| http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/05/10/MN27486.DTL White House lists doomsday succession order Chain of command for many federal agencies Friday, May 10, 2002 Uncle Sam's latest doomsday scenario is out -- and it is a bureaucratic pecking order that may be unlike any in history. To ensure the continuity of government in the post-Sept. 11 era, the White House detailed the line of succession Thursday for numerous federal departments and agencies, reaching down in the ranks well below top management. The lists were required by the 1998 Federal Vacancies Reform Act. But the task took on new urgency after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Bush White House disseminated succession lists late last year for a handful of federal agencies and departments. But in releasing new or updated lists for a dozen government bureaucracies on Thursday, it called fresh attention to the contingency plans to keep the government running -- presumably after some catastrophic attack on Washington. At the Treasury Department, if Secretary Paul O'Neill and his deputy "died, resigned or otherwise become unable to perform," the next in line are the fiscal assistant secretary, the chief of staff and the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. At the Justice Department, those in line to succeed Attorney General John Ashcroft, deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson and Associate Attorney General Jay B. Stephens are the U.S. attorneys for the southern district of New York, the eastern district of Virginia, Utah and the western district of Texas. No explanations accompanied the listing. Since Sept. 11, President Bush has taken a number of precautions to ensure government continuity -- including occasionally dispatching Vice President Dick Cheney to "undisclosed locations" to minimize the time that both are at the White House at the same time. Without fanfare, Bush also has created what amounts to a "shadow" government, staffed by a rotating group of officials representing key departments and agencies who work at an undisclosed location away from Washington. |
