Study: Bush Security Plan Risky

President Bush's proposal to create a Department of Homeland Security "merges too many different activities into a single department" and should be significantly scaled back if it is to have any chance of success, according to an independent study.

The Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, urged Congress to move cautiously as it considers the White House proposal to merge all or parts of 22 agencies into a department with a $38 billion budget and approximately 170,000 employees. Its report comes as Congress is moving at an unusually fast pace to act on the reorganization, with the House and Senate preparing separate versions of a bill for votes late this month.

"The question is no longer whether to reorganize but how and to what extent," the report contended. "Congress is clearly moving toward creation of a new department, but it can still choose what kind of department -- how large and how comprehensive."

Building such a massive department has many risks, the report warned.

"The danger is that top managers will be preoccupied for months, if not years, with getting the reorganization right -- thus giving insufficient attention to their real job: taking concrete action to counter the terrorist threat at home," the report said.

The study, conducted by a team of veteran policy analysts, recommended that the White House plan be stripped down to focus on border and transportation security, intelligence analysis and protection for the nation's critical infrastructure. It called for leaving the Federal Emergency Management Agency out of the department and keeping biological research under the control of the Department of Health and Human Services.