April 5, 2005

Homeland Security Secretary Highlights Risk Management

By Greg Licamele

Michael Chertoff, the newly confirmed secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, discussed risk management and its relevance to the future of his department in an address sponsored by GW’s Homeland Security Policy Institute on March 16 at GW’s Media and Public Affairs Building.

“Risk management is fundamental to managing the threat, while retaining our quality of life and living in freedom,” Chertoff said. “Risk management must guide our decision making as we examine how we can best organize to prevent, respond, and recover from an attack. For that reason, the Department of Homeland Security is working with state, local, and private sector partners on a national preparedness plan to target resources where the risk is greatest.”

Chertoff talked about risk with everyday examples like driving a car. He said most people undertake a certain amount of risk, but with precautions, to go to work and visit friends. This calculated risk taking “means that we tolerate that something bad can happen; we adjust our lives based on probability; and we take reasonable precautions.”

The most effective way to manage risk at the homeland security level, Chertoff said, is to develop plans and allocate funds in ways that balance security and freedom, specifically by looking through a prism of threat, vulnerability, and consequence.

“A terrorist attack on the two-lane bridge down the street from my house is bad, but has a relatively low consequence compared to an attack on the Golden Gate Bridge,” Chertoff explained. “At the other end of the spectrum, even a remote threat to detonate a nuclear bomb is a high-level priority because of the catastrophic effect. Each threat must be weighed, therefore, along with consequence and vulnerabilities. As consequence increases, we respond according to the nature and credibility of the threat and any existing state of vulnerabilities.”

Chertoff said that a 100 percent solution does not exist and there’s no way to “protect every person in every place at every moment.” But, he said, using intelligent, risk-based analysis, advanced technology, and enhanced resources will propel the United States to manage its risk. He also cited President Bush’s strategy of fighting terrorists overseas as another way to reduce risk.

“We, along with people all over the world, live with risk every day; it’s part of human existence,” Chertoff reminded the audience at the Jack Morton Auditorium. “That is an accepted expectation of life that must be translated to the war against terror.”

Over the next 60 to 90 days, Chertoff will examine the department in order to drive its structure and operations based on this threat, vulnerability, and consequence matrix instead of old turf battles and tradition. Chertoff also called upon the private sector to expand its partnerships in meeting homeland security needs by bearing a part of the security burden and becoming part of the solution.

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