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· Compensating victims.They evaluated legislative options, eventually

setting up a federal compensation fund and defining the powers of a
special master to run it.

· Determining federal assistance. On September 13, President Bush

promised to provide $20 billion for New York City, in addition to the
$20 billion his budget director had already guessed might be needed
for the country as a whole.

· Restoring civil aviation. On the morning of September 13, the

national airspace reopened for use by airports that met newly impro-
vised security standards.

· Reopening the financial markets. After extraordinary emergency

efforts involving the White House, the Treasury Department, and the
Securities and Exchange Commission, aided by unprecedented
cooperation among the usually competitive firms of the financial
industry, the markets reopened on Monday, September 17.

· Deciding when and how to return border and port security to more

normal operations.

· Evaluating legislative proposals to bail out the airline industry and cap

its liability.

The very process of reviewing these issues underscored the absence of an

effective government organization dedicated to assessing vulnerabilities and
handling problems of protection and preparedness.Though a number of agen-
cies had some part of the task, none had security as its primary mission.

By September 14,Vice President Cheney had decided to recommend, at

least as a first step, a new White House entity to coordinate all the relevant agen-
cies rather than tackle the challenge of combining them in a new department.
This new White House entity would be a homeland security adviser and
Homeland Security Council--paralleling the National Security Council sys-
tem.Vice President Cheney reviewed the proposal with President Bush and
other advisers. President Bush announced the new post and its first occupant--
Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge--in his address to a joint session of Con-
gress on September 20.

Beginning on September 11, Immigration and Naturalization Service

agents working in cooperation with the FBI began arresting individuals for
immigration violations whom they encountered while following up leads in
the FBI's investigation of the 9/11 attacks. Eventually, 768 aliens were arrested
as "special interest" detainees. Some (such as Zacarias Moussaoui) were actu-
ally in INS custody before 9/11; most were arrested after. Attorney General
John Ashcroft told us that he saw his job in directing this effort as "risk mini-
mization," both to find out who had committed the attacks and to prevent a
subsequent attack. Ashcroft ordered all special interest immigration hearings
closed to the public, family members, and press; directed government attorneys

WARTIME

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