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Advisers Say U.S. WMD Defense Responsibilities Vague By Joe Fiorill WASHINGTON — The United States must more clearly apportion specific responsibilities among federal and other agencies in the effort to defend the country against WMD attacks, a federal advisory body said yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2004). “Clear lines of authority” are lacking in the area of “plans, policies and procedures,” the head of the Homeland Security Advisory Council’s WMD defense task force told the council at a public meeting here. “A better definition of roles and responsibilities is called for,” said task force Chairwoman Lydia Thomas, the chief executive officer of Mitretek Systems. Thomas’ group, one of four subject-specific task forces within the blue-ribbon advisory body to the Homeland Security Department, focuses on “prevention of weapons of mass effect and those who may use them from American soil.” The chairwoman said the group’s search for ways to “develop a layered, integrated and multilateral system of defense” against such weapons began with a review of the state of U.S. WMD defenses, a process she said is nearly complete and would be followed by the identification of defense gaps and the proposal of a defense strategy. Speaking at a time of widespread debate in Washington about how to prioritize domestic and international activities to prevent nuclear terrorism, Thomas said the task force believes cooperation with foreign countries and businesses is an especially important part of the defense effort (see GSN, June 22). “We don’t in any way believe that our own borders should be where we start,” Thomas said. Analytic Services President Ruth David, the chairwoman of the council’s critical-infrastructure task force, called for an increased focus on “resilience” in efforts to secure key infrastructure. Companies and government agencies too often focus on strictly protective measures, David said, but should also plan for “maintaining continuity of service” and “reducing consequences” of attacks or other disruptions. “Resilience-based planning is not new but appears to be gaining momentum,” she said. The task force on private-sector information sharing expressed concern about liability risks associated with providing companies’ security information to the government. Boeing Senior Vice President Rick Stephens, a member of the task force, laid out a lengthy list of changes Homeland Security should make to encourage more information sharing while assuring business that the data is safe. “We genuinely are concerned about how well that information can in fact be protected,” Stephens said. The group said there is so far no agreement about what should be required of business and of the different levels of government as they collect security information and share it with each other. Industry and government must work together to define what information each needs from the other and how the information would be secured, the task force said. “DHS and the private sector should work in collaboration to develop [a] formal and objectively manageable homeland security intelligence/information requirements process,” it wrote in its formal recommendations. The task force called on Homeland Security to adopt a “tiered” system for the sharing of information on infrastructure vulnerabilities. Rather than seeking to centralize all such information within the department, the task force said, Homeland Security should allow the continued maintenance of “federal information at the DHS level, state information at the state level, local at the local level and private-sector at the private-sector level.” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff expressed support for such an approach, saying his department must have “access” to but not “possess” companies’ vulnerability information. Chertoff also updated the council on the agency’s “second-stage review,” the wide-ranging departmental evaluation he initiated as he took office in February (see GSN, June 9). The secretary said he has almost finished meeting with subject-specific teams he designated to study areas for improvement in the department and that the Homeland Security Advisory Council could play a role in implementing the results of the review. “Some of the solutions that have been identified, I think, do obviously deal with issues that … we don’t have total control over — either the private sector or other parts of government have a major role to play,” Chertoff said. “I think, as we start to think through the details of some of these solutions … there’s going to be a lot of expertise here, and I’m going to be asking that we start to develop some working groups here to look at the way we might implement those and get those things done,” he said. “So I think that that is an additional value, maybe an additional burden, I’m going to place on the council.”
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