CNN Interview with Secy Napolitano of the Department of Homeland Security
Once CNN posts video will post that as well.
BLITZER: Let’s talk about where we are right now. Tell our viewers in the United States and around the world where we are. Physically. Physically.
NAPOLITANO: We are at what was known as St. Elizabeth’s Hospital but this will be the new headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security.
BLITZER: And St. Elizabeth’s, for our viewers who are unfamiliar, is a psychiatric hospital. John Hinckley, who tried to kill Ronald Reagan, he is here.
NAPOLITANO: That’s right. It’s a very large campus, as you can see, I don’t know what is put on the camera. But it’s in a very run down part of the District of Columbia and right now, of course, the Department of Homeland Security was stood up after 9/11 and we are spread out amongst 40 different buildings in the District of Columbia and since we were created in part specifically to be able to connect the dots so that we don’t have another 9/11 terrorist attack on our country that we can prevent before it occurs better, it would be facilitated by being in one campus under one roof.
And so this will be – is under way and is also part of the stimulus package.
BLITZER: And you hope that what will be the next six or eight years, this campus will be completed?
NAPOLITANO: Completed, six or seven, but hopefully many of our major components including my office will be here within five.
BLITZER: And how much money in the stimulus package has been earmarked for this project?
NAPOLITANO: This project is $650 million and it will equate to 33,000 jobs in this area, $1.2 billion immediate stimulus to the local economy and if you look at this area of the district you’d understand that this will be very beneficial to the overall quality of life in this area of this District.
BLITZER: Because some of the residents, some of the people here say you know what? You’re going to build walls around the Department of Homeland Security, fences, there will be thousands of people working inside but they’ll never get outside and mingle with the folks.
NAPOLITANO: Well, I don’t think that’s true and if you look at the plans and so forth I think you’ll see what happens here, what happened for example when the Navy put some of its military mission on M Street and some other areas, you saw an immediate kind of revitalization of those areas. People going in, coming out, wanting to work closer or live close to where they work, going out for lunch, that sort of thing.
BLITZER: The – Richard Moe, the president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation wrote to the "Washington Post" on January 8 that this plan, because this is a National Historic Preservation site, "would overwhelm a site of enormous historic and cultural significance by cramming more than 6 million square feet of buildings and parking into a space that could not reasonably accommodate half that. Call it death by shoehorn. The DHA complex would be a high security citadel whose 14,000 employees would have little reason or opportunity to interact with the community outside the gate."
NAPOLITANO: Well, all I can say is that the District of Columbia Planning Commission, the Historic Preservation Commissions and the like have all evaluated the plans, have all approved the plans and think about it this way. We’re very sensitive to the community in which we are but we’re also very cognizant of the mission of the Department of Homeland Security is to protect the safety of the American people.
That mission will be assisted by being in one place.
This place, for safety, security, a whole lot of reasons, was identified and I don’t think having a good work environment and a good neighbor for the community is inconsistent with the Department of Homeland Security.
BLITZER: And the Coast Guard will come in first, is that right?
NAPOLITANO: They will be the first component to come in, that’s correct. And I think they’ll be in as soon as 20 – I don’t want to say 2012.
BLITZER: The theory is that you have a big campus like this and we’ll have beautiful shots of it. The theory is you’re going to do for the Department of Homeland Security what DoD, the Pentagon did when they moved out to Virginia, or the CIA when they had the huge campus out in Langley, Virginia. That’s the theory behind having this huge campus for the Department of Homeland Security which is now spread out over, as you say, dozens of different locations.
NAPOLITANO: Yeah, that’s one of the theories and again, when you go down to where the Pentagon is, I think when the Pentagon was created there were many of the same arguments were made about being a bad neighbor, not helping the local economy and the like and those have not been borne out.
BLITZER: Northern Virginia has done pretty well…
NAPOLITANO: Looks like it.
BLITZER: since the Pentagon moved in after World War II.