Let us understand what our commission recommended in terms of government reorganization. The only area that we considered in the area of government reorganization was "protect the border," because that is so fundamental. I mean, we would all agree, if you cannot protect the border better than we are doing now, then no matter how good your intelligence, how good your response, you got big-time trouble coming at you. So we said-and I think Gary Hart put it better than I can-here is what these people used to do, here is why they were created. Let us protect the border and take Coast Guard, Border Patrol, and Customs. Now, that goes into a cabinet-level agency which has all of the kinds of responsibilities that Governor Gilmore and Ambassador Bremer have talked about, and the comptroller general, in terms of coordinating, I believe it is 51, take away three after you took those three agents, but it is 48 disparate government responsibilities in the area of responding, protecting, and preventing terrorism. And I think the only difference is, that we are saying that Governor Ridge would be confirmed by the Senate. He would sit at the cabinet table. He would not be competing with other people's resource in that area. Those three entities would have their budget about to where they are now or increased by the Congress, but the only agents to be moved in would be that which protected the border. All of the others, and we all know the obvious, the Defense Department, CIA, FBI, but there is HHS and the Governor probably knows even more than that, having dealt with them as a Governor, they would still be where they are, but they would be subject to strong coordinative authority issued by the Congress in statutory language and the President by Executive Order to get it done. So I do not think there is a huge difference about what we are talking about here. But we are very firm about the fact that these three agencies ought to be where they are, and FEMA, of course, which we think is a major building block. Senator Hart said to our group, about 2 years ago, when we were debating some of these things, "Let us not recommend to the Congress and to the President that which we think is politically doable. Let us submit, in our report, what we think ought to be done." And this was one of the big hot buttons, and we knew it at the time. That is no reason it should not be done. Chairman LIEBERMAN. The big hot button was bringing those agencies Senator RUDMAN. Was bringing these three, taking them away from where they are. Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me ask you the question while we are on it, because I was going to ask it in a while, which is: What about the other functions of those agencies, particularly Coast Guard, but also Customs and Border Patrol, but particularly Coast Guard, that are not directly related to homeland defense, such as navigational security that the Coast Guard does? Senator RUDMAN. They would keep their absolute identities, just as the Coast Guard did when it went into the Department of Transportation. Its mission did not change. Its mission was the same. Senator RUDMAN. All we are saying is that a very heavy part of their responsibility, those three agencies, is border security from goods and from people, and we think they ought to be together. Chairman LIEBERMAN. Governor Gilmore, are these two proposals mutually exclusive? I mean, could you envision yourself being supportive of a kind of agency that would combine FEMA, Border Patrol, Customs, Coast Guard, that Senator Rudman has talked about? Governor GILMORE. Senator Lieberman, the essence of legislative life is a combination of different proposals. Chairman LIEBERMAN. Spoken like a Governor. [Laughter.] Chairman LIEBERMAN. I accept your amendment, spoken like a former legislator. Governor GILMORE. Naturally, we are all very deeply respectful of every proposal that is here, and I am confident that they could be harmonized, and that they could be accommodated to each other if that is what it takes in order to pass a piece of legislation and to get the votes. From an executive point of view, sometimes you must choose that which is best, and weigh and balance the different options as meritorious as each of them may be, and ultimately choose. Our belief has been that the answer here was not any bureaucracy, but a vehicle for management, and a vehicle for management. I believe the President has established a vehicle for management with Governor Ridge last night. I suppose that one could put these pieces together, and you could have an agency. It would then go into the cabinet I suppose, a border cabinet position or something, or an agency, something of that nature. And then it would fight for turf, budget issues, and accommodations and influence with other perhaps bigger dogs. That is all right. But ultimately, we believe the ultimate answer is the coordination, budget authority, planning of a national strategy from a national terrorism office that I believe that the President has now established. Chairman LIEBERMAN. Anyone else want to comment on that last question? If not, let me go to another part of this. I noticed my staff gave me two articles from the Defense Trade Press today in which there were statements