Listening to a listing of jobs I've held over the years, you can understand why Kimi's family keeps saying to her:
"What's wrong with your husband? Can't he get a steady job?"

I would be remiss if I didn't note that, politics aside, one of our country's greatest Presidents died here last Saturday.

Many have spoken about the great events that President Reagan influenced-the collapse of the Soviet Empire, the liberation of Eastern Europe from the yoke of Communism.

Little noted, however, was what I consider one of his most important acts: appointing me to be the United States Attorney for the Central District of California!

President Reagan had a wonderful sense of humor.

I recall that as U.S. Attorney, I was invited to a meeting with President Reagan and heads of various state and local law enforcement associations from around the country.

Around a table at the Century Plaza were the heads of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Fraternal Order of Police, the head of the National District Attorney's Association and so on. They had gathered to express law enforcement support for the Bork nomination.

There was no press, but there was a "photo opportunity" at the beginning of the meeting. Somehow as the press photographers and TV cameras came in, one White House reporter snuck in-Sam Donaldson.

And Sam fired off several questions which the President amiably answered.

Then, before Sam could be ushered out of the room, he looked around at this table of all men and asked, "Don't any women support Bork?"

With a twinkle in his eye, President Reagan suggested Sam talk to Nancy; he thought she might support Bork. After Sam Donaldson exited, the Police Chief sitting next to me told the President that his organization had many female members, and he had wanted to interrupt Sam Donaldson and tell him that, but he didn't want to be rude.

Whereupon, President Reagan said-without blinking an eye:
"Chief, never worry about that. It's impossible to be rude to Sam Donaldson."

* * * * * * * * * *

How many of you know what "One face at the border" means?

I would like to thank Scott for inviting me to speak about "One Face at the Border," about the Department of Homeland Security, and more specifically, about my piece of this new department, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, one of the most important agencies within the Department of Homeland Security.

It has been said-and it is true-that the creation of the Department of Homeland Security is the largest reorganization of the federal government to take place in over 50 years.

It is the largest reorganization since the period right after World War II when the Department of Defense, the CIA, and the National Security Council were established, to better structure our government to deal with the Cold War threat.

The establishment of a new Department of Homeland Security, and the transfer of all or parts of 22 agencies to the new Department, prompted by the need to better structure the federal government to deal with another threat: the threat of global terrorism.

This threat manifested itself on 9-11 in what was and still is, not just the largest terrorist attack in the history of the United States, but in terms of loss of life, the largest single terrorist attack in the history of the world.

Nearly 3,000 innocent lives were lost on 9-11.

And we grieve still for the families and friends who lost their loved ones.

9-11 was, of course, the largest terrorist attack in terms of economic loss and disruption, by far.

The airlines and travel industry have not yet fully recovered, nearly three years after those attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.

Yet it is not just 9-11 that led to the call for and establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, is it?

No, it is the fact that our enemy, Al Qaeda, and Al Qaeda associated terrorist organizations, have vowed to strike America again, even harder than 9-11.

It is the fact that the international terrorist threat is continuing and, Michael Moore notwithstanding, it is real. Regrettably, it is likely to be with us for a long time. Years. Like the Cold War, it could last a generation.

* * * * * * * * * *

One of the most fundamental obligations of government is to do what it can to protect its citizens, consistent with the Constitution and our values.

There are three major pieces, I believe, to a strategy for dealing with the threat of global terrorism:

First, we must have an offense that goes after terrorists, terrorist leaders and those who support them.

This has been the job principally of our military, and the men and women of our armed forces have performed superbly.

Second, we must have a defense. This is the Department of Homeland Security, the agencies within the Department, like Customs and Border Protection, Coast Guard, and TSA, charged with preventing future terrorist attacks and agencies like the FBI, that are outside of the Department of Homeland Security.

Third, we must, as best we can, . . . and this will take years, begin to defuse the hatred and ignorance that motivates fundamentalists, fanatical Islamic jihadist to join the ranks of Al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations; organizations committed to kill Americans and our allies, and willing to kill themselves in the process.

The Administration is doing all three as we must, but I will address only the second one this afternoon.

* * * * * * * * * *

The Department of Homeland Security has two core missions to organize more effectively in order to:

1. prevent further large-scale terrorist attacks in the U.S. and
2. Although it assumes failure, prepare for and respond to large-scale terrorist attacks-a mission that involves organization of first responders such as local fire and police departments.

