Larry Wilkerson, U.S. Army Colonel (retired) and former
Chief of Staff of the State Department, leads part two of the SNC series
on National Security Reform where he discusses his experiences in conducting
inter-agency operations within the national security framework. According to
Wilkerson, “Interagency cooperation, let alone interagency effectiveness, in
implementing Presidential decisions is virtually non-existent within the
existing U.S. federal bureaucracy.” He points
to U.S. responses to the situations in Somalia, the
Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Hurricane Katrina as clearly demonstrating the need for reform. Wilkerson
will address three key questions: What institutional and process reforms are
needed? Is Congress part of the dysfunction? Where do we start in fixing the problem?