made, attributed to people in the Pentagon, that we are talking about defense here. So why should this not go under someone in the Defense Department? Why should there not be a new unified command for homeland defense? Presumably, although the article is not totally clear on this, that would include the border control agencies and even the preparedness that we are talking about. Senator Hart. Senator HART. Two and a half reasons. One is the Constitution of the United States. The second is the Posse Comitatus Law. The third is this practical necessity. The constitutional argument dates to the constitutional debate. What we did then, 225 years ago, was create two armies. The Federalists wanted a standing army and navy to protect American commercial interests broad, Alexander Hamilton. The anti-Federalists were afraid, dating to classic Republican theory from the Greek city-states, that a standing army in peacetime in a republic was a hands of the militia, and the militia would be under the control of the States, and that was the compromise. Now, the militia, in the late 19th Century, became the National Guard. In the 20th Century the National Guard became an auxiliary expeditionary force, and that's the way they think of themselves. But the fact of the matter is, their primary duty under the Constitution is to defend the homeland of the United States. Now, as Senator Rudman has appropriately said, we have not said that is their exclusive duty. They have not heard what we said, but we have not said that is their exclusive duty. They can still keep their, and need to keep their ability as a follow-on expeditionary force, that a primary, if not the primary, mission of the National Guard is to defend the homeland. That is the constitutional argument. The statutory argument, as you know, prohibits the use of American troops, regular army forces, on our soil, absent declaration by Congress. And that goes back to, oddly enough, a very closely-contested national election in 1874. So you have got a statutory prohibition against the Defense Department running this thing in effect. And practically, as Senator Rudman said, National Guard units are forward deployed in 2,100 different units around the country. Now, you are going to get the argument that the Guard is "weekend warriors," and incompetent. Wrong. If the National Guard can fight world wars, and it has, it can defend the homeland. It has to be properly trained and equipped. It is to today? Largely not, but if it is made a national priority and the Commander in Chief orders it done, it will be done. These are citizen soldiers. These are people in the communities and if you need-if the terrorists take over a downtown office building in Denver, it is going to be a while before the 82nd Airborne Division gets there and the damage may be done. But the Governor knows you can mobilize the Guard awfully fast and special units particularly, and if you have had any prior warning, they can be ready to go. They are in the streets of New York. They were within hours, not too many hours. So I focused my attention here on the Guard because it is the solution to the question that you have asked. It is a constitutional military power under the control of the States, locally deployed, and trainable and equipable for this mission. Chairman LIEBERMAN. I admire your answer, appreciate it. You must have had some very interesting sessions of this commission. Senator HART. You do not know the half of it. Chairman LIEBERMAN. Well, I do not want to hear half of it. [Laughter.] Senator RUDMAN. Well, let me tell you, interesting enough, Newt Gingrich, who was the father of this idea, on the theory that no good deed goes unpunished, when he left the House, was put on this commission. And he is a historian who brought a lot of insight. Let me just add one thing to answer your question. The military made it very clear they do not want this primary responsibility. That is not theirs. They have enough to do protecting the Nation overseas, and they do not think that they should have it. However, everyone agrees, that if we had had a chemical, a nuclear or a biological incident in this country, it is only the active sources to deal with the horrendous situation that would face the country under those circumstance. That is a response issue. Chairman LIEBERMAN. Let me ask you just a quick question here about the role of the National Guard as you contemplate it in homeland defense. If you take your tripartheid approach of the responsibilities of the Homeland Security Agency, prevent, protect and respond, is it primarily in the respond part that you see the Guard being active? Senator RUDMAN. Yes, it is. Some protection, but mainly response, and I think Governor Gilmore would be in a better position to tell you when they have had disasters in Virginia, hurricanes and whatnot, I mean there is nothing like the Guard, even though many are not trained to do that. We say they need specific training to deal with these kind of contingencies. Chairman LIEBERMAN. What were you thinking about, Senator Hart, when you said there might be a role in protection as well? Senator HART. Well, let us hypothesize, which I hate to do because in an interview a few days ago I said this could happen in Nashville, Denver and Seattle, and my phone has been ringing off the hook from people in those three cities. Take a city, Hartford. [Laughter.] Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thanks. [Laughter.] Chairman LIEBERMAN. What was your phone number? [Laugh ter.] Senator HART. Let us say intelligence picks up a threat. Let us say the intelligence is precise enough to say probably a capital city in New England. I can see the Guard, units of the Guard, not the whole Connecticut National Guard, but units specially trained, paramilitary units of the Guard, in a protective role, working with the State patrol, the local Hartford police, to find them and prevent them from acting. Chairman LIEBERMAN. Good example. Governor, how about the role of the military generally, why the commission decided to not ask the Pentagon to take this over, and then specifically, uniquely as Governor, how you see the role of the National Guard here? Governor GILMORE. Senator Lieberman, this is a very important question, and I want to be as forthright as I can. We also will be addressing an entire provision of our third report to the issue of the use of the military. We have had thorough discussion about it over a long period of time. We absolutely reject the Department of Defense playing a leading role even in the event of a weapon of mass destruction catastrophic attack should the President conclude that only regular military can step in to help, even then we recommend that that be subordinate to a Federal civilian agency, logically FEMA. If the military has to be engaged, they should be engaged only at the request and in support of FEMA and the combined operation of State and local people as well. We reject the use of the military in any first type of response. It is exactly what the enemy wants, is to have United States military people patrolling the streets of our Nation and imbuing our citizens with the idea that they are to be controlled by uniform And furthermore, Senator, I have made some statements, and I believe that I reflect the panel's feelings, that we should never ask any American to give up any civil right in return for security. The civil rights and human rights of the people of the United States under the Constitution are absolutely paramount, and we should not give the enemy the win to say that we should in any way compromise any of that. As a former elected prosecutor, I know that you can take actions consistent with the Constitution and security-the Fourth, the Fifth, and the Sixth Amendments. You can do these things. But we should not cross that line, and we are concerned that the use of the military, unless it is in a subordinate capacity, would be in fact moving down that direction. And all our representatives in the Department of Defense on our panel have concurred that they should not be first responders. And the second point I would make is to remember, when you start thinking about sticking something like this in the DOD, remember the key provision that we have put forward, the locals and the States absolutely must be built in to the local response. I cannot imagine a day that the local and State officials across the 50 United States will become subordinate to a military authority in the case of a crisis. And in fact, if you went the DOD route, even there are some Federal agencies that would be a little uncomfortable with that, the CIA perhaps. Chairman LIEBERMAN. Thank you for the answer. I was thinking, as you were talking, that I have spoken to a number of people in New York, and people do not want the Guard patrolling streets in normal times, but the rapid appearance of the National Guard on the streets of New York after the attacks was immensely reassuring to the public there. Governor GILMORE. Senator Lieberman, two things. First of all, the Guard is a little different, as Senator Hart said. They are the historical militia of the United States. They are under control of the Governor of each individual State, that civilian authority, unless federalized, and I do not believe there has been a federalization in any of these disasters. So that is a little bit different, but in addition to that, even then, they should come in subordinate to the first responders, police, fire, rescue, health, medical, and then come in to provide additional hands, and then finally, as the situation or the attack escalates or becomes a weapon of mass destruction, then perhaps the regular services, but only in response to and at the request of a civilian authority. Chairman LIEBERMAN. Ambassador Bremer, correct me if I am wrong. It is my impression, not that you disagree with what has been said, but that you have a more expansive view of the potential role of the military in these matters. Is that true? Mr. BREMER. The National Commission on Terrorism, which I chaired, which was a bipartisan commission appointed by Congress, reached a slightly different conclusion which was based on the following analysis. It is possible, particularly if one considers biological and chemical terrorism, to imagine a circumstance, as we said in our report, where not thousands but tens of thousands of casualties are inflicted. In such a circumstance it is possible to imagine that one event or several events like this would quickly |