What's awaiting Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano
Confirmation should be easy, but Homeland Security job won't be

by John Yaukey - Jan. 7, 2009 12:00 AM
Republic Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, tapped by President-elect Barack Obama to lead the Department of Homeland Security, is expected to move quickly and smoothly through the Senate confirmation process beginning next week.

But if she is confirmed, the two-term governor and former federal prosecutor faces politically charged issues, from how to handle controversial raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to new intelligence that concludes terrorists probably will acquire weapons of mass destruction.

Napolitano met for almost an hour Tuesday with Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which will handle her confirmation hearing. Lieberman later pronounced Napolitano a "superb" nominee and stressed the importance of moving quickly to confirm her.

Napolitano's confirmation hearing before the committee is scheduled for Jan. 15. Lieberman said he hopes for a full Senate confirmation vote well before the end of the month.

If confirmed, Napolitano would be the nation's third Homeland Security secretary.

"The secretary of Homeland Security, in current reality, is as critically important to our national security as the secretary of Defense and the secretary of State, and in some ways, more urgent," Lieberman said Tuesday.

If the past is any indicator, Napolitano could face an early test. President Bush was in office less than eight months before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Shortly after President Clinton took office in 1993, terrorists bombed the World Trade Center.

The huge 22-agency Homeland Security Department was hastily created in the wake of the 2001 attacks to better coordinate the national response to threats and disasters.

Like most Cabinet nominees, Napolitano has kept a low profile. On Tuesday, she avoided reporters on Capitol Hill. But she'll have to talk next week, when she'll tell lawmakers how she would deal with some of the thorniest issues facing the nation, including:

• Immigration. Napolitano has won praise from lawmakers for what they see as her tough but human approach to immigration. But Napolitano has taken positions as a governor that she might have to rethink as a national policymaker.

She criticized the decision to pull back the National Guard from the U.S.-Mexican border before some fence work was done. She also opposed the government's Real ID mandate for biometric identification cards, saying it would unfairly shift costs onto border states like Arizona.

The controversial raids by ICE agents, which critics call too aggressive, are sure to come up during her confirmation hearing. Obama apparently doesn't like the way ICE is enforcing policy.

In a speech to the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group, he talked about communities being "terrorized by ICE immigration raids."

Lieberman said Napolitano "will be looking very closely at what ICE has done."

• Weapons of mass destruction. A bipartisan commission created by Congress recently issued a chilling report predicting that an attack using such a weapon is "more likely than not" in the next five years unless the international community acts.

The report concluded, "America's margin of safety is shrinking."

• Civil liberties. The Homeland Security secretary must do everything possible to thwart terrorist threats while making sure domestic-intelligence gathering doesn't become too intrusive.

Obama's decision to choose Leon Panetta to head the CIA signaled that Obama wants to take a softer approach to intelligence gathering than Bush, who drew fire for what critics called a trampling of civil liberties. Panetta was Clinton's chief of staff and has criticized the Bush administration's use of torture in interrogating terror suspects.

• Cumbersome bureaucracy. The creation of the Homeland Security Department constituted one of the biggest government reorganizations in American history, and its record has been mixed.

The Coast Guard, part of the department, won hero status for its daring helicopter rescues during Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

But the Federal Emergency Management Agency, also part of Homeland Security, became the poster child for incompetence for its slow response to Katrina.

Reach the reporter at jyaukey@gns.gannett.com.

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