A Quote by Robert C. O'Brien
The National Security Council assists the president by ensuring that he receives the best views and options from the various departments and agencies on any given issue. The ultimate policies are, as they should be, then decided upon by the president - not by the NSC staff or the national security adviser.
Related Quotes
My job as the national security adviser is to distill and present to the president the views and options that come from the various departments and agencies.
The National Security Act of 1947 - which established the National Security Council - laid the foundation for a deliberate, multitiered process, managed by the national security adviser, to bring government agencies together to debate and decide policy.
Michael Flynn is the national security adviser working next to the president, so in his time that he was the national security adviser, he is working in the White House. He should have access to the information.
The 'Scowcroft Model' recognizes - and embraces - the unique but necessarily modest place the National Security Council and the national security adviser occupy in the American national security architecture.
How you staff, particularly the chief of staff, the national security adviser, your White House counsel, how you set up a process in the system to surface information and generate options for a president, understanding that ultimately the president is going to be the final decision-maker. That's something that has to be attended to right away.
What the Agency [CIA] does is ordered by the President and the NSC [National Security Council]. The Agency neither makes decisions on policy nor acts on its own account. It is an instrument of the President.
That's the job of the National Security Council is to try to be a disciplined clearinghouse, gathering the views from across multiple agencies, teeing up decisions that make sense for the president.
I am deeply worried about Donald Trump on matters of national security. He doesn't know anything himself about it, and he has appointed a national security adviser, Mike Flynn, who is a pro-Russia conspiracy theorist, and he's just put Steve Bannon, a guy with connections to white supremacy and antisemitism, onto the National Security Council.
For President Bush, the first, the 41st president, George Herbert Walker Bush, I spent all 4 years of his presidency on the staff for the National Security Council.
While some national security advisers have eschewed the Scowcroft Model and sought to 'operationalize' the NSC or pursue their own policy agendas without regard to the cabinet, the president and the country are best served by the NSC's adherence to its intended 'honest broker' advisory role.
We have a media that goes along with the government by parroting phrases intended to provoke a certain emotional response - for example, "national security." Everyone says "national security" to the point that we now must use the term "national security." But it is not national security that they're concerned with; it is state security. And that's a key distinction.
The No. 1 issue with women in this country is jobs, and the No. 2 issue is our national security. So, economic security, national security and retirement security.
Dick Clarke, who was head of counter-terrorism in the National Security Council, pushed constantly for the Principals Committee, which is the key national security group of top officials to take up the issue of terrorism.
The work of the CSSF and Prosperity Fund is guided by the National Security Council. As chair of the National Security Council Sub-Committee that oversees both funds, I am working to ensure that they are accountable and measurable against their intended objectives.
I don't know Condoleezza Rice personally. I'm sure she's a nice lady, and I'm sure she plays the piano well. But she was a very bad National Security Adviser. The National Security Adviser is supposed to be an arbiter of policy and open minded in internal debates.
President's personal staff has a unique role. They're his intimate personal advisers, and the tradition and the precedent has been, even when I was national security adviser, that people in that position do not testify before the Congress. They talk to the Congress. They have meetings with the Congress.
Related Authors
Andrew Yang Quotes
American
Public Servant
Ben Bernanke Quotes
American
Public Servant
David Frum Quotes
American
Public Servant
Elizabeth Warren Quotes
American
Public Servant
Henry Paulson Quotes
American
Public Servant
James Comey Quotes
American
Public Servant
Janet Reno Quotes
American
Public Servant
Janet Yellen Quotes
American
Public Servant
Karren Brady Quotes
British
Public Servant
Michael Hayden Quotes
American
Public Servant
Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf Quotes
Iraqi
Public Servant
Paula White Quotes
American
Public Servant
Samantha Power Quotes
Irish
Public Servant
Steve Bannon Quotes
American
Public Servant
Vivek Murthy Quotes
American
Public Servant
Wendy Kopp Quotes
American
Public Servant