, people will be responsible for things, which is what the president wants.'... blue-ribbon panels and internal government studies have pointed to a number of areas in which the department has made only halting progress. They include not creating gaps in securing U.S. ports against attack, especially from a nuclear weapon, and slowness in addressing the need to monitor cargo flown on commercial aircraft."⁸

Bush Insider Said DHS "Sliding Backwards" Under Ridge. "[T]he rate of progress has been declining ever since the department [of Homeland Security] opened for business on March 1, 2003. One Bush administration veteran says the White House's announcement of the new department marked the start of an 'era of great promise,' but added that an 'era of retrenchment' began as soon as the department actually came into existence. ... critics say the department's bureaucracy is already calcifying, making real change even more difficult. 'The department is sliding' backward, contends one administration insider. 'What will happen is, if there's a huge [terrorist] incident, they'll find the department does not have the authority to accomplish the mission they had assigned to it. That'll be the [subject of the] next 9/11 commission.'"⁹

RIDGE WENT THROUGH "REVOLVING DOOR" OF BUSH-CHENEY ADMINISTRATION TO PRIVATE SECTOR POSITIONS

Ridge Joined Board of Company Whose Tech He Pushed as DHS Secretary. "Countering terrorism has become big business in Washington. Lobbying and consulting shops offering security and risk-management services have sprung up around the city, led by such headliners as former Defense Secretary William Cohen and former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Three months after leaving Homeland Security, Ridge joined the board of Savi Technology, a maker of radio-frequency identification equipment, which his department had promoted. Ridge was paid in company stock options, which became valuable when Lockheed Martin bought the firm earlier this year. 'My conscience is clear,' Ridge said."¹⁰

Ridge Appointed to Board of Cernium. "Cernium Corporation, the leading developer of video analytics-enabled products, announced the appointment of The Honorable Tom Ridge, the nation's first Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and former Governor of Pennsylvania, to the company's board of directors [see also Cernium Corporation]."¹¹

Cernium Anticipated Huge Revenues Once Ridge Appointed DHS Secretary. "CERNIUM RISING: Cernium Inc. -- the little startup security company in Webster Groves whose debut product, Exit Sentry, detects wrong-way motion at airport exit lanes -- is closing in on 'several million dollars' in venture capital, says Sean Patty, president and chief executive. ... The new capital will be used to pay for Cernium's second product, Perceptrak, a software product that monitors large banks of security cameras. With the Senate approval Wednesday of Tom Ridge as homeland security chief, Patty expects orders for Exit Sentry -- now installed at 18 airports, including Lambert Field -- to take off."¹²

Cernium Took Advantage of At Least One DHS Grant. "The city of San Diego's Metropolitan Wastewater Department installed video analytics software at its major sewage pump station in 2005. The pump station, located among overgrown plants in a field, had been a target for vandals until the city installed Perceptrak, video analytics software made by St. Louis-based Cernium. The wastewater department received a $142,000 U.S. Department of Homeland Security grant to install new cameras and video analytics software at three other major pump stations, said department spokesman Michael Scahill. Much of the 180 million daily gallons of sewage in the region flows through these pump stations. The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System received a $400,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to install new video cameras, along with analytics software, at its trolley station near the Mexican border, said transit spokesman Luis Gonzalez. He said the project is expected to be completed this fall."¹³