MS. PERINO: Okay, a couple of announcements. As you may have seen, there is severe weather hampering the middle part of the country -- hammering the middle part of the country, I should say. The administration continues to monitor the severe weather in Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, and Texas. And FEMA has activated regional response coordination centers and it has liaisons working with the affected states.
Administrator Paulison spoke earlier today with the Governor of Missouri, and he said that FEMA is ready and able to assist its state partners as needed and requested. And FEMA is available if you have additional questions. Also, two personnel announcements. Today President Bush is pleased to announce that he has selected Kenneth L. Wainstein to serve as Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. We will have a statement from the President to release as soon as we finish this briefing, or while we're here. Mr. Wainstein, as you may know, oversaw the creation of the National Security Division of the Justice Department in September 2006. That creation -- the creation of that division was a key component of the recommendations from the WMD Commission. And under Mr. Wainstein's leadership the NSD has achieved several important milestones -- I'll mention a couple of them, which is the ongoing effort to modernize FISA -- in fact, he was just here not too long ago providing a briefing -- that also included the Protect America Act passage. He has helped bring the surveillance activities conducted under the Terrorist Surveillance Program to under the authority of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and he has worked on creating and implementing a comprehensive oversight program for FBI national security investigations. In addition, the President is pleased to announce his intention to nominate Michael Leiter to be Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, which is in the Office of the National -- I'm sorry, Director of National Intelligence. He currently serves as Acting Director and Principal Deputy Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Earlier in his career he served as Deputy General Counsel and Assistance Director of the President's Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, also known as the WMD Commission. So we're pleased that both of those individuals will be joining the team.
seen at 14:09, 19 March
in
Whitehouse Press Briefings.
Email this to a friend.
Next item;
Original source;
Previous item;
