Former CBP commissioner has few kind words for Congress.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: Homeland Security News - Customs and Border Protection Commissioner W. Ralph Basham on US Congress

The "two dumbest things" Congress asked former Customs and Border Protection Commissioner W. Ralph Basham to do was build a 2,000-mile fence in the Southwest and to "inspect every maritime container coming into this country before it left its port of origin."

"Yet the commissioner here is still under that mandate," Basham said pointing to Alan D. Bersin, the man who currently holds his former position.

Basham spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. three days before the 10-year anniversary of 9/11.

He was joined by Bersin and the first commissioner, Robert C. Bonner, to discuss the history and future of the eight-year-old agency.

Basham recalled taking a three-day tour of the Arizona border with the "former speaker of the House" (Rep. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., although he didn't mention him by name).

The lawmaker pointed to a penitentiary with high concrete walls topped by barbed wire fence and said that was what was needed all along the border. It took the entire trip to convince him that a three-pronged approach of more manpower, technology and fences would do a better job.

"Congress was making decisions never understanding what the challenges were. And we were chasing our tail literally trying to keep up with these mandates," Basham said.

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Bersin, while avoiding some of Basham's strident criticism of Congress, suggested that there are better ways of dealing with security threats other than knee-jerk mandates.

The October 2010...