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NEWS | ENTERPRISE-RECORD+MERCURY-REGISTER FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 2017

WHITE HOUSE POWER

Who’s Dina Powell? A rising national security figure

By Catherine Lucey
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON >> The photo
from inside Donald Trump’s
makeshift situation room at
Mar-a-Lago affirmed what
White House insiders have
recognized for some time —
that Dina Powell has qui-
etly established herself as a
White House power.
Though sandwiched be-
tween other administra-
tion officials, the deputy
national security adviser
for strategy stands out as
the only woman among 13
staffers in the room on the
night the president ordered
the missile attack in Syria.
And in a White House
that is split between out-
sider ideologues and more
traditional operators, Pow-
ell is viewed as a steady
force in the growing influ-
ence of the latter. Her West
Wing experience, conserva-
tive background and pol-
icy chops have won over
Trump’s daughter and son-
in-law. Now, Powell is at the
table as the president turns
more of his attention to in-
ternational affairs, attempt-
ing to craft a foreign policy
out of a self-described “flex-
ible” approach to the world.
“No one should ever un-
derestimate Dina Powell.”
says Brian Gunderson, a for-
mer State Department chief
of staff. He hired her to
work in former House Ma-
jority Leader Dick Armey’s
office early in her career
and later worked with her
in George W. Bush’s White
House.
Powell, 43, declined com-
ment for this story.
She is a rare Bush vet-
eran in a White House that
has largely shunned its Re-
publican predecessor’s leg-
acy. She came via Gold-
man Sachs — decidedly not
a rarity for the new presi-
dent — originally to work
on economic development
at the behest of Ivanka
Trump and Jared Kush-
ner. An Egyptian-Ameri-
can with international ex-
perience and fluency in Ar-
abic, she was soon moved to
the National Security Coun-
cil, though she retains her
economic title.
Powell’s ties to Ivanka
Trump and Jared Kush-
ner, who recruited her,
and to economic adviser
Gary Cohn, a fellow Gold-
man alumnus, mean she
has been labeled by some
as part of a more moderate
group at the White House.
But GOP leaders describe
her as a longtime conser-
vative thinker.
ANDREW HARNIK — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
White House Senior Counselor for Economic Initiatives
Dina Powell, followed by Ivanka Trump, leaves a news
conference in the Rose Garden at the White House.
She has quickly earned
the respect of the president,
who said in a statement to
The Associated Press: “Dina
is an extremely intelligent
and competent member of
my team. She is highly re-
spected and a great person.”
National Security Ad-
viser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMas-
ter said he recruited Powell
“because of her exceptional
expertise and leadership
skills, to lead an effort to re-
store the strategic focus of
the national security coun-
cil. She has already accom-
plished this shift in a few
weeks, establishing great
relationships across our
government and with key
international allies.”
Powell’s foreign policy
experience was forged un-
der Condoleezza Rice, who
brought her into the State
Department when the Bush
administration was trying
to improve diplomacy in the
Middle East.
Calling her a “member
of my Middle East brain
trust,” the former secretary
of state said that Powell
knows the region well and
“not just confined to Egypt.”
She added that Powell was
“somebody who understood
the limits of secularism in
the Middle East but the
dangers of fundamental-
ism. She brought sensitiv-
ities to those issues.”
Still, Powell is plunging
into a national security role
at a fraught moment, as the
United States ponders next
steps with Syria, navigates
complex relationships with
North Korea, China and
Russia and seeks to com-
bat the rise of ISIS. All un-
der a president, who cam-
paigned on a platform of
“America First” but whose
foreign policy has proved
unpredictable.
Powell was brought onto
the national security team
after a period of tumult.
Trump’s first national
security adviser, Michael
Flynn was asked to re-
sign in February amid rev-
elations that he misled se-
nior administration of-
ficials about his Russian
contacts. One of his depu-
ties, K.T. McFarland — no-
tably absent from the Flor-
ida photo — is expected to
exit soon. She is in line to
be U.S. ambassador to Sin-
gapore.
As deputy national se-
curity adviser for strategy,
Powell is working to coor-
dinate the various U.S. se-
curity-related agencies and
advisers. According to a
recent national security
memo, she attends meet-
ings of the National Secu-
rity Council’s Principals
Committee and Deputies
Committee. Those advisers
briefed Trump with options
last week after a chemical
attack that the U.S. deter-
mined was ordered by Syr-
ian President Bashar Assad.
Born in Cairo, Powell
moved to the United States
with her family at the age
of four and had to learn to
speak English. She is a Cop-
tic Christian, the faith that
was targeted with bomb-
ings of two churches in
Cairo on Palm Sunday.
Entering Republican pol-
itics at a young age, Powell
put herself through the Uni-
versity of Texas by working
in the state Legislature. Af-
ter stints with several GOP
congressional members and
at the Republican National
Committee, she joined
George W. Bush’s adminis-
tration. There she became
the youngest person to ever
run a president’s person-
nel office. Later she served
Rice as assistant secretary
of state for educational and
cultural affairs and as dep-
uty undersecretary of state
for public diplomacy and
public affairs.

