5/21/10

Wednesday night the House Armed Services Committee marked up and unanimously passed its version of the defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2011.  This bill is expected to go to the House floor next week and a Senate Armed Services Committee mark-up of the companion bill is also scheduled for next week.  However, during the mark-up process, the committee placed a number of hurdles in the way of crucial administration national security priorities on foreign policy and the defense budget.  For example, it included language harmful to the goal of closing the controversial prison at Guantanamo Bay, despite the fact that military and national security experts agree that keeping it open hampers American national security.  In addition, despite the tight overall budget, the committee inserted funding to continue the development of a second, alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter - an expense that the Pentagon has rejected as an "unnecessary luxury," as America's defense budget priorities remain in need of serious reform.  While the overall bill provides a strong basis for achieving American national security goals, it is crucial that Congress pay heed to the bipartisan consensus on these national security issues and that it fixes the bill to achieve America's foreign policy and budgetary priorities.

Committee delivers setback on closing Guantanamo Bay, a key national security concern.   In yesterday's mark up, the House Armed Services Committee put a kink in the plans to close the detention center at Guantanamo Prison, which has become a recruiting tool for al Qaeda, by adding a cumbersome provision in the Afghanistan war request to a "transfer fund" that would authorize the Pentagon's purchase of the Thomson Correction Center in Illinois.  Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent explains:  "The administration wants to buy Thomson in order to have a secure facility on U.S. soil... Once the federal government buys Thomson, it can shut down Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay."  However, "According to the bill summary, the bill now requires Defense Secretary Robert Gates to give Congress a report that ‘adequately justifies any proposal to build or modify such a facility' if it wants to move forward with any post-Guantanamo detention plan... That's not all. While the bill doesn't renew the current Congressional ban on transferring detainees from Guantanamo into the U.S. - set to expire in October - it requires President Obama to submit a ‘a comprehensive disposition plan and risk assessment' for any future detainee transfer. Congress would then get ‘120 days to review the disposition plan before it could be carried out.' Additionally, Congress would get a 30-day review period for the proposed transfer of any detainee from Guantanamo to a foreign country in order to check against a detainee inflicting violence against the U.S. or its interests. The summary instructs Gates to tell Congress that any such foreign transfer meets "...strict security criteria to thoroughly vet any foreign country to which a detainee may be transferred."  Ackerman states that "This is a major setback for Obama's campaign pledge to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility," quoting Vincent Warren, the Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, as saying , "...this makes it much, much harder for the administration to move forward with the closure of Guantanamo, there's no doubt about that... It's hard to see what reasonable options the president has without jumping through congressional hoops that are unreasonable and unnecessary, and it's harder to move forward both with prosecuting those who are terrorist suspects and releasing to freedom those who are not."

Such a move directly contradicts the recommendations of leading bipartisan national security and military experts, who support closing Guantanamo, as it remains a key national security concern and an important part of the administration's counterterrorism strategy.  In separate interviews from late February, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Bush administration Secretary of State Colin Powell and the current CENTCOM Commander General David Petraeus expressed strong support for closing Guantanamo Bay as a key element of the Obama administration's counterterrorism approach.  Petraeus said, "I've been on the record on that for well over a year as well, saying that it should be closed."  And Powell further explained why it is so important to close the detention facility: "I think Guantanamo has cost us a lot over the years in terms of our standing in the world and the way in which despots have hidden behind what we have at Guantanamo to justify their own-- their own positions... And so I think we ought to remove this incentive that exists in the presence of Guantanamo to encourage people and to give radicals an opportunity to say, you see, this is what America is all about. They're all about torture and detention centers."  [Washington Independent, 5/21/10. Colin Powell, Face the Nation, 2/21/10. General David Petraeus, Meet the Press, 2/21/10]

House Committee repudiates Pentagon on budget concerns by inserting funding for F-35 alterative engine, risking a presidential veto.  The program to fund a secondary engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has become a contentious issue, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has repeatedly said that the Pentagon neither needs nor wants an alternative engine.  Nonetheless, some Congressional members have insisted otherwise. As the Military Times reports, "Lawmakers are moving ahead with their pledge to fund the F136 alternate engine for the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet, inserting funding in the House Armed Services Committee's markup of the 2011 defense authorization bill...In addition to funding development work on the engine, the markup orders the Pentagon to budget for the engine in 2012.  The markup also takes a step to force DoD to actually use the funds authorized for F136 development by limiting F-35 development funds in 2011..."

