Sec. 926. Reform of National Security Council
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Congress finds the following: The National Security Council has increasingly micromanaged military operations and centralized decisionmaking within the staff of the National Security Council. The size of the staff has contributed this problem. As stated by former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, It was the operational micromanagement that drove me nuts of White House and [National Security Council] staffers calling senior commanders out in the field and asking them questions, second guessing commanders , and by another former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, [B]ecause of that centralization of that authority at the White House, there are too few voices being heard in terms of the ability to make decisions and that includes members of the cabinet. .
Gates stated, You have 25 people working on a single military problem... They are going to be doing things they shouldn’t be doing, and Panetta noted, The National Security Council has grown enormously, which means you have a lot more staff people running around at the White House on these foreign policy issues. . Press reports indicate that National Security Council micromanagement has included selecting targets in ongoing military operations, specifying detailed parameters and limitations on military operations, and managing military planning and the execution of plans.
As stated in section 101(a) of the National Security Act of 1947 ( 50 U.S.C. 3021(a) ), the function of the Council shall be to advise the President with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security so as to enable the military services and the other departments and agencies of the Government to cooperate more effectively in matters involving the national security . As stated in the November 1961 staff reports and recommendations on Organizing for National Security submitted to the Committee on Government Operations of the Senate by the Subcommittee on National Policy Machinery, The Council is an interagency committee:
It can inform, debate, review, adjust, and validate... The Council is not a decisionmaking body; it does not itself make policy. It serves only in an advisory capacity to the President, helping him arrive at decisions which he alone can make. . As noted in the 1987 Report of the President’s Special Review Board (commonly known as the Tower Commission Report ), As a general matter, the [National Security Council] staff should not engage in the implementation of policy or the conduct of operations.
This compromises their oversight role and usurps the responsibilities of the departments and agencies. . As noted in the Addendum on Structure and Process Analyses: Volume II – Executive Office of the President, accompanying the February 2001 U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century (commonly known as the Hart-Rudman Commission ), [T]he degree to which the [National Security Council] gets involved in operational issues raises a question of congressional oversight. Today there is limited congressional oversight of the [National Security Council]...
Assigning the [National Security Council] greater operational responsibility would likely result in calls for more congressional oversight and legislative control... . According to analysis from the Brookings Institution’s National Security Council Project, the size of the National Security Council staff from the early 1960s to the mid-1990s remained consistently under 60 personnel. Since then, it has grown significantly in size. As former National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, wrote in The NSC’s Midlife Crisis in Foreign Policy, Winter 1987–1988, There is no magic number, but it would appear that for successful strategic planning and policy coordination 30-40 senior staff members are probably adequate.
However, to ensure effective supervision over policy implementation as well, the size of the staff should be somewhat larger. An optimal figure for the senior staff probably would be about 50 senior staff members. . It is the sense of Congress that— the function of the National Security Council, consistent with the National Security Act of 1947 ( 50 U.S.C. 3001 et seq. ), is to advise the President as an independent honest broker on national security matters, to coordinate national security activities across departments and agencies, and to make recommendations to the President regarding national security objectives and policy, and the size of the staff of the National Security Council should be appropriately aligned to this function; the President is entitled to privacy in the Office of the President and to a confidential relationship with the National Security Advisor and the National Security Council; and however, a National Security Council, enabled by a large staff, that assumes a central policymaking or operational role is no longer advisory and should be publicly accountable to the American people through Senate confirmation of its leadership and the activities of the Council subject to direct oversight by Congress.
Section 101 of the National Security Act of 1947 ( 50 U.S.C. 3021 ), is amended— in subsection (a)— in paragraph (5), by striking and ; in paragraph (6), by striking the period at the end and inserting ; and ; and by adding after paragraph
(6)the following new paragraph: the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. ; in subsection (c), by striking shall receive compensation at the rate of $10,000 a year. and inserting shall report to, and be under the general supervision of, the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. ; by redesignating subsections
(d)through
(l)as subsections
(e)through (m), respectively; and by inserting after subsection
(c)the following new subsection: Except as provided by subparagraph (B), the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs shall be appointed by the President. If the staff of the Council exceeds 100 covered employees at any point during a term of the President, and for the duration of such term (without regard to any changes to the number of such covered employees), the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. Beginning on the date on which the staff of the Council exceeds 100 covered employees, the person appointed as the Assistant under paragraph (1)(A), the person nominated by the President to be appointed the Assistant under paragraph (1)(B), or any other person designated by the President to serve as the Assistant in an acting capacity, may serve in an acting capacity for no longer than 210 days. If the person nominated by the President to be appointed the Assistant under paragraph (1)(B) is rejected by the Senate, withdrawn, or returned to the President by the Senate, the President shall nominate another person and the person serving as the acting Assistant may continue to serve— until the second nomination is confirmed; or for no more than 210 days after the second nomination is rejected, withdrawn, or returned. The President shall notify Congress in writing not more than seven days after the date on which the staff of the Council exceeds 100 covered employees. In this subsection, the term covered employees means each of the following officers and employees (counted without regard to full-time equivalent basis): Officers and employees occupying a position funded by the Executive Office of the President performing a function of the Council. Officers, employees, and members of the Armed Forces from any department, agency, or independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government that are on detail to the Council performing a function of the Council. . Section 3(12) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 ( 22 U.S.C. 6402(12) ) is amended by striking section 101(i) and inserting section 101(l) .
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