Perfidious Albion: UK and US Announce 'New Joint National Security Body' - J. Edgar Hoover Is Turning In His Grave - President Obama in Great Britain

Source: guardian.co.uk

Barack Obama agrees to form joint national security body with UK
US president will use visit to London to announce new co-operation to tackle long-term challenges

Nicholas Watt
The Guardian
Monday 23 May 2011

US President Barack Obama speaks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on 22 May before flying off for his European tour. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Pool/EPA

Barack Obama will announce during his first state visit to Britain this week that the White House is to open up its highly secretive national security council to Downing Street in a move that appears to show the US still values the transatlantic "special relationship".

A joint National Security Strategy Board will be established to ensure that senior officials on both sides of the Atlantic confront long-term challenges rather than just hold emergency talks from the "situation room" in the White House and the Cobra room in the Cabinet Office.

Obama will arrive in London on Tuesday from Dublin on the second leg of a European tour that will also take him to Warsaw and the G8 summit in Deauville in France on Thursday and Friday. The president, who will stay at Buckingham Palace with his wife, Michelle, will hold separate meetings with David Cameron and Ed Miliband.