FATHERLAND SECURITY
IS REORGANIZATION REALLY NECESSARY?
A long time ago, when I had a market research firm in Chicago, my partner and I were attending a meeting at a major consumer company you would recognize if I told you who it was. We were there to discuss exploratory research in the development of a new company logo.

Various marketing, sales, production, design, and other executives at the table were throwing out all sorts of ideas regarding the connotations that they felt any new logo must convey. I whispered in my partner's ear: "What's wrong with the old logo?"

Wiser than me, he quietly replied: "Keep your mouth shut. You don't understand the politics at play here." It was a family business and the son had just taken the helm from his father.

As much fun as that project might have been, we turned it down. We had plenty of other things to do and we simply begged out on the basis that they didn't need us, they were perfectly capable of handling the task themselves. Why go to the expense of our fee when they could evaluate results with a simple survey.

Of course, the real reason was that almost anything they developed would suffice, so long as it was different. We didn't have time to waste on that sort of objective. We had our own reputation and integrity to build, uphold, and protect.

I'm telling you this story because today I want to ask that same sort of question again. I want to ask it in terms of the push for reorganizing the government under the umbrella of Homeland Security.

What's wrong with the old system? Obviously, it failed miserably on September 11th, but is that because of the organization or the people within it? Could it possibly have had to do with something other than the intelligence system or the way that system is structured? Isn't that one of the reasons for the current investigation into who knew what before 9/11?

My God, after spending fifty years spying and counter spying with the Russians, didn't we totally miss the fact that their economy was about to collapse in 1988? Did anyone think of restructuring our intelligence operations at that time and because of that obvious failing?

Take a look at the government's own organizational chart, currently structuring 13 different intelligence agencies under one single umbrella with George Tenet as the Director of Central Intelligence.
Can you honestly look at this and think that these agencies are not already centralized? There may be overlapping responsibility, but is that so bad if they are all feeding into the center? Doesn't it make you want to look into exactly what each of these agencies does and what separates them? And, at the center, just what is this "Community Management Staff" and how does that differ from Homeland Security?

Are we dealing with another father-son relationship here? Does George the younger just want to finish what his father started in Iraq? The call for reorganization was just a little too quick for me. So was the change to "first strike" policy. It seems more like a diversion to the investigation underway.

Don't you think it would make more sense to call for reorganization after the investigation? After we know how, where, and why it's needed?