Above: President Obama in the Oval Office on Wednesday.Photo Credit: Pete Souza/The White House
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WASHINGTON — President Obama moved quickly on Wednesday to lay some touchstones for the “more responsible, more accountable government” he has promised, ordering a salary freeze for senior White House staff, tightening rules on lobbyists and establishing what he said was a new standard of greater government openness.
“However long we are keepers of the public trust, we should never forget that we are here as public servants,” Mr. Obama said at a swearing-in ceremony for staff members in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. He then shook each of their hands.
Just hours after a long day of inaugural ceremony and celebration ended late Tuesday, Mr. Obama took up a pressing schedule on Wednesday, his first full day in office, aimed at grappling with the daunting foreign and domestic challenges facing his administration.
One of the pressing issues confronting Mr. Obama is the conflict in Gaza, and his press spokesman said the president called four Middle East leaders — President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, King Abdullah of Jordan, and President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority — in a renewed pursuit of peace.
On Tuesday night, he took an initial step to realize a promise to close the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by ordering an immediate halt to all pending military war crimes trials for 120 days as he reviews the handling of terror suspects.
The president also planned to meet with top military advisers to chart a rapid troop drawdown from Iraq and a way forward in Afghanistan, and with his economic team regarding the grave financial crisis preoccupying Americans.
“Fortunately, we’ve seen Congress immediately start working on the economic recovery package,” he told ABC News on Tuesday night. “Getting that passed and putting people back to work, that’s going to be the thing that were most focused on.”
In announcing the steps aimed at greater government openness and accountability, he said the pay freeze was only fair at a time of economic pain. “Families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington,” he said.
Mr. Obama said no one would be given a job in any area where he or she had lobbied within the two preceding years, and if they left the White House before he did, they would have to agree not to work on those issues “as long as I am president.”
He said that “for a long time, there’s been too much secrecy in this city.”
Every governmental agency or department should know, Mr. Obama said, that his administration stands not “on the side of those who want to withhold information but those who seek to make it known.”
Some of the changes he discussed will be made through executive order, and others by changes in regulations.
During a busy day in Washington for the new administration, some of Mr. Obama’s most important nominees for his cabinet — Timothy F. Geithner for Treasury secretary, Eric H. Holder Jr. as attorney general and Hillary Rodham Clinton for secretary of state — faced Senate action on their nominations.
An “open house” was also planned at the White House, though it was not truly open, but for a few hundred people fortunate enough to win a lottery. Mr. Obama also planned to preside over the swearing-in of seven members of his cabinet who were confirmed on Tuesday by the Senate.
But first, Mr. Obama traveled to the National Cathedral for an interfaith prayer service that was also attended by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and former President Bill Clinton and Mrs. Clinton, who all shared a front pew.
The tradition of a national prayer service dates to George Washington. Since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s inauguration in 1933, it has generally been held at the National Cathedral, an imposing Gothic sanctuary that sits on a hill overlooking the city.
Some new traditions were also being made. The service featured no fewer than 20 interfaith clergy, including woman leaders of the Muslim and Hindu faiths. And for the first time, the preacher was a woman, the Rev. Dr. Sharon E. Watkins, general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a mainline Protestant denomination.
The service featured a gospel choir of African American children in crisp white shirts and black pants and dresses, many of whom broke into smiles as they filed in on glimpsing the new president. They sang a rocking rendition of “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”
The new president was operating on relatively little rest. Tuesday saw him in the public eye for more than 15 hours, from a prayer service at St. John’s Church near the White House early in the morning to the inauguration and subsequent parade in blisteringly cold weather, and then his attendance at all 10 official inaugural balls. He and Mrs. Obama danced their last dance just before midnight.
But even at the balls, his mind was not entirely on celebration.
“We’re going to have a lot of work,” he said in an interview with ABC News at the Neighborhood Ball, which was designed to include Washington residents who might otherwise have been excluded from the sleek post-inaugural ball scene.
“Starting tomorrow, we’ll be making a series of announcements both on domestic and on foreign policy that I think will be critical for us to act swiftly on,” Mr. Obama said. “Were not going to be able to delay — there have been a lot of things that have been pressing.”
Mr. Obama had said that on his first day in office he planned to summon the nation’s military leaders and ask them to draw up a plan to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months.
He is to meet with those leaders at 4 p.m. Those present will include Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates; Gen. David Petraeus, the top American commander in the Middle East, who flew overnight to Washington from Afghanistan; and, by way of secure video hookup from Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, who commands American troops in that country. Mr. Biden was to take part as well.
It was not certain what precise instructions the new president would issue regarding Iraq, but some military officials have expressed unease about a 16-month timetable.
Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff, on Wednesday sidestepped a question on whether that time frame seemed practical.
“That’s a hard question for me to answer,” General Chiarelli said, though he cautioned against haste. “You can pick up and leave anything very quickly, but if you do, you’ll leave it in a certain condition that won’t be as good as if you went through a certain deliberative process.
“And there’s a lot of logistical issues that have to be worked through, and I think everybody has to understand that,” he added.
In his phone calls to the Middle East leaders, Mr. Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs, said the president vowed “his commitment to active engagement in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace from the beginning of his term, and to express his hope for their continued cooperation and leadership.”
“In the aftermath of the Gaza conflict, he emphasized his determination to work to help consolidate the ceasefire by establishing an effective anti-smuggling regime to prevent Hamas from rearming, and facilitating in partnership with the Palestinian Authority a major reconstruction effort for Palestinians in Gaza,” Mr. Gibbs said. “He pledged that the United States would do its part to make these efforts successful, working closely with the international community and these partners as they fulfill their responsibilities as well. The President appreciated the spirit of partnership and warm nature of these calls."
At Guantánamo Bay, one of the military judges, Col. Patrick Parrish of the Army, issued a written order for the requested continuance in the case of Omar Khadr, a Canadian accused of killing an American soldier with a grenade in Afghanistan in 2002. Another judge was expected to rule shortly on the order issued by Mr. Gates, “by order of the president.”
Mr. Obama’s order “has the practical effect of stopping the process, probably forever," said Lt. Commander William Kuebler of the Army, Mr. Khadr’s defense lawyer.
Later this week, the new administration is expected to issue an executive order that is to start what could be a long process of closing the detention camp, where about 245 detainees remain.
In the meantime, members of the new administration were arriving at the White House with boxes, finding their new offices marked by pieces of paper taped to doors, exploring their new surroundings, and planning their days.
Mr. Obama made his way to the Oval Office at 8:35 a.m., where he found a message left by President Bush. He spent a few quiet moments there, something he may find hard to come by in the coming four years.
Source: The New York Times
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