Politico reported today "Defense Secretary Robert Gates hammered on with his plan to cut $10 billion in overhead costs at the Pentagon Thursday and defended his move to cut an aircraft engine greatly beloved by Congress - and he now seems to have confidence that the White House will back him up. Gates has warned Congress he will urge President Barack Obama to veto any defense bill that provides funding for the engine - made by General Electric and Rolls-Royce for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. But Wednesday, the House Armed Services Committee authorized $485 million for the engine next year."  According to The Hill, "Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday expressed confidence that President Barack Obama would veto the defense authorization bill over a backup engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.  Gates has repeatedly said, including in congressional testimony, that he would strongly recommend the president veto any defense bills that continue the development of the secondary F-35 engine...Gates said on Thursday he was also very concerned about detailed conditions House defense authorizers placed on the F-35 program, which is designed to replace older fighter jets for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. Those ‘detailed conditions' would make the F-35 program ‘essentially unexecutable,' Gates said." [Military Times, 5/19/10. Politico, 5/21/10. The Hill, 5/20/10]

In an era of tight budgets, Congress must commit to serious defense budget reform. The Obama administration, together with Congress, has made some down payments on the project of reforming the defense budget in order to eliminate waste and bring it in line with 21^st century defense priorities.  Secretary Gates has acknowledged this point, saying yesterday that additional fat can be trimmed from the budget and not just in the area of overhead.  Earlier this month, Gates delivered a similar message, saying that, "Given America's difficult economic circumstances and parlous fiscal condition, military spending on things large and small can and should expect closer, harsher scrutiny." 

Nor is Secretary Gates the only one to acknowledge this reality.  A broad set of bipartisan national security and budgetary experts have spoken out about the need to make good on the project of defense budget reform:

Kori Schake, Hoover Institution Fellow and Bush administration NSC and State Department official: "Defense has for too long lived immune from economics: Its leading strategists rarely have economic training or attempt to link currency values, trade balances, or tax policies. Conservatives need to hearken back to our Eisenhower heritage, and develop a defense leadership that understands military power is fundamentally premised on the solvency of the American government and the vibrancy of the U.S. economy." [Kori Schake, 2/1/10]

Erskine Bowles, co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, on the Commission's work: "it's going to involve entitlements, it's going to involve the military, and it's going to involve discretionary spending." [Erskine Bowles, 4/27/10]

Gordon Adams, Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center:  "This committee [Senate Budget Committee], the Congress, and the White House face daunting fiscal and economic challenges: sharp declines in federal revenues driven by the continuing recession and high unemployment, combined with rapidly rising mandatory expenditures, particularly in health care, leading to historically unprecedented peacetime deficits and rapid growth in the nation's debt. These challenges pose a sufficiently severe threat to our security that no part of federal spending, including defense, should be exempt from budget discipline. Defense budgets were not exempt from this effort during the Cold War." [Gordon Adams, Testimony to the Senate Budget Committee, 2/23/10]

Chris Preble of the CATO Institute and Heather Hurlburt of the National Security Network: "But ultimately, because our national security rests on our economic health as well as on the strength of our military, a liberal and a libertarian can agree that the Pentagon should no longer get a pass. Congress must stop funding projects to satisfy parochial domestic interests. The Pentagon must stop buying weapons systems that are already outdated, unworkable or both. And the administration must carefully define our vital security interests, reshape our grand strategy to more equitably distribute the burdens of policing the globe and reduce the occasions when our military will be called on to fight." [Politico, 2/4/10]

What We're Reading

Iranian officials said they will cancel the deal made with Brazil and Turkey to export 1200 kg of low-enriched uranium if the sanctions package pushed by the U.S. passes in the UN Security Council.

Dennis Blair will resign as the Director of National Intelligence after a tenure marred by the recent failures of U.S. spy agencies to detect terrorist plots and by political missteps that undermined his standing with the White House.

Diplomats, human rights groups and witnesses say the Ethiopian government is methodically stifling dissent in the prelude to this weekend's national elections.

President Felipe Calderon made an impassioned plea to Congress, saying Mexico is being flooded with smuggled assault weapons and denouncing Arizona's immigration law.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the evidence is "overwhelming" that a North Korean submarine sank a South Korean warship and the communist country must face international consequences for its actions.

Three members of Basque separatist group ETA were convicted and sentenced to 1,040 years in prison for a 2006 bombing that destroyed a Madrid airport parking garage and killed two people.

Two Palestinian militants infiltrated Israel from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip but were killed in a firefight with Israeli troops.

Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said he was committed to national reconciliation but made no offer of fresh elections, two days after troops quelled the worst political violence in modern Thai history.

Salva Kiir, the leader of south Sudan's former rebel group the SPLM, has been sworn in as the first elected president of the semi-autonomous southern region.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's plan to throw 148 billion euros into a new eurozone rescue package was approved by parliament, despite opposition parties withholding their support.

Commentary of the Day

David Hoffman explains why so many ‘wise men' of the atomic age are now calling for a dramatic reduction in nuclear weapons.

Bruce Fleming says the service academies have lost their way and are on a march toward mediocrity.

Paul Kennedy explores the question: Do leaders make history, or is it beyond their control?