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Congress Delays State Department Restructuring
U.S. House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) has delayed the planned merger of the State Department’s nonproliferation and arms control bureaus, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, Aug. 3). The department notified Congress of the plan Aug. 1 and had sought approval by Aug. 15. Congress is on a monthlong recess through Sept. 5. The plan calls for the bureaus to be joined as the International Security and Nonproliferation Bureau, which would focus on preventing terrorists and certain regimes from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. The congressional hold “reflects a desire for more specific information, which we have every reason to believe will be forthcoming,” said Hyde spokesman Sam Stratman. “No one should be surprised that in this kind of last-second approach, people will want to slow down and take a look at what this all means,” said Norman Kurz, spokesman for Senator Joseph Biden (Del.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Fred Fleitz, chief of staff to John Bolton during his stint as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, briefed the Senate committee staff Monday about the merger, according to the Post. The nonproliferation bureau has been without an assistant secretary for more than a year. Stephen Rademaker has been has been overseeing it while at his post as assistant secretary of state for arms control. The new bureau would report to Robert Joseph, who replaced Bolton in May (Dafna Linzer, Washington Post, Aug. 18).
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