ANOTHER CZAR

Bush's Creation Of New Office Raises Questions

The United States government's efforts at anything with a "czar" at the
helm have not been stellar.

Former president George Bush appointed a drug czar, and we're still
fighting that war.

President Bill Clinton allowed his wife to be the health-care reform czar,
and look what happened to HMOs.

Both were worthy efforts, fighting drugs and reforming health care. But
perhaps no appointed czar will ever have a more daunting task than Tom
Ridge, in charge of Bush's recently created Homeland Defense Security Office.

Ridge became the terrorism czar little more than a week after this country
witnessed the worst act of terrorism on American soil. Ridge has his work
cut out for him.

The Homeland Security Defense Office will make assignments and coordinate
the efforts of more than 40 government departments and agencies. Ridge
would oversee those efforts, reportedly with his own budget apart from the
other 40 agencies' funding.

The creation of such an office was in the works long before terrorists
hijacked commercial airplanes, destroying the World Trade Center and
damaging the Pentagon, killing thousands. In testimony before the Senate
Committee on Governmental Affairs in March of this year, representatives of
the General Accounting Office urged our leaders to create a focused attempt
to combat terrorism, that the only way we can defend ourselves from such an
attack would be a concerted effort with the scores of agencies working in
tandem.

But because no one could have imagined an assault like we experienced on
Sept. 11, 2001, the pleas for such an office fell on deaf ears. Now we're
screaming for protection.

Let's hope the creation of this office isn't just a knee-jerk reaction to a
catastrophic event, a smoke-and-mirrors attempt to redirect blame away from
agencies -- law enforcement, immigration, intelligence -- that should have
or could have known such an attack was imminent.

Let's also hope the czar and his office don't duplicate existing services
or, worse yet, overstep the boundaries of our civil liberties. The office's
responsibilities should be clearly defined and its depth of jurisdiction
within our rights of privacy and due process.

Let's hope that, to combat terrorism, we're not all subjected to profiling,
illegal surveillance and strangers digging through our trash.

We need to combat terrorism. And these governmental agencies need to talk
to one another without counterproductive turf battles. It's premature to
suggest that appointing one person to oversee existing efforts would defend
us from the horrors we've witnessed.