Team Obama has named someone to serve in a Senate-confirmed post called the "U.S. Coordinator for the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism."
If that is too awkward to throw around the water cooler tomorrow, you could use the term "WMD Czar."
The position as it was legislated in 2006, is one that the Bush White House had rejected, thinking the position redundant and way too accountable to Congress. Ironic that WMDs are the very threat to our nation's security that President sold the American public in order to get us comfortable with the Iraq occupation.
However; Bush thought the position wasn't worth filling.
This was part of the 9/11 Commission's Recommendation's and the Obama-Biden Team is doing just that! According to Senate sources, this was drafted by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Vice-President Biden was its chair. Amazing!
The WMD Czar was established so an expert would serve as the chief adviser to the President on all matters relating to the prevention of WMD proliferation and terrorism and responsible for formulating a national strategy for preventing same.
Watching some of the cable news programs tonight, I followed the reasoning behind this and I fail to see a flaw. This Czar would lead interagency [yes thats a word] coordination, conduct oversight, and oversee the development of a budget for these efforts. Even Jim Baker said this was a serious priority.
Who has Obama picked? Gary Samore. After only four days in office! The media is touting that he is a former Clinton-era "weapons proliferation" watch dog, but I don't remember him. The news media will have to do more background on him during the week, but unlike the other positions, this one doesn't require Senate approval.
Samore will have about a dozen people at his disposal to preside over the accumulated DATA from all other agencies that collect such information. The Commission's intent was to eliminate the miscommunication between these agencies.Welcome aboard Gary Samore, your seat has been waiting for you for three long years.
