Week ending 10/3/14 NATIONAL SECURITY
1. Defense Budget: Armed Services chairman warns of ‘horrific cuts’ to defense budget
The defense budget faces “horrific cuts” if sequestration returns in fiscal year 2016, a top congressional leader said Monday at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
During his tour of Wright-Patterson, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon also said President Barack Obama should listen to military commanders’ advice on the number of “boots on the ground” needed to battle the Islamic State in the Middle East.
“I think it’s foolhardy to think as important as airstrikes are that we can totally do it with that,” McKeon said. “There are going to have to be boots on the ground. Now, we’re not talking about divisions of troops that are going to go over and do another shock and awe. That’s not in the cards. But there will be, there are, boots on the ground, and I think we should be honest with the American people and state up front that that is a fact of life.
McKeon said Gen. Lloyd J. Austin, commander of Central Command and troops in the Middle East, had asked for more “boots on the ground.” President Obama overruled Austin’s recommendation for more troops in at least one battle in Iraq, The Washington Post reported this month.
“Their advice should be followed and whatever number they come up with is the number we should send,” McKeon said. “We shouldn’t ask them to carry out a mission and then not give them what they asked for to carry out that mission.”
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee this month, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he would recommend sending U.S. ground troops to Iraq if airstrikes weren’t enough, The New York Times reported.
The U.S. has committed about 1,600 troops in support roles in Iraq in recent months after U.S. troops withdrew in 2011. Obama has ordered ongoing air strikes in Iraq and Syria against terrorist targets.
Repeated messages were left Monday with the White House press office requesting a response to McKeon’s comments.
McKeon, who will retire at the end of his term, said he recently returned from a trip to Israel, Jordan and Egypt and leaders in those nations warned about the “imminent threat” the Islamic State poses. He said foreign fighters pose a threat to the United States and Europe, too.
The leaders were “very concerned. If you’re in Jordan, half of their population are refugees fleeing from terrorist threats. They all pointed out to me that the ocean won’t protect you this time.”
In the midst of turmoil overseas, McKeon said military commanders have planned a budget without automatic budget cuts, known as sequestration, “hoping it just goes away.”
“I said it still is the law of the land and if something isn’t done to get rid of sequestration next year it will be horrific for our military budget,” he said.
Sequestration would cut about $500 billion out of the defense budget over a decade on top of the nearly $500 billion the Pentagon had agreed to eliminate in spending. Automatic budget cuts forced the furloughs of thousands of civil service employee furloughs and a spectrum of cuts at Wright-Patterson last year.
The military faces constant pressure with new missions, from military strikes in the Middle East to responding to the Ebola epidemic in Africa, McKeon said.
“It’s hard for me to conceive of the continued pressure that we put on our military,” he said. “…We just keep asking our military to do more and more while we’re cutting a trillion dollars out of their resources.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, toured the base with McKeon and said the Senate, House and the president “have all said sequestration should not take effect in 2016.” But there’s no agreement on what the budget offset should be to makeup for the reductions.
“It’s not likely that an agreement is going to be easy as to what that offset would be, but it will be necessary in order to be able to avoid it,” said Turner, chairman of the House Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.
2. Navy’s 11-Carrier fleet could cause funding problems for other shipbuilding programs Earlier this week, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said the size of the Navy's carrier fleet is now settled: The service will preserve its 11-carrier fleet despite telling Congress earlier this year it could have to set one carrier adrift if sequestration returns in fiscal 2016. In a note to investors yesterday, analyst Roman Schweizer of Guggenheim Securities explained the 'retirement reversal could create problems elsewhere in the Navy's shipbuilding plan, particularly if the service must come up with the funds itself.'
"While the decision would appear to be a positive for Huntington Ingalls, it could have negative implications for other programs that are vital to both Huntington and General Dynamics," Schweizer wrote. "Congress would provide some funds (about $491 million in the pending FY15 defense appropriations bills) to get the refueling started, but there's still about $4.2 billion needed for the whole job in fiscal years 2