Facing Crisis Early On

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
CNN
October 21, 2008

The Situation Room (CNN), 5:00 PM
WOLF BLITZER: Meanwhile, his running mate Joe Biden talked about it and there’s a very real possibility that the next president of the United States – whoever that may be – could face a major crisis within months, if not weeks, of taking office. And right now, the U.S. military already preparing, along with the candidates, for that contingency.
Our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, is working the story for us. Barbara, a crisis early on in a new administration – that’s by no means unusual if you look at history.
BARBARA STARR: It is not unusual, Wolf, and that is exactly what the Pentagon is preparing for.
SEN. JOE BIDEN (D-DE) [Vice Presidential Candidate]: It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old president of the United States of America. Watch, we’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.
STARR: History says Biden is right. The Pentagon months ago assembled a list of major events since 1961 that happened in the first year of a presidency. Three months after taking office, John F. Kennedy, the failed Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba; eight months after Gerald Ford is sworn in, the fall of South Vietnam; one month into Bill Clinton’s presidency, the World Trade Center bombed the first time; and just eight months after George Bush takes office, the 9/11 attacks.
Months ago the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the military has to be ready for a post-election crisis.
ADM. MIKE MULLEN [Joint Chiefs Chairman]: You know, I look at what worse case could be and we work hard to do everything we can in the military to be – to prevent anything from occurring, and certainly being able to respond in this time of transition.
STARR: The Pentagon now has a massive presidential transition effort to brief the president elect and get him ready to make crucial decisions, including cutting the $515 billion defense budget in the wake of the Wall Street crisis, reducing troop levels in Iraq, and perhaps most urgently, finding a new strategy for controlling the escalating violence in Afghanistan.
Now, of course, Wolf, everyone hopes there will be no crisis in the first month of a new administration. But here at the Pentagon, they say they are ready just in case. Wolf?
BLITZER: All right, Barbara, thanks very much. Contingency planning going on over at the Pentagon.
 
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