Obama joins his security councils
President Obama on Tuesday announced an overhaul of the White House’s brain trust for dealing with 21st century threats, merging the domestic security staff with the larger team in charge of all national security issues.
The move will integrate the work of the White House’s Homeland Security Council, created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, within the existing National Security Council.
The Homeland Security Council will continue to meet, but the newly merged “national security staff” will support all White House policymaking activities related to international, transnational and domestic security matters, several top White House national security officials said at a briefing with reporters.
The move, they said, will end the “artificial divide” between domestic and international threats, emphasizing counter-terrorism and domestic security.
Obama’s national security advisor, Gen. James L. Jones Jr., said the reorganization will allow the administration to efficiently respond to terrorism, cross-border crime, pandemics, natural disasters, nuclear proliferation and other threats.
It will also establish focuses within the national security staff to deal with cyber-security, trans-border security, natural disasters and other threats.
As part of the restructuring, the White House announced it was creating a Global Engagement Directorate with responsibility for increasing U.S. diplomacy efforts around the world.
Obama ordered the reorganization in February, directing senior White House aide and former CIA official John Brennan to review domestic security and counter-terrorism. Brennan will remain as assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism and continue to have a pipeline to Obama.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said she was concerned that the new structure “may dilute the focus” of White House domestic security officials and “create confusion among the merged staff.”
“To coordinate homeland security matters across the federal government and with our partners in state and local governments and the private sector requires sustained and dedicated attention,” Collins said in a statement. “Only time will tell whether this new structure can maintain the necessary focus.”
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