This response and recovery function is handled by the Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate, which is, essentially FEMA, but not just organizing to respond to natural disasters, but terrorist attacks, including attacks using chemical, biological, or radiological weapons.

On the preventive side, these are 5 operational agencies of the Department of Homeland Security that have prevention roles to play:

1. U.S. Coast Guard
2. U.S. Secret Service with its protective mission
3. TSA, responsible primarily for security of commercial passenger airplanes
4. ICE, which has the interior immigration enforcement mission and criminal investigations, and
5. U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

I want to focus today on Customs and Border Protection, on how CBP reorganized and focused itself on the mission of preventing terrorist, the types of terrorist operatives we saw on 9-11, from entering the U.S.

If we learned anything from 9-11, it should be that the best way to prevent an attack by Al Qaeda on the U.S. is to prevent is to prevent Al Qaeda operatives from getting into the U.S. in the first place.

One of the most important ideas of the Department of Homeland Security was creating, for the first time in our country's history, one border agency, Customs and Border Protection.

Secretary Ridge has spoken about creating "One face at the Border." What this means is creating one agency of our federal government to manage, control, and secure our nation's borders.

When I say "borders", I mean all ports of entry and official cross points-all our international airports, like LAX, our seaports, like LA-Long Beach, all our land border crossings, from San Ysidro south of San Diego to Brownsville, Texas.

And it means our border with Mexico and Canada, all places between those official entry points, which we call "ports of entry."

I mean creating one border agency through which all people, vehicles, and things entering the U.S.-crossing our borders-must pass.

That's what we did on March 1, 2003 by merging U.S. Customs, including all Customs inspectors at our ports of entry, all of the Immigration inspectors from the former INS, the agriculture border inspectors and the entire Border Patrol.

The creation of Customs and Border Protection is the largest, honest-to-goodness merger of people and functions taking place within the DHS.

Indeed, this is a merger of 42,000 employees or about one-fourth of all the personnel in DHS.

That's not surprising is it when you consider the importance of the security of our borders to the security of our homeland. The consolidation of our border agencies into one agency is a reform that had been advocated by 7 independent studies going back 30 years, to the Nixon Administration.

Shortly after 9-11, when I was discussing the need to consolidate our border agencies, I mentioned these studies to someone, who responded:

"Well, it must not have been a very good idea because it never happened."

To which, I replied:
"How long have you been in Washington?"

The fact is: it never happened because of the turf battle between the Department of Justice and Treasury, and congressional committee fiefdoms and jurisdiction.

Sadly, it took the worst terrorist attack in history and a new Department of government to be able to merge the border agencies into our unified agency.

In the post 9-11 world, this reorganization was essential to national security, security against the international terrorist threat, and was an essential part of a strategy to defend against Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda associated terrorist organizations.

Back in February 2003, when Tom Ridge asked me to do this merger, someone told me that this might be difficult- a "challenge" as they say in Washington.

Well, in just a little over a year-16 months- we have made great progress unifying this one agency, more quickly than anyone thought possible.

Priority Mission
What is the priority mission of Customs and Border Protection? The priority mission is homeland security, but for a border agency, for the border agency that means our priority mission is:

• Detecting and preventing terrorists from entering the United States, and
• Preventing terrorist weapons and the instruments of terror from entering our country.

We still have the traditional missions of the combined agencies, everything from interdicting illegal drugs and those who smuggle them, to determining whether a person is admissible into the U.S., to apprehending persons illegally crossing our borders, protecting U.S. agriculture from pests and diseases, to regulating trade and collecting duties.

Customs and Border Protection enforces all U.S. laws-immigration, customs, trade-all laws at our borders.

But I can assure you that regarding our priority mission-preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering our country-as a unified border agency, we are more effective, far more effective, than we were when border functions and authorities were literally fragmented among 4 different agencies in 3 different departments of government-as they were before March 1, 2003, before there was a Department of Homeland Security, before CBP was established.

* * * * * * * * * *

Let me highlight some of the things we've done to create Customs and Border Protection, (this new border agency):

On March 1 of last year-15 months ago-we began the merger of most of U.S. Customs -- about 20,000 people, including 10,000 Customs inspectors; more than half of the former INS, including 7,000 Immigration inspectors; the entire 12,000-strong Border Patrol; and, for good measure, 2,000 or so Agriculture inspectors.

There are 30,000-armed law enforcement officers and agents in CBP; by far, the largest armed law enforcement personnel of any civilian law enforcement agency of the federal government.

