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Adviser James Jones said the shift reflects the changing world. |
National, homeland security to merge
Associated Press
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May 27, 2009
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WASHINGTON - President Obama announced yesterday that he is combining White House staffs dealing with international and homeland security, predicting the change will make Americans safer.
Obama also is creating a new office intended to communicate more effectively with other countries about US security policy.
The Homeland Security Council, created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, will be kept as a venue for discussing issues relating to domestic security, including terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, natural disasters, and pandemic influenza. Its staff will be integrated into the National Security Council.
"These decisions reflect the fundamental truth that the challenges of the 21st century are increasingly unconventional and transnational, and therefore demand a response that effectively integrates all aspects of American power," Obama said in a statement.
The president's national security adviser, retired Marine General James Jones, told reporters the reorganization reflects the view that national security has both foreign and domestic components.
"What this does is recognize the world as it is, not as it was or as we perhaps wish it would be," Jones said.
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