David Rothkopf, via this Washington Post piece, identifies the real crux of the problem of design in Bush's national security team: Cheney and Rumsfeld operate to an extraordinary degree outside the bounds of the National Security Council, of inter-agency debate and collaboration at all, a set up the President has chosen and Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley have facilitated.

David Rothkopf, who has written a forthcoming history of the National Security Council titled "Running the World," said that much of the success of a national security adviser is defined not by the adviser but by the president. He said Rice "could not be more effective" as a top staffer to Bush because of the closeness she has had with him.

But Rice's management of the interagency process has been lagging, according to Rothkopf and former and current officials. In part, this is because Rice not only had to manage two powerful Cabinet members with sharply different views -- Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- but also to deal with a player distinctive to the Bush administration: Vice President Cheney, who weighs in on every major foreign policy question.

Rothkopf said Bush undercut Rice in her running of the interagency process because he has allowed Cheney and Rumsfeld to operate outside the control of the NSC. "The president has to put his foot down and say, 'This has to stop,' " Rothkopf said, but Bush never did.

There is every reason to believe given Hadley's past performance that this situation of Rumsfeld and Cheney in particular simply bypassing normal foreign policy making channels is set not only to continue, but to go even more haywire in the coming term.

Posted by Laura at November 16, 2004 01:36 PM