Editorial: New man on the job needs heft

Friday, Oct. 26, 2001 | 4:52 a.m.

Tom Ridge, the man in charge of national domestic security, is finding out just how difficult it can be to get federal agencies to work together. Ridge has only been in the job for a few weeks, but already a long-simmering dispute between the Centers for Disease Control and a U.S. Army lab appears to have hindered the federal government's response to testing postal workers for anthrax.

The anthrax letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was sent to the Army's biological laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md. The New York Times reported that the CDC was briefed on some of the Army's findings, but a CDC offiicial said that the agency wasn't made aware that the anthrax particles in the Daschle letter were small enough to escape a sealed envelope. If the CDC had known this important piece of information, a CDC official told the New York Times last week, the agency could have moved faster to see if workers at post offices in Washington and New Jersey, where the letter was sorted, had been exposed to or had contracted anthrax. The distrust between the Army and CDC resulted in no testing being done until after a postal worker in Washington died from the deadly bacteria.

Ironically the longstanding dispute between the CDC and the Army laboratory in Maryland was over how seriously the bioterrorism threat should be taken. The Army believed it was a credible threat, and has said that the CDC in previous years downplayed its likelihood. Even honest differences over policy, in time, can degenerate into turf battles if someone doesn't prevent these disagreements from festering.

It is crucial that President Bush make it clear again that all agencies in the federal government should work together in the war on terrorism. The president has said that he doesn't believe Ridge's position should carry stronger statutory authority, but Bush should reconsider this in light of the most recent bureaucratic tussle. Ridge's office may be in the West Wing of the White House, and he may have the president's ear, but he still won't be as strong as he needs to be until he has the undisputed authority to step in and referee the fights between agencies.