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December 17, 2008
Bush Prepares Crisis Briefings to Aid Ayers Friend Obama
Bush Prepares Crisis Briefings to Aid Obama
WASHINGTON
The White House has prepared more than a dozen contingency plans to help guide President-elect Barack Obama if an international crisis erupts in the opening days of his administration, part of an elaborate operation devised to smooth the first transition of power since Sept. 11, 2001.
The memorandums envision a variety of volatile possibilities, like a North Korean nuclear explosion, a cyberattack on American computer systems, a terrorist strike on United States facilities overseas or a fresh outbreak of instability in the Middle East, according to people briefed on them. Each then outlines options for Mr. Obama to consider.
The contingency planning goes beyond what other administrations have done, with President Bush and Mr. Obama vowing to work in tandem to ensure a more efficient transition in a time of war and terrorist threat. The commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, noting problems during the handover from President Bill Clinton to Mr. Bush, called for a better process “since a catastrophic attack could occur with little or no notice,” as its report put it.
“This is very unusual,” said Roger Cressey, a former Clinton White House counterterrorism official who was held over under Mr. Bush. “We certainly did not do that. When the transition happened from Clinton to Bush, remember it was a totally different world. You had some documents given that gave them a flavor of where things were at. But now you’ve got two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a hot war against Al Qaeda.”
In addition to the White House contingency memorandums, the Department of Homeland Security said it had given crisis training to nearly 100 career officials who may fill in while Mr. Obama’s appointees await Senate confirmation. Starting before the election, those career workers have conducted exercises alongside departing political appointees to test their responses.
The administration has invited members of the Obama agency review teams to observe some of those so-called tabletop exercises between now and the inauguration, on Jan. 20. The Bush team has also invited Obama transition officials to attend a “national level exercise” set for Jan. 12 and 13 that may play out what would happen if the top leadership of the nation were wiped out in a single stroke, officials said.
At the same time, senior counterterrorism officials plan to hold personal briefings for their counterparts on the biggest threats they see. And the White House has drafted as many as three dozen other long-term policy memorandums outlining various pressing issues that will confront the new team and how Mr. Bush’s aides see the status of each of these issues as his presidency comes to a close.
The White House said the flurry of briefings and memorandums was meant to be helpful to the incoming administration, not an attempt to dictate to it, and members of the Obama team said they were taking it in that light.
“It’s a good-faith effort to provide potential information on some hot spots and some ideas about what they can do,” said Gordon D. Johndroe, a White House spokesman. “We just want to provide them, especially in the first few weeks, the basis for which they can have some information to make their decisions.”
The contingency plans, he said, provide the new president a variety of possible responses to certain situations rather than a specific course of action. “It’s a menu of contingencies and potential options,” he said. “It’s not exhaustive, and it’s not exclusive, and it’s not prescriptive, as if to say, ‘These are the only things you can do.’ ”
Mr. Bush said Tuesday that a top priority in his final days in office is to help Mr. Obama get ready to govern. “We care about him,” he said in an interview with CNN. “We want him to be successful, and we want the transition to work.”
A spokeswoman for Mr. Obama’s office said she had no comment. But other Democrats working with the transition said they appreciated the Bush team’s efforts. “This doesn’t absolve the Bush administration of some of their judgments they’ve made over the years, but this is the right thing to do,” said a Democrat close to the transition who did not want to be named to avoid alienating the team. “This is when enlightened self-interest works.”
Mr. Cressey, who has been a critic of Mr. Bush’s national security policy, said: “I give them a lot of points for doing this. There could be zero down time for the new team coming in.”
The attention to national security in this postelection interim period stems in part from the recognition that terrorists have struck during moments of flux in national leadership before. Al Qaeda’s first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 came weeks after Mr. Clinton was sworn in. A series of bombings on a Madrid commuter train system in 2004 came three days before national elections. And an attack on a Glasgow airport in 2007 came days after Prime Minister Gordon Brown took office in Britain.
Here in the United States, the Department of Homeland Security declared the fall election and transition a period of heightened alert because of the concern. Under the authority granted by intelligence legislation Mr. Bush signed in 2004, the government has processed security clearances for Obama transition officials earlier than ever before and Mr. Obama has named his top nominees faster than any other modern president-elect.
Beyond terrorism, Mr. Obama could face an early unexpected international test on any number of fronts, as his running mate, Joseph R. Biden Jr., predicted on the campaign trail. During the transition between the administrations of the first President Bush and Mr. Clinton, a humanitarian crisis in Somalia prompted Mr. Bush to send United States troops to intervene.
While Mr. Obama’s national security résumé is relatively thin, many members of his national security team come with deep experience. He is keeping Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and has tapped Gen. James L. Jones, a retired NATO supreme commander, as national security adviser.
Yet returning Clinton veterans have not been in government since Sept. 11. There was no Department of Homeland Security then, no director of national intelligence. The world has changed, and so have the structures to cope with it.
And there are things that cannot be put in a briefing or memorandum. James Jay Carafano, a national security expert at the Heritage Foundation, said much of the apparatus of government would know what to do in the event of a crisis. The real test for Mr. Obama will be projecting leadership.
“For a president thinking about crisis management,” Mr. Carafano said, “the most important thing is not decision making, it’s public relations.”
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Wild Thing's comment..........
"“This is very unusual,” said Roger Cressey, a former Clinton White House counterterrorism official who was held over under Mr. Bush. “We certainly did not do that. When the transition happened from Clinton to Bush"
Now they admit they didn’t brief President-Elect Bush. Besiudes all the destruction in the offices they did, to computers, stealing furniture etc.
