Today's D Brief: Advisory-board reset; Withdrawal from Europe on hold; Russia’s vaccine; Hicks’ warning; And a bit more.
By Bradley Peniston and Ben Watson
February 3, 2021 10:47 AM ET
The D Brief
Austin resets defense advisory boards. Every member of 40 boards that provide outsider advice to various DoD agencies will be let go, and a “zero-based review†performed by each board’s sponsoring agency to “focus our advisory committee efforts to align with our most pressing strategic priorities and the National Defense Strategy,†SecDef Lloyd Austin directed in a Jan. 30 memo.
The move follows the post-election appointment of several Trump administration officials, including Anthony Tata, “a former acting senior defense official who in 2018 called former President Barack Obama a “terrorist leader†and was placed on the Defense Policy Board on Jan. 19, the last full day of the Trump administration,†Reuters reports.
“There is no question that the secretary was deeply concerned with the pace and the extent of recent changes to memberships,†one unnamed defense official told Reuters. “It gave him pause to consider the broad scope and purpose of these boards.â€
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/02/the-d-brief-february-03-2021/171825/