VETERANS

Shulkin pledges review to fix problems at VA medical center in DC

By Hope Yen
The Associated Press
WASH I NGTON >> Ve t er -
ans Affairs Secretary Da-
vid Shulkin on Thursday
pledged a top-down review
at the local VA medical cen-
ter after an urgent watch-
dog report warned that pa-
tients were being put at risk
due to bad inventory prac-
tices from potentially dirty
syringes to medical supply
shortages.
Addressing reporters,
Shulkin described the prob-
lems identified by the VA in-
spector general’s office at
the Washington, D.C., VA
facility as unacceptable. He
said he had installed one of
his close VA advisers, Law-
rence Connell, as acting di-
rector of the medical cen-
ter to ensure that problems
were thoroughly investi-
gated and fixes made.
“ No vetera ns were
harmed, but the risk was
not acceptable to me,”
Shulkin said. “There will
be accountability if there’s
wrongdoing.”
Wednesday’s report by
inspector general Michael
Missal pointed to a num-
ber of “serious and trou-
bling deficiencies” at the
Washington medical cen-
ter, such as 18 of 25 sterile
storage areas for syringes
that were found dirty and
poor record-keeping that
led to equipment shortages.
In at least one instance last
month, the medical center
ran out of bloodlines for di-
alysis patients and was only
able to provide dialysis ser-
vices because staff mem-
bers borrowed bloodlines
from a private hospital.
The VA medical center in
the nation’s capital provides
care to about 100,000 veter-
ans in the region.
“At least some of these
issues have been known to
the Veterans Health Admin-
istration senior manage-
ment for some time without
effective remediation,” the
report stated. It expressed
a “lack of confidence” that
the VA would fix problems
in a timely way.
In reaction, the VA re-
lieved the facility’s direc-
tor, Brian Hawkins, of his
duties. Poonam Alaigh, the
VA’s acting undersecretary
for health, told The Associ-
ated Press that she would
order a broader review of
the VA health system for
similar patient safety issues
at other medical centers.
On Thursday, Shulkin
added his voice in address-
ing the VA problems, saying
the department had taken
decisive action as soon as
the IG informed it of prob-
lems the day before. He said
the VA will work quickly to
address inventory issues at
the Washington facility and
hoped to have an electronic
inventory system in place
there next week.
The latest questions of
patient safety involving the
beleaguered VA drew con-
cern from some lawmak-
ers, who said the depart-
ment still had a ways to go
to improve care for the na-
tion’s veterans.
“When you have systemic
failure on this level, man-
agement must be held ac-
countable,” said Rep. Tim
Walz of Minnesota, the top
Democrat on the House Vet-
erans’ Affairs Committee,
in calling for stronger con-
gressional oversight.

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