On March 1, 2003, I designated one Port Director for each of the 300 plus ports of entry, whereas before there had been a Port Director for immigration, one for Customs and one for Agriculture, reporting through three separate chains of command.

I established a new short chain of command directly to CBP Headquarters from all the ports of entry, and, importantly, for the first time, we established a chain of command for the Border Patrol, from the Sector Chiefs in the field, who had become nearly autonomous under the INS structure, directly to CBP Headquarters and the Commissioner of CBP.

One Uniform
At the ports of entry, I thought that if "one face at the border" means anything it meant that all inspectors should be in one uniform, not three different uniforms.

Nearly all 20,000 inspectors are in one uniform-a dark blue uniform that signifies professionalism and their extraordinarily important law enforcement and security mission.

The uniform has the patch on the shoulder that says:
"U.S. Customs and Border Protection" and has the Department of Homeland Security seal.

By next month, all inspectors will be in the new uniform.

CBP Officer
Last September, we stopped hiring "immigration" inspectors and "customs" inspectors. We created a new multi-functional position:

"CBP Officer" We've already hired 1,000 new CBP officers, and next month we will cross-train and convert all "legacy" immigration and customs inspectors to CBP officers.

With a more fungible workforce, we can be not just more effective, but more efficient in performing our priority and traditional mission.

Think of it. More efficient government!

We are, for example, unifying primary inspection at our international airport.

No more running the gauntlet of three different agencies.

We've instituted one-stop shopping.

One CBP officer questions and clears for all purposes - immigration, customs, agriculture and anti-terrorism.

The creation of CBP eliminated the rivalries and stovepipes that had made dysfunctional the relationship between Customs and the former INS, and that created such wasteful inefficiencies at the border. But CBP also brings together the expertise, and legal authorities of all the legacy agencies, and focuses them upon the terrorist threat. I'm of all the legacy agencies, and focuses them upon the terrorist threat.

And what do I mean by legal authorities? It is primarily two major ones that are important to the defense of the homeland, and that are rooted in authority at the border.

First, it is Customs broad border search authority, authority to search the luggage and personal effects of any passenger, to search any incoming cargo, or conveyance, or vehicle, without probable cause, suspicion or warrant, an authority recently resoundingly reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the Flores-Montano case.

Second, it is the immigration authority to deny entry to any non-citizen, that is, to any person without a legal right to enter the United States. Both agencies also had the authority to briefly detain, without cause or suspicion, and to question people precisely because they were seeking to enter the United States or cross our "border."

No other law enforcement agency has these broad law enforcement authorities.

The relevance of these broad legal authorities to defend against and prevent terrorism is demonstrated by two stories: one concerns a Customs, now CBP, inspector named Diana Dean, and the other, a former INS, now CBP Inspector named Jose Melendez-Perez.

Diana Dean, as some of you will recall, was the Customs inspector who, with her colleagues, intercepted and arrested an Al Qaeda terrorist named Ahmad Ressam at the U.S.-Canada border in late 1999. She questioned Ressam and found his responses suspicious. She decided to search the trunk of his car (without need for a warrant or probable cause) and found a large quantity of explosives - all, it was subsequently determined, destined for Los Angeles International Airport for an attack during the Millennium. Ressam was the Millennium bomber, and he was a trained Al Qaeda terrorist,-trained in one of Bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan.

Jose Melendez-Perez was an INS inspector who denied entry to a man named Mohamed Al Qhatani at the Orlando Airport in August 2001. Why did he do this? It was because, during questioning in secondary; Al Qhatani's story did not add up, and something seemed not right about him. As Inspector Melendez-Perez has said, his story for visiting the U.S. did not add up. On August 4, 2001, Melendez-Perez denied to Al Qhatani, and Melendez-Perez instinct was correct. Al Qhatani was captured by the U.S. military four months later in Afghanistan as a foreign Saudi fighter fighting alongside the Taliban. There is some public reporting that indicates that Al Qhatani was going to meet someone at the Orlando airport on August 4, 2001, and that person was named Mohammed Atta.

CBP brings those capabilities and the authorities used by Inspectors Dean and Melendez together into one agency and focuses them squarely on keeping terrorists and terrorist weapons out of the United States.

Conclusion
And that's why I believe that [although little noted in the media] the creation of a single border agency is one of the most important achievements of President Bush's decision to create a new Department of Homeland Security.

America is safer because of it.

Our borders are more secure.

More secure, beyond doubt, than they were before 9-11.

Thank you.