Thursday, September 20, 2007

[USA] When national security meets government bureaucracy / Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 19 September 2007
http://www.thebulletin.org/columns/gordon-adams/20070919.html
Gordon Adams
"As part of their report card on how we're responding to 9/11, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton recently proposed that we appoint a "nuclear nonproliferation czar" to the White House. In their view, nuclear terrorism is the most frightening security threat the nation faces. [...] The proposal, similar to one made eight years ago by the Commission to Assess the Organization of the Federal Government to Combat the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, or CAOFGCPWMD, which may represent a Guinness World Record for acronym length, highlights the most obvious problem confronting Washington's national security process: Faced with a growing agenda of national security issues that cut across departmental boundaries, we're incapable of setting clear national priorities and providing cross-agency guidance and budget discipline when enforcing them."