Homeland Security Disavows Document Touting Successes

Murphy said the strategy was written by Kristi M. Clemens, assistant commissioner in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's office of public affairs. She came to the border protection agency, known as CBP, in August after working as a spokeswoman for L. Paul Bremer, administrator of the former Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. Clemens also served as a spokeswoman for the Federal Transit Administration and liaison between the Small Business Administration and White House personnel.

"I developed a draft communications plan intended to spur debate on how we could effectively communicate some of our recent border security improvements and more efficiently structure CBP public affairs' activities which are spread out across the country," Clemens said in a statement. "The draft plan was an internal CBP product that was never shared outside of my staff nor executed."

The 90-day strategy surfaces at a time when the effectiveness of homeland security has become a key issue in the presidential campaign.

The Bush administration and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge have been warning that the nation can expect another terrorist attack, but homeland security officials have also trumpeted as successes a series of initiatives designed to make America safer.

Officials have emphasized improvements in several areas, among them border security, the inspection of cargo containers brought in from overseas and the screening of visitors to the United States.

On Aug. 31, U.S. Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar declared at a news conference in Laredo, Tex., that his agents are securing the Southwest's border against illegal immigrants. "Even if they get past the border, they're going to be caught up in that net of enforcement," he told the Associated Press.

In September, Robert C. Bonner, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told the U.S. Marine Security Conference and Expo: "We assess the risk of every ocean-going container headed for the U.S." Six months earlier, he told Congress, "We're inspecting all high-risk containers for terrorist weapons."

Last month, C. Stewart Verdery Jr., assistant secretary for Border and Transportation Security Policy and Planning, told a House Homeland Security subcommittee that "enforcement capabilities are growing by leaps and bounds" with help from US-VISIT, a new program. It is aimed at using computer technology to identify and track the entry and exit of every traveler to the United States.

On Oct. 7, a border protection agency fact sheet stated: "Following 9/11, under the leadership of President Bush, we developed and implemented a smart cargo container security strategy to identify, target and inspect cargo containers before they reach U.S. ports."

But government audits and investigations have detailed numerous shortcomings and continuing problems in those initiatives. Some security analysts say homeland security has improved but officials sometimes overstate the advances.

"We're getting security through rhetoric," said Stephen E. Flynn, a former commander of the U.S. Coast Guard whose work on border and port security has been cited in Bush administration reports and speeches. "Is it better than what we had before? Absolutely. Is it sufficient? No."

The 90-day strategy was given to the public affairs field officers in mid-September at a planning meeting in Washington.