Homeland Security Head Mulls Department Changes

April 7, 2005 — -- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is blunt and realistic about his department's ability to protect the nation.

"We can't protect every single place every single moment," Chertoff said in his first network interview with ABC News senior national correspondent Claire Shipman.

However, Chertoff wants the nation to be prepared for the possibility of an attack involving nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. That is why "TOPOFF 3," this week's five-day anti-terror drill in New Jersey and Connecticut, focused on state responses to chemical and biological attacks. Chertoff said he is concerned about whether state and local officials are as prepared for attacks as federal authorities.

"We all worry the most about weapons of mass destruction or mass effect -- nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons," Chertoff said. "I am concerned about whether we adequately match up in terms of preparedness, that our state and local and private partners have the same playbook."

Chertoff, 51, succeeds Tom Ridge as secretary. The Senate approved his nomination in a 98-0 vote on Feb. 15.

The department has been criticized for its bureaucracy, and Chertoff has been assessing strategies to best monitor potential threats nationwide. He plans to reduce funds in some states and redirect them to other states according to realistic threat level. He also plans an overhaul that could include eliminating the much-criticized color-coded terror threat level system.

"We'll look at the way this works," Chertoff said. "We'll see if there are adjustments that are appropriate."

The review of the department will end in May and he is expected to announce changes soon afterward.

Chertoff was a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the director of the Justice Department's criminal division from 2001 to 2003. He was concerned about attacks against the United States long before Sept. 11, 2001. In 1996, he argued in an article published in the New Jersey Law Journal titled "Tools Against Terrorism" that law enforcement and prosecutors need greater leeway in their pursuit of suspected terrorists, even if that involves limiting some of the civil liberties that Americans have grown to expect.