By KUNA,
WASHINGTON : US President Barack Obama plans to expand the membership of the National Security Council (NSC) and increase its authority to set strategy on a wide range of domestic and international issues, National Security Advisor James Jones told the Washington Post on Sunday.
The result will be a “dramatically different” NSC from that of the Bush administration or any of its predecessors since the forum was established after World War II to advise the president on diplomatic and military matters, said Jones.
“The world that we live in has changed so dramatically in this decade that organizations that were created to meet a certain set of criteria no longer are terribly useful,” he added According to Jones, the new structure will be outlined in a presidential directive could be completed this week and a detailed implementation document by Jones to expand the NSC’s reach far beyond the range of traditional foreign policy issues and turn it into a much more elastic body.
“The Cabinet and departmental seats at the table — historically occupied only by the secretaries of defense and state — will be determined on an issue-by-issue basis,” he said The NSC is the President’s principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials. (end) amz.bs KUNA 082046 Feb 09NNNN