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Chertoff: `We can always improve'
Sunday, October 02, 2005
By ROBERT STERN
Staff Writer
PRINCETON BOROUGH - U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff yesterday dismissed the notion that excessive attention to terrorism made his department ill-equipped to oversee the federal disaster relief to Hurricane Katrina.

"Do we focus too much on terrorism? The answer to that is, we don't," Chertoff told an audience at Princeton University in response to a listener's question.

"We are definitely an all-hazards agency," said Chertoff, who visited Princeton to deliver the closing address for the kickoff weekend of the 75th anniversary of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security, drew widespread criticism in the aftermath of Katrina for acting too slowly and inadequately to aid New Orleans and other Gulf Coast communities that bore the brunt of the storm.

Chertoff yesterday declined one audience member's request to outline very specifically what went wrong in the response to Katrina, saying that there simply wasn't enough time to thoroughly go over that list then.

"We can always improve ourselves," Chertoff said.

There were lessons learned from the preparations for and response to Katrina that made the government better equipped to deal with Hurricane Rita in its run at the Gulf Coast several weeks later, he said.

Katrina "was, by any measure, I think the most challenging natural disaster ever confronting this country," Chertoff said.

In Mississippi alone, Chertoff said, Katrina's damage exceeded that of prior monster Hurricanes Andrew and Ivan. The massive flooding in New Orleans, which initially had dodged extensive inundation, only complicated an already very difficult situation for the disaster relief effort, he said.

Chertoff said the Department of Homeland Security, which also has responsibility for numerous other agencies, including the Secret Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration, trains regularly to deal with a wide range of threats, from terrorism to natural catastrophes.

The training and experience from dealing with each new actual crisis make the department better equipped to deal with the next crisis, whether it's terrorism, a hurricane or a massive blackout, Chertoff said.

During his 25-minute speech, which focused on security and terrorism, Chertoff emphasized the importance of international cooperation and partnerships in dealing with global threats that recognize no national boundaries.

International cooperation, which he dubbed a network of global relationships, is key to thwarting terrorism and in responding to natural disasters such as tsunamis, hurricanes and avian flu.

Chertoff also addressed the issue of illegal immigration and border enforcement in the United States, backing President Bush's call for giving illegal migrant workers a chance to be in the country legally by allowing them to register for temporary work visas.

Such a system, Chertoff said, would document migrant workers - legitimizing their presence here and undermining employers and others who try to take advantage of them because of their fear of deportation. At the same time, it would make better use of border patrol agents, who presumably would have fewer illegal border crossers to track who aren't legitimate security threats.