WASHINGTON — In nominating Michael Chertoff to be the second head of the Department of Homeland Security, President Bush has chosen a lawyer of uncommon experience. But how much of it will be helpful in managing the government's most unruly new bureaucracy remains to be seen.
As a federal prosecutor, Chertoff took on mobsters and corporate scoundrels; as the top criminal official in the Justice Department on Sept. 11, 2001, he went after suspected terrorists. He has been a defense lawyer at a large law firm and, for the last year and a half, a judge on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.
He has built a remarkable track record while managing to escape some of the criticism that civil liberties groups have lodged against the Bush administration and Chertoff's one-time boss -- Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft -- over the treatment of immigrants and suspects rounded up after the terrorist attacks.
Chertoff, 51, is expected to win Senate approval.
"Among the potential choices, I think he is better than a politician, better than someone without experience in law enforcement, and better than a police officer," said Joshua L. Dratel, a New York defense lawyer who has represented a number of people targeted by the administration in terrorism cases. "He has a broad range of experience, and he is capable of an intellectual approach to problems."
But Bush's surprise pick lacks experience in the nuts-and-bolts issues that he will face as the nation's domestic security chief. He will inherit a massive and relatively new agency that has struggled with multiple missions, high personnel turnover and sagging morale.
"The president clearly sacrificed having someone with deep knowledge of critical areas within the department for someone who will be safely confirmed," said Michael Greenberger, a former Justice official and head of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland.
"He does not have the substantive knowledge. People are hoping that his intelligence, energy and thoughtfulness will compensate for that," Greenberger said.
"He would have been a great choice for attorney general," Greenberger said. "But he is going to be the head of DHS, and his relationship with fire departments, police chiefs and emergency medical technicians are going to be more key than dealing with enemy combatants. Those are issues I am sure he has not given a lot of thought to."
