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Ridge predicts fast homeland action'We can't guarantee a fail-safe system'
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The man charged with leading the nation's effort to safeguard its security said he will hit the ground running in his effort to implement the Homeland Security Act of 2002, signed Monday by President Bush. "Hopefully, from day one, we'll see tangible results," Ridge told CNN Correspondent Jeanne Meserve about the newly created Department of Homeland Security, which is to become the federal government's third-largest department. "Time is of the essence. We have to be agile, we have to be nimble, organized. At the end of the day, the first mission, the first priority, is security." Bush shares his sense of urgency, Ridge said. Though the president has 60 days to send to Congress his reorganization plan, he did so Monday, Ridge said. "My office will be created January 24, 2003," Ridge said. "By March 1st next year, about 95 percent, 98 percent of these agencies will be transferred. It's a very aggressive timetable, but we believe we can get it done." Still, the Vietnam veteran and former Republican congressman acknowledged the blending of 22 agencies and 170,000 people under one roof will be a "complicated, time-consuming task." And Ridge, 57, offered no promises of success against terrorists. "We can't guarantee a fail-safe system," he said. "We have to be right a thousand times a day forever. They have to be right every once in a while." Ridge, who resigned as governor of Pennsylvania to lead Bush's homeland security effort, said his first priority will be to assure the new department's staff members that their jobs are not at stake. Passage of the act was held up when Democrats chafed at Bush's demand that the employees not be granted the same Civil Service protections granted other federal employees. But Democrats ceded to most of Bush's demands. Bush said he needed maximum flexibility to run the department. Ridge said he has met with leaders of organized labor to reassure them that "we can take job security off the table and focus on homeland security." But that does not mean there will not be upheaval within the department. "Look, I'm not naive to think that it's going to be easy," he said. Overcoming resistance to change will be the thorniest issue, he said. "It's a human response: people are used to doing things a certain way for a prolonged period of time resist change, but this agency is about change, dramatic change." Ridge noted that the history of mergers and acquisitions in the private sector over the past decade has been marked more by failure than success, but said those lessons did not apply to the public sector. "Here, I think, it's a different environment in which we work. It will be tough to merge history and culture and people, but we'll be persistent, we will be relentless and we will get it done." Asked if he has the skills to get it done, he said, "You bet." Critical to his department's success will be the rapid sharing of information, he said. Asked about concerns expressed by some critics that the department's $40 billion budget will not be enough to accomplish his goals, Ridge said that he has the authority to transfer resources from one area to beef up those of another area. Ridge's nomination is expected to be confirmed easily by Congress early next year.
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