The new Pentagon? DHS aspires to be more like defense.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew
• Position: SECURITY BEAT: HOMELAND DEFENSE BRIEFS

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* When Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff casts his eyes across the Potomac at the Pentagon, apparently he likes what he sees.

Embedded inside the 2009 budget request are several proposals that show just how much DHS wants to emulate Defense.

First up is a $1.65 million request to develop the first "Quadrennial Homeland Security Review."

"This builds on the process that the Defense Department uses in dealing with national security issues, with a Quadrennial Defense Security Review," Chertoff said when announcing the 2009 budget proposals.

Next, the department requested $3.1 million for the chief procurement officer to enhance the acquisition intern program, which recruits, trains and certifies the workforce that oversees the development and purchasing of technology.

"I am constantly reminded by Congress of the fact that there's concern about our over-reliance on contractors to manage contracts," he said. To remedy this, the department needs to build a corps of acquisition experts, he said.

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"We need to have money to hire those people. Continually trying to punish us by cutting our management budget in order to induce us to hire more people is literally working at cross purposes," he said.

Congress of late has been critical of three technology programs: the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office's radiation portal monitor program, the Coast Guard's Deepwater modernization program and the Project 28 demonstration to set up a virtual fence on the Arizona-Mexico border.

A reporter asked Chertoff if he was perhaps mimicking some of the...