The CIA Briefings Start Tomorrow

Obama Will Begin Getting CIA Briefings Thursday
-- Houston Chronicle

CHICAGO — Barack Obama will begin receiving highly classified briefings from top intelligence officials Thursday, as the rush of his campaign gives way to intensive preparations to take over as commander in chief and build a Democratic administration.

The briefings typically last 45 minutes to an hour, but Obama's initial one is expected to be longer. A U.S. intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity said Joe Biden, the vice president-elect, also will begin receiving briefings this week.

The president's daily brief that Obama will receive is mostly written by the Central Intelligence Agency and will include the most critical overnight intelligence for the president. They sometimes dig deeply into a specific topic to give the president an in-depth understanding.

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My Comment: After Thursday .... how President-Elect Obama sees the world will probably change .... it always does.

To The Victor The Spoils — A World Full Of Problems

From Times Online:

The problems that will confront Barack Obama beyond the United States make a nonsense of the metaphor of an in-tray. That suggests bureaucratic neatness, a stack of problems waiting for attention that can be dispatched one after the other.

Instead, he will inherit a worldwide map of problems that demand more time, military commitment and money than America can possibly deploy. It is wrong to lay all of those problems at the door of George W. Bush. Many were there before his presidency – Iran, North Korea, the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock, to name just three.

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