Today Show -- NBC 06/07/02 ...

RIDGE: Good morning, Katie. Nice to join you.

COURIC: Thank you for being here. What's your reaction to this overhaul?

RIDGE: Well, I think it's an historic transformation, probably the greatest and most significant since World War II and I think it's a very appropriate realignment and reorganization of the federal government in order to deal with a new threat and the enduring vulnerability that we're going to have for the foreseeable future in this country. I do think we need that reorganization of the government in order to reduce the threat to our way of life and to our citizens.

COURIC: But there was a great deal of criticism, as you well know, Governor Ridge, when the Office of Homeland Security was established. You, yourself, expressed frustration with the setup. Why wasn't this done sooner?

RIDGE: Well, actually, the Executive Order that gave me the opportunity to advise the president on homeland security issues also directed our office to continue the work the vice president started back in May of 2001 to take a look at the current structure of the federal government, talk to Congress, talk to the agencies, talk to governors and mayors, talk to the private sector and then make a recommendation to the president as to the way forward. And all that came together over the past several weeks in the form of the announcement that the president made last night.

COURIC: But sources have told NBC News that this plan was not suppose to come out until next month. Can you see, Governor Ridge, how some people might view this as a PR move--damage control--because of all the reports of intelligence lapses that occurred prior to September 11, particularly after FBI Agent Colleen Rowley testified on the Hill about how the FBI mishandled this?

RIDGE: Katie, this organization is going to have the primary mission to support what the president considers to be his most important job and that's preserving America's way of life and protecting citizens. We're going to protect the borders; information fusion and sharing is part of it. We're going to work with state and local governments. And the notion that somehow we could cobble together a $37 billion agency with the depth and the breadth of this one, with 170,000 employees, over the past couple of weeks and get it out there in time to change the news cycle, I think gives us credit for a lot more than we deserve.

COURIC: With all due respect, Governor, you served in the Army, you're a lawyer and you served in the House. You were governor of Pennsylvania. Are you equipped to run not only a $37 billion agency, but to really analyze and track and act on sensitive intelligence information?

RIDGE: The professionals that we have that are presently serving this country and the president across the board--the CIA, the FBI, Customs, INS--we've got a lot of very talented people and the effort to bring them together, to assemble them under a Cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security, regardless of who heads that agency, is a much better realignment and will dramatically, dramatically improve our ability to assess threats, prepare for threats and respond to terrorist attacks if they occur.

COURIC: And yet, these changes do not directly affect either the FBI or the CIA and it's the failure of those agencies to communicate that seems to be at the heart of the problem. So how will this fix that?

RIDGE: Well, Katie, both Director Tenet and Bob Mueller have been working to reorganize and to continue to improve the information flow, and I see a--every single day the relationship that the agencies have and the sharing of information; one brings an intelligence-gathering mind-set to its task; the other is law enforcement, but this new Department of Homeland Security will be a consumer and a customer of those two agencies. The president will direct that they share that information with the new Cabinet department. But in addition to the information they share, Katie, we have a multitude of other agencies that have information potentially dealing with domestic terrorist incidents, and we don't have one place in the federal government where we can turn all the pieces of the puzzle over and have people try to put them together, and this is exactly one of the primary functions of this new agency.

COURIC: Many people have complained that the bureaucratic morass in Washington is one of the major reasons or prohibited the flow of information prior to September 11. What do you say to people who say this is simply creating another layer of bureaucracy in Washington?

RIDGE: Well, I would say to them that it's not another layer of bureaucracy. It's a historic transformation of departments and agencies that already exist. It's also putting all of these very talented people, many of whom who've been going to work for years, if not decades, dealing with homeland security issues in an agency whose primary mission, whose primary function is to secure the homeland. And I think that when it's all said and done, when you've got the consolidation of these agencies--one agency to protect the borders, one agency to analyze and share information, one agency to deal with the state and local government, one agency to determine the way forward for research and development on vaccines and protection equipment and the like--this single agency will dramatically improve our ability to protect our way of life.

COURIC: You just outlined a very tall order and many people in Congress or some in Congress are doubting that this overhaul can be done for $37 billion. Do you think it can?

RIDGE: Well, Katie, the $37 billion is actually an amount very close to what the president has in his 2003 budget and probably less than the amount in Congress that many of them would like to give to the new Department of Homeland Security. So I, frankly, think it's right on target. The president has provided the executive leadership and called upon the legislative branch to work with him to complete this historic transformation, and I'm absolutely confident that in both chambers--in both the House and the Senate and among Republicans and Democrats--we're going to find the leadership there to join with the president's leadership. This is a time when leaders of this country have to come together to do something big and significant. It's a historic transformation. And I believe that they will get it done.

COURIC: Governor Tom Ridge. Governor, thanks so much.

RIDGE: Nice talking with you, Katie. Thank you.