National Security Team Key For Obama

Washington Post: Naming National Security Council Members And Structure Is A Priority For The Incoming President

(Washingtonpost.com)  This story was written by Karen DeYoung.

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If President-elect Barack Obama follows the pattern of most of his modern predecessors, one of the first documents to bear his signature after he takes office will be a directive laying out his administration's national security structure. Bill Clinton signed one his first day in office; George W. Bush during his first month.

The directive traditionally sets the membership of the National Security Council, determining who has a seat at the table where the highest-level defense and foreign policy decisions are made. Most important, it determines the person who schedules meetings of the NSC principals and writes the agendas, who sits at the head of the table in the absence of the president and who has the president's ear on national security matters on a daily basis.

For most chief executives, that person has been the White House national security adviser. Obama has announced no selection yet and, according to several sources, has made no decisions, although three names have circulated widely.

The heaviest betting is on James B. Steinberg, the former Clinton deputy national security adviser and State Department official who is currently dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

Retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, a former NATO commander and current executive at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has been an informal foreign and defense policy adviser to Obama and is highly respected.

A third possibility is Susan E. Rice, a State Department veteran who signed on early with Obama as a senior foreign policy adviser. Although she has been close to Obama much longer than the others -- Steinberg joined the campaign after the primaries -- Rice is considered a more likely choice as deputy national security adviser.

Among Obama's earliest decisions will be whether to retain the separate National Economic Council created by Clinton, as well as Bush's Homeland Security Council, and whether to establish new White House-level panels on policy priorities such as energy and the environment. Sources close to the Obama team said neither will be determined until the national security team -- the adviser and the secretaries of state and defense -- are chosen.

Like his predecessors, Obama will have no shortage of immediate national security problems to address, not least the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or advice on how to organize his team. In addition to many upcoming think tank and university reports, Congress has funded the Project on National Security Reform, which will recommend more legislative oversight and amendments to the 1947 National Security Act.

The act set up the NSC structure: a "principals" committee including the president, the vice president, and the secretaries of state and defense, with a small White House staff. But each president since then has established his own national security apparatus, and the structures have varied as widely as the balance of power among competing national security voices in each administration.

Clinton officially added the Treasury secretary, the U.N. ambassador, his economic adviser and chief of staff to the council; Bush removed them all. Both included the CIA director and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at principals meetings but did not put them on the principals list.

Structure is inevitably overtaken by personalities, and informal processes develop as the president turns his attention to one adviser over another. Beyond Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., whose strong foreign policy credentials ensured his place on the Obama ticket, possibilities mentioned for secretary of state, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, are far from shrinking violets. With the two wars and mushrooming resources, the Defense Department inevitably will have a large say in decision-making.

Some national security advisers such as Henry A. Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski have been more powerful than the secretaries with whom they served. In some administrations, the White House national security staff has been large -- 74 people under Dwight D. Eisenhower and more than 100 during Clinton's second term -- and in others it has been small.

John F. Kennedy slashed it to 12 members and relied on his own council of "wise men." Richard M. Nixon wanted to "run foreign policy out of the White House," he said in his memoirs, and adviser Kissinger assembled a 50-person staff to do it. Jimmy Carter cut that number in half.

In the wake of the Iran-contra arms-for-hostages scandal, Ronald Reagan stripped his White House national security council staff of the unprecedented "operational" responsibility it had assumed.

There was nothing in Bush's Organization of the National Security Council System directive, signed on Feb. 13, 2001, that previewed the power assumed by Vice President Cheney. Condoleezza Rice, Bush's first national security adviser, won an early battle with Cheney when Bush rejected the vice president's suggestion that he -- not she -- chair the NSC principals' meetings in the president's absence.

But Rice's influence was weakened by the warring first-term troika of Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Many analysts believe she failed at one of the national security adviser's primary responsibilities -- serving as an honest broker for the president among competing Cabinet points of view. Others, however, have argued that it is the president's job to make sure his team acts in concert.

