Bureaucratic Thrfs Shaping Up.

• Author: Book, Elizabeth G.

During the past several months, Rep. Mac Thornberry has been working to implement a recommendation of the Hart-Rudman U.S. Commission on National Security/2lst Century -- the creation of a National Homeland Security Agency.

Thornberry, together with Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., introduced legislation to include sections of the Coast Guard, Border Patrol, Customs Service and the National Guard in a new "beefed-up Federal Emergency Management Agency" to protect the United States from terrorist attacks.

Thornberry, reached for comment after the September 11 disaster, said that momentum was building to create a National Homeland Security Agency, and that the Congress would be "doing something legislatively," even though a cabinet-level post to address homeland security had been created by the...