Bush Admin Offers "Exceptional Co-op" to Obama Team

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Washington: Faced with one of the most important transfers of presidential power in American history, the outgoing Bush administration and the incoming Obama team have responded with "exceptional co-operation" to ensure a smooth transition, aides and experts say.

Since the November 04 election, both sides have shown a striking level of comity following the rancour of the campaign, the Washington Post reported.

President George W Bush's chief of staff, Joshua B Bolten, said the White House is even preparing a "tabletop" exercise to simulate how Obama's national security officials should respond in the event of a terrorist attack, it said.

"If a crisis hits on January 21, they're the ones that are going to have to deal with it," Bolten said in an interview taped for broadcast today on C-SPAN. "We need to make sure they're as well-prepared as possible."

Obama, 47, is scheduled to be sworn-in on January 20, 2009 as the 44th US President.

"Ensuring that this transition is seamless is a top priority for the rest of my time in office," Bush said in his weekly radio address yesterday.

"My administration will work hard to ensure that the next President and his team can hit the ground running."

Bush has created a transition coordinating council, populated by experts from inside and outside the administration, and has streamlined the process for obtaining security clearances for key transition officials. National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell flew to Chicago on Thursday to deliver Obama his first daily intelligence briefing, the report said. The Obama team has begun submitting names to the FBI for expedited security clearances, which is allowed under an intelligence reform law passed in 2004.

Likewise, the Bush administration is laying the groundwork for an unusual level of access to the Treasury Department and other agencies involved in attempts to stabilise the foundering economy.

Bush and Obama are scheduled to meet at the White House tomorrow, after a long and tough campaign in which Obama's chief charge was that a vote for Republican rival John McCain would be a vote for a third Bush term.

The rhetoric has cooled since Tuesday, and Bolten said Bush takes it in stride when he has "had some bad stuff said about him”.

"He understands it's a rough-and-tumble game, and he doesn't let it interfere with his personal relationships or his judgment about what's best for the country," Bolten said.

Brookings Institution scholar Stephen Hess, who has been involved in presidential transitions since the Eisenhower administration, is impressed by the efforts of Bush and Obama. "I'm not sure I've ever seen an outgoing administration work as hard at saying the right thing," Hess said. "This is really quite memorable."

Hess and other experts agreed that the times demand co-operation. He and others compare Obama's challenge to Franklin D Roosevelt's in 1932, or even Abraham Lincoln's in 1860.

Within three days of his election, Obama announced a full transition team and named a chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Obama, elected as the first African-American President, seems determined to avoid some of the mistakes of the last Democrat to hold the office. Clinton's transition after his 1992 election is considered one of the most chaotic in recent times, the report said.



Via news