When the going gets tough, Lyndon B. Johnson's national security adviser, Walt Rostow, once told the Brookings Institution, "it takes a very strong president to insist these people get along."

[kansas1946]

Anyone who is attacking Obama that voted for Bush, have no credibility. If you voted for Bush twice, then your judgment is seriously flawed. Now if you didn''t vote for Bush, then maybe we might be inclined to listen to your opinion on Obama.

[clovisbuford]

BUT THIS PRESIDENT HAS NO IDEA WHAT THAT MEANS..WORDS MEAN NOTHING WHEN YOU DON''''T HAVE EXPERIANCE TO BACK ANYTHING UP. YOU ALL HIRED A COLLEGE BOY AND PITY FOR YOU, VERY BAD ERROR IN JUDGEMENT.
Posted by Olivia4441 at 12:34 PM : Nov 19, 2008 its quite funny you post in caps , whicgh doesnet make you more important or more informed . you telll people they made a msitake when he hasnt even had a day in office yet .. still 2 months out olivia .. what bored under that bridge? no billy goats walking over to nab? and we voted for a college educated man ..what an erroer that was ...couldnt we ahve grabbed joe the plumber ..who isn''t even licensed college boy .. the best and brightest is what we should strive for .. and you have an issue with that .. hmmm olivia ..seems to say way more about you .,..than our choice ..

[beap3]

Olivia4441...what you fail to understand is that Obama supporters know the terrorists out there are always going to hate America no matter who was elected. We all know that! The difference is that Obama''s election STRENGTHENS AMERICAS STANDING in the world. People around the world hated Bush. People around the world are ready to give America another chance becuase of Obama. And what you don''t understand is that this creates more division in Islamic countries because some Islamic countries and their citizens will support America. Did you know for example, that most Iranians actually like America? This is what is called "winning the hearts and minds." You can''t win hearts and minds by bombing. WE know that we will NEVER change the terrorists minds, and that terrorists are sickos who need to be put down, and wiped off the face of the earth because all they have to offer this world is hate and violence. But there are potentially millions of young men out there that have not joined al Queda. If Obama''s election can create and atmosphere and potential for peace with the Muslim world, then there will be less men willing to join with terrorist organizations. Its just that simple. The election of Obama has already filled the world with hope for a better future. I wish you were more open to the possibility of seeing this.

[hardblock]

Olivia must be having a bad day. She needs to get over it.

[olivia4441]

When millions of Americans as well as billions of people world-wide woke up the morning after Barack Obama was elected President, they probably expected the dawn of a new age. Sorry to disappoint all you Obama-kool-aid drinkers, but America''s enemies still hate us and do so regardless who occupies the White House.

This morning our friends from Al-Qaida posted a message on militant websites aimed at persuading Arabs and Muslims to not believe that Obama''s election will change U.S. policies. While I have sounded the alarm bell that an Obama Presidency will weaken America and be detrimental to the State of Israel, my argument that our enemies hate us because of our freedom and tolerance, regardless of our leadership and policies, stands proven.

If Islamofacists had any goal besides destroying America and the Western World, they surely would have embraced Obama''s opposition to the war, determination to remove our troops in Iraq and his sympathy for the Palestinians. Instead they decide to insult him with racial epithets, calling him a "House Slave" in Arabic and referring to him as a "House Negro" in the video subtitles.

[olivia4441]

When the going gets tough, Lyndon B. Johnson''s national security adviser, Walt Rostow, once told the Brookings Institution, "it takes a very strong president to insist these people get along."


BUT THIS PRESIDENT HAS NO IDEA WHAT THAT MEANS..WORDS MEAN NOTHING WHEN YOU DON''T HAVE EXPERIANCE TO BACK ANYTHING UP. YOU ALL HIRED A COLLEGE BOY AND PITY FOR YOU, VERY BAD ERROR IN JUDGEMENT.