Its a Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz administration...no brains,

There's a process they call in management called "groupthink." Its similar to when a star in Hollywood surrounds him or herself with "yes" men/women, who do nothing but heap praise on every bad idea, every misstep and do not critize. What happens then is that the star's carrer disappears quickly. One needs a variety of opinions and a variety of options before one makes a decision, not just someone who is going to rubber stamp everything that comes through. This is happening in Washington, DC right now, and actually has been since 9/11...and it scares the hell out of me....

From the Philadelphia, PA Inquirer Newspaper
Posted on Wed, Feb. 08, 2006

Career weapons experts booted by Bush team

By Warren P. Strobel

Philadelphia Inquirer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - State Department officials appointed by President Bush have sidelined some key career weapons experts and replaced them with people who share the White House's and Pentagon's distrust of international negotiations and treaties.

The reorganization of the department's arms-control and international-security bureaus was intended to help it better deal with 21st-century threats. Instead, it has thrown the agency into turmoil and produced an exodus of experts with decades of experience in nuclear arms, chemical weapons and related matters, according to 11 current and former officials, and documents obtained by Knight Ridder, the parent company of The Inquirer.

The reorganization was conducted by a panel of four political appointees. A career expert was allowed to join the group only after most decisions had been made. Its work was overseen by Frederick Fleitz, a CIA officer who was detailed to the State Department as senior adviser to former Undersecretary of State John Bolton, a critic of arms agreements and international organizations.

Bolton's nomination to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was nearly derailed last year by allegations that he'd harassed and bullied his staff. Some State Department weapons experts from offices that had clashed with Bolton were denied senior positions in the reorganization, even though they had superior qualifications, the officials and documents alleged.

Fleitz, who works for Robert Joseph, Bolton's successor, later telephoned State Department employees who signed a letter protesting the moves and registered his displeasure, one official said.

The political appointees who crafted the shake-up sought and received assurances from the State Department's legal and human resources offices that what they were doing was legal.

But other officials contend that it violated long-standing management and personnel practices.

"The process has been gravely flawed from the outset and smacks plainly of a political vendetta against career Foreign Service and Civil Service [personnel] by political appointees," a group of employees told Undersecretary of State for Management Henrietta Fore on Dec. 9, according to notes prepared for the meeting.

A dozen State Department employees delivered a rare written dissent to Fore and W. Robert Pearson, the director general of the Foreign Service, on Oct. 11.

Joseph, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said in a telephone interview that the changes might have been painful to some but were necessary.

"The reorganization... was essential to better position us to further the president's strategy against WMD [weapons of mass destruction] proliferation and [Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's] emphasis on transformational diplomacy," he said yesterday.

Much more than personnel disputes are at stake, said the officials who are critical of the changes.

They said they were concerned that Rice, who announced the changes last July, would be deprived of expertise on weapons matters.

"We had a great group of people. They are highly knowledgeable experts," said former Assistant Secretary of State John Wolf, who frequently clashed with Bolton. "To the extent they now are leaving State Department employ, or U.S. government employ, it's a real loss to State Department. It's a real loss to the government."

An inquiry by Knight Ridder has found evidence that the reorganization was highly politicized.

Thomas Lehrman, a political appointee who heads the new office of Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism, advertised outside the State Department to fill jobs in his office. In an e-mail to universities and research centers, he listed loyalty to Bush and Rice's priorities as a qualification. Lehrman reportedly recalled the e-mail after it was pointed out that such loyalty tests are improper.

One of the government's top experts on the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, which helps stem the spread of nuclear weapons but disputed the Bush administration's claims about Iraq's weapons programs, returned from two and a half years at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria, and was blocked from assuming an office directorship that had been offered to him, the officials and a complaint document said.

The post, which oversees U.S. diplomacy regarding international efforts to contain suspected nuclear-weapons programs such as those in Iran and North Korea, went to a more junior officer whom numerous officials said shared Bolton's views.