Dismantling America

Knight-Ridder reports yet another BushCheney attack on competence in government. This time the target is the arms control and international security bureaus.

"State Department officials appointed by President Bush have sidelined key career weapons experts and replaced them with less experienced political operatives who share the White House and Pentagon's distrust of international negotiations and treaties.

The reorganization of the department's arms control and international security bureaus was intended to help it better deal with 21st-century threats. Instead, it's thrown the agency into turmoil and produced an exodus of experts with decades of experience in nuclear arms, chemical weapons and related matters, according to 11 current and former officials and documents obtained by Knight Ridder...."

For the administration, the loss of expertise and knowledge may not matter much since it has little interest in cooperating with the world in nuclear weapons matters. But for the rest of us, the loss means less ability to cope with the real weapons of mass distruction that threaten the world.

Thanks to Karen Kwiatkoski for the link. She is posting again at MilitaryWeek.com.