Obama Revamps National Security Posts

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is merging the domestic and foreign sides of the White House national-security team, effectively eliminating a division created after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The White House will use the reorganization to make broader changes as well. Among them is the creation of positions at the National Security Council focused on cybersecurity, energy, the environment and the threat of terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction, officials said Tuesday.

The president said Tuesday that the change reflects "the fundamental truth that the challenges of the 21st century are increasingly unconventional and transnational, and therefore demand a response that effectively integrates all aspects of American power."

Homeland-security duties will be folded into the NSC, said John Brennan, deputy national-security adviser for homeland security. Mr. Brennan said the separate White House staffs made sense in the early days after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the Department of Homeland Security was still young and benefited from additional oversight and input. The department "has become a more capable department and is able to address a lot of these issues now on their own," he said.

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