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WILMINGTON, Delaware / WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Joe Biden said Monday that many of America’s security agencies had been “gutted” under President Donald Trump and that the lack of information provided to his transition team on the part of the outgoing administration it was a problem. “irresponsibility.”
“We have encountered obstacles from the political leadership in the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget,” Biden said after a meeting with his foreign policy team.
“Right now we are simply not getting all the information we need from the outgoing administration in key areas of national security. In my opinion, it is nothing short of irresponsibility.”
After Biden beat Trump in the Nov.3 election, the Democrat’s team only began meeting with administration officials in late November to coordinate the transfer.
Trump, a Republican, has refused to admit defeat and his administration only authorized cooperation with Biden on November 23. Biden will take office on January 20.
Earlier this month, Biden’s team said it had encountered resistance to requests for information from some Pentagon officials.
The Pentagon backed off.
In a statement, Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said the Pentagon had conducted 164 interviews with more than 400 officials and provided more than 5,000 pages of documents.
“Our political and career (Department of Defense) officials have been working with the utmost professionalism to support transition activities on a compressed time schedule and will continue to do so in a transparent and collegiate manner that upholds the best traditions of the department,” added. Miller said.
But Biden reiterated his team’s concerns Monday. When you take office, you will inherit a wide range of foreign policy and national security challenges, including China, Iran and North Korea, as well as the coronavirus pandemic raging around the world.
One of his most difficult tasks will be to rebuild American alliances that have worn away four years from Trump’s “America First” agenda.
“My team needs a clear picture of our force’s posture around the world and our operations to deter our enemies,” Biden said. “We need full visibility into ongoing budget planning at the Department of Defense and other agencies to avoid any window of confusion or catch-up that our adversaries may attempt to exploit.”
But Biden said his team, while securing the cooperation of some federal agencies, had “encountered obstructions from the political leadership” at the Pentagon.
“And the truth is that many of the agencies that are crucial to our security have suffered enormous damage. Many of them have been drained – in personnel, capacity and morale,” he said. “There are policy processes that have been atrophied or have been left to the margin for the despair of our alliances.”
(Reporting by Simon Lewis in Wilmington, Delaware, Matt Spetalnick and Idrees Ali in Washington, and Jeff Mason in West Palm Beach, Florida; Edited by Leslie Adler, Aurora Ellis, and Alistair Bell)
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