DHS Strains As Goals, Mandates Go Unmet
It’s been five years since the Department of Homeland Security officially came into being. To mark the anniversary, media pundits and analysts dissected the state of the department today. Has it reached the lofty goals it set five years ago?

In an article in the Washington Post, writer Spencer S. Hsu says the DHS has had “a slew of high-profile projects that have gone astray.” He cites the delay of the border’s virtual fence, the temporary-worker program, explosive detection devices at airports, the biometric entry system and the hampered nuclear detection program at ports as a few of the initiatives that did not work out as planned.

“Former officials, private-sector partners and independent analysts say the evolving 208,000-worker, $38 billion agency remains hindered by a crisis-of-the-moment environment, in which the rush to fulfill each new mandate or meet every threat undermines its ability to hold a strategic course and deliver promised results,” Hsu says.

But the department has also worked hard to oversee the 22 rival components into one unified DHS, has improved aviation security and forged a more unified strategy for improving border security and using intelligence.

“Still, the ever-growing list of troubled programs illustrates the extent to which each new crisis – from the 2001 terrorist attacks to Hurricane Katrina to the Dubai ports scare to the Bush administration’s push for comprehensive immigration policy revisions – has forced DHS leaders to launch costly initiatives with broadly defined goals that wind up missing their targets,” Hsu says.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/05/
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