An insider's guide to the upcoming week

Something to Celebrate?

The Department of Homeland Security is celebrating its fifth birthday this week, but along with the hoopla, there may also be some uncomfortable questions for the department and the Bush administration.

Last week, a top Homeland Security official told Congress that he would give the department "a solid 'C' " for its response to cybersecurity threats. And a Senate subcommittee will hold a hearing tomorrow called "Is Housing Too Much To Hope For?: FEMA's Disaster Housing Strategy," a topic that may not promote much festivity.

Why this week, of all weeks, to celebrate turning 5? After all, it has been more than five years since Tom Ridge, then the recently installed director of homeland security, unveiled the color-coded alert system (that was back in 2002), and since an organization known as the Department of Homeland Security began operating. That was on Jan. 24, 2003.

But March 1, 2003, was the day when all 22 of the department's component agencies were officially welcomed into the organization chart. For the White House and the department, that is significant enough to celebrate.

To mark the occasion, President Bush will speak Thursday afternoon at DAR Constitution Hall. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), who was instrumental in creating the department, is planning to introduce a resolution honoring its employees.

"While there have obviously been setbacks, especially in the response to [Hurricane] Katrina, five years after the department was established, I am confident the American people are safer because of the efforts of over 200,000 dedicated Department of Homeland Security employees," Lieberman said yesterday.

As for those 22 agencies and the 200,000-plus employees, one close observer of the department doubts there will be much celebration in the ranks.

"I don't think you'll see a lot of crepe paper and balloons over on Nebraska Avenue," where the department has its headquarters, said Paul C. Light, a New York University professor who specializes in government reorganization.

While Light was a critic of the department at the time of its creation, his current assessment of its first five years sounds pretty close to the "solid 'C' " that Undersecretary Robert Jamison gave on Thursday. Light noted that since 2001, there has not been a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil, which can be one measure of the organization's effectiveness, but he said the agency still lacks a unified mission.

"The merger itself has gone through at least two reorganizations. You know you're in trouble when you're reorganizing the reorganizing," Light said.

Light added that he prefers to take a longer view, noting that the Defense Department and Energy Department, after more than 50 and 25 years, respectively, are still works in progress.

STILL INTERESTED IN NOW: The race to become the next occupant of the Oval Office appears to have engrossed even the current occupant. President Bush spent a significant amount of time at last week's news conference discussing the foreign policy statements (or misstatements, in his view) of the Democratic candidates.

But not everyone is skipping past the months that remain in the Bush presidency. One White House guest this week, King Abdullah II of Jordan, has his eye on all of 2008, not just November.

"Yes, at long last, this year, right now, we are in the best possible position to resolve 60 years of conflict between Israel and Palestine," he told an audience at Princeton University on Friday. Abdullah is set to meet with Bush tomorrow. He will not address a joint session of Congress, as he did during a visit to Washington last year, but he is scheduled to meet with House members of the Friends of Jordan caucus, which was officially launched late last year.

MORE QUESTIONS FOR FBI: FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III will be back on the Hill this week for an oversight hearing Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. A month ago, Mueller testified before the Senate intelligence committee about interrogation methods. He said that the FBI does not "use coercive techniques of any sort in the course of our interrogations." The committee may revisit the topic this week: Since Mueller last discussed the bureau's practices, the administration has brought capital murder charges against six men allegedly involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- charges based, in part, on information disclosed to FBI questioners.

By Rachel Dry