In Washington, Knight Ridder is reporting the White House has conducted a major reorganization of the State Department that has marginalized several career international weapons experts in favor of “less experienced political operatives who share the White House and Pentagon’s distrust of international negotiations and treaties.” According to current and former officials interviewed by Knight Ridder, the reorganizing has led to “an exodus of experts with decades of experience in nuclear arms, chemical weapons and related matters.” In a joint letter, a group of State weapons experts said: “The process has been gravely flawed from the outset, and smacks plainly of a political vendetta against career Foreign Service and Civil Service (personnel) by political appointees.” In one case, the new Office of Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism circulated a job posting that listed loyalty to the priorities of President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a job qualification. Some weapons analysts said the exodus is especially worrisome because of the pending expiration of the 1991 START I treaty — the only mechanism for verifying U.S. and Russian nuclear arms cuts.