Timothy Roemer: “I think that this country is in dire need of a homeland security department, and I hope and pray that the President's…”

“I think that this country is in dire need of a homeland security department, and I hope and pray that the President's proposal will work. But I think that it will not. While I do not know what I am going to do yet on final passage, I have very grave concerns about this being too bureaucratic, too big, too cumbersome, and not quick enough and agile enough to deal with the threat of al Qaeda that can move from Yemen to Hamburg to the United States in a matter of 12 hours. Now, when President Clinton proposed his massive health care proposal in 1993, I thought it was too bureaucratic. I opposed it. I thought it was too slow. When we look at this proposal, to get a decision made from the CIA to homeland security, assess the threat, get it back up to the Secretary, determine the reliability, go back down and then say, yes, we have a real threat, then say should we call Indianapolis, warn them, prevent it, harden the target, we are going from the President to the Secretary to the infrastructure protection to the threat analysis and back. I do not know that this is going to work. I hope it does. The current system, Mr. Chairman, is the President and then here is Tom Ridge. Here is the President and here is Tom Ridge in the Office of Homeland Security. Right there and right back. Very quick. I think we need quick. I hope that we will take our time on this.”