“A spokeswoman for Mr. Obama’s office said she had no comment. But other Democrats working with the transition said they appreciated the Bush team’s efforts. “This doesn’t absolve the Bush administration of some of their judgments they’ve made over the years, but this is the right thing to do,” said a Democrat close to the transition who did not want to be named to avoid alienating the team. " “This is when enlightened self-interest works.”
No good deed goes unpunished. This has to be the most condescending bunch of moral effetes ever to see Washington.
Can you believe the attitude and how ungrateful Obama's team is about all of this. SCREW them ALL !
President Bush to do this FOR Obama, just trying to help shows class on his part and also a concern for the country. Obama's team by what they have said shows these things imo.
1. they could give a rats ass about our country
2. they care less about the safety of the citizens of the USA
3. they are soooooo political that they cannot get past their PARTY loyalties that they can't see anything else. Like good communist party members one and all.
They speak of uniting America.....LMAO.... put that where the sun does not shine and cement it SHUT!
4. Obama has NO experience to be President. And his background and motives and beliefs are DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY.
He is a weak person and has had a lifetime growing up with the influence of communists all around him. Every mentor Obama has had is anti-American and he has been a good sheep to each one of them. Or is it GOAT. Yes I am pissed, I will always be ticked when I see a person reach out to help and do what will make this country safe and better and protected and the low life, blue lipped Obama and his team cannot get past their hate for the right side of the isle, their hate for Bush and his people wanting to help Obama before he is sworn in.
So Obama you freakazoid you have sealed the door closed now behind you, you and your team. You have been given a chance, just a chance mind you to respond like a future " leader" of the most powerful country in the world. A country that the enemy wants badly and have made many attempts on us since 9-11 that Bush and his cabinet have stopped. YES they have stopped possible attacks and Obama you brain dead POS need to wake up.
Bush should say to Obama......Here’s what I’ve been doing for eight years, Sonnyboy. Have a seat and get used to not sleeping through the night.
Maybe the one of those briefings, should be to discuss the crisis of having Obama as President?
Hey Barack........Starting with this..... This is NOT the Red Button!!!!
Whew now I feel better. hahaha Rants always wear me out. I am a lover not a ranter by nature.
LOL
Posted by Wild Thing at December 17, 2008 05:47 PM
Comments
B. Hussein is bringing change. He is bringing Chicago politics to DC (not that is not already dirty enough) and at the same time cleaning up Chicago by weeding out corruption and transferring it to Washington.
Posted by: Bob A at December 17, 2008 06:10 PM
"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country." Theodore Roosevelt
Posted by: JohnE PFC U.S. Army at December 17, 2008 07:02 PM
I think PEBO is having his eyes opened. He's going to find out things that he never imagined. He'll find out why things took place the way they did. He's also going to find out that just because he says so doesn't mean it's going to happen. PEBO is going to find out that he's not deity.
Posted by: BobF at December 17, 2008 08:37 PM
I think if you put a pair of glasses on that dummy he will look just like Erkle. a Nerd puppet and the strings go all the way to Soros. Obama really hasn't a clue about anything.
He has picked all the Clinton Castoffs and retreds, where's the change. The only one he hasn't picked for anything yet is Algore. Obama's running out of teets for all the pigs who want jobs. But once Algore is connected, it will be a case of the Blind leading the unwilling to do the unnecessary. This whole group is a disaster waiting to happen, and there will be nobody to bail them out.
He has surrounded himself with all these X-perts and not one of them has a success at anything, especially the jobs they have been chosen for. McHales Navy was better organized.
Posted by: Mark at December 17, 2008 09:39 PM
"Squaw Wild Cherokee Thing... I thought that only PALE FACE spoke with forked tongue?"
- KEY MOE SAAVY 2008
Posted by: darthcrUSAderworldtour07 at December 17, 2008 09:42 PM
Hey, get inured to it folks. We have four years of this insanity ahead of us.
I have a hunch though that it is going to be anything but smooth for The One. These are egotistical people and there will be much infighting. Also, as corruption is exposed there will be lots of bodies going under the bus. This group may just self destruct. If so, I hope they don't take America down with them.
Posted by: TomR at December 17, 2008 10:22 PM
Bob Al., yes that is what he is doing in bringing all his people to D.C. So we will have a Chicago criminals mixed in with the Clinton clan.
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 17, 2008 11:28 PM
JohnE PFC U.S. Army, thanks for the quote. I am saving it.
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 17, 2008 11:29 PM
BobF., I agree so much.
"He's also going to find out that just because he says so doesn't mean it's going to happen"
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 17, 2008 11:32 PM
Mark, hahaa yes that would make a good graphic.
LOL great description in the rest of the comment too.
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 17, 2008 11:34 PM
Darth, Hahahahaahaha me thinks you got something there.
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 17, 2008 11:37 PM
Tom, good one, thank you so much. You are right,
and this too......."These are egotistical people and there will be much infighting"....that part will at least be the fun part.
Posted by: Wild Thing at December 17, 2008 11:39 PM
Bush came to DC naive to the viciousness of Democratic politics and he leaves the same way. Eight years of personal and destructive political torture and he didn't learn a thing. Well, the presidential ball of responsibility including the nuclear "football" will be in the illegitimate PEBO's hands and we'll see how he runs with it. This is the same thin-skinned candidate who couldn't take any criticism on the campaign trail playing victim and crying racism all of the time.
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff79/freebirdny/PICS/obamaracecard-1-LARGE.jpg
Posted by: Les at December 18, 2008 02:37 AM
Please keep in mind that we have to survive having this deadhead as President for four years...Help!
Posted by: Avitar at December 18, 2008 12:59 PM
