President-elect Barack Obama listens to Democratic governor Janet Napolitano (L) of Arziona during a economic discussion in June 2008 at the Chicago History Museum in Chicago, Illinois. The Department of Homeland Security was born in the US government's greatest reorganization since World War II after the September 11 attacks of 2001 made the threat of terrorism very real. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Jeff Haynes)From Yahoo News/AFP:
CHICAGO (AFP) – The Department of Homeland Security was born in the US government's greatest reorganization since World War II after the September 11 attacks of 2001 made the threat of terrorism very real.
Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano , who was nominated Monday by president-elect Barack Obama to be the next DHS secretary, will inherit a behemoth of a department that stands accused of muddled thinking and inefficiency.
It now encompasses 22 separate agencies from customs, immigration and border security to disaster relief and the Secret Service.
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My Comment: The money quote is the following .... "With 200,000 employees and an annual budget of more than 50 billion dollars, homeland security is the US government's third-biggest department after the Pentagon and Veterans Affairs".
This is one big .... huge .... department.