Thursday, March 05, 2009

Frances Townsend Recommends Militarization of America's Nuclear Labs


Ex-White House Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend has been busy since she flew to Saudi Arabia rather than help with Hurricane Katrina. She got a new job, even after producing a whitewash investigative report on Bush's Katrina response. Who leaves out the hospital with the highest death toll post landfall? Frances Townsend did.

Her latest "public service" came as chair of the Stimson Task Force, a bipartisan group addressing America's nuclear laboratories. The task force recommended changing the status of Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National Laboratories. It proposes making wider use of the labs for other research.

Currently the labs are a semi-autonomous part of the Energy Department. They would shift to National Security. Past proposals had the labs moving to the Pentagon. It's not clear from the WaPo piece if the new independent agency would be under General James Jones or Pentagon Chief Bob Gates. (Fran worked alongside National Security Adviser Gen. Jones at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce). Either way it shows America's continued deterioration into a warrior culture.

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