TIRANA, Albania -- In attempt to boost its bid for a 2008 accession into NATO, the Albanian government has hired former U.S. homeland security chief Tom Ridge as a consultant to Prime Minster Sali Berisha. Ridge, a former governor of Pennsylvania and congressman, was appointed as the United State's first homeland security adviser on October 8, 2001, shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Ridge went on to become the first secretary of Homeland Security, overseeing the consolidation of the massive new department, created in the largest federal reorganization since World War II. Ridge resigned from government in December 2004. Since the collapse of Albania's communist regime in 1991, several governments have tried desperately to integrate the country into the European Union and NATO. Suffering one of the most difficult transitions in the eastern block, followed by a serious image problem, the endeavor has not been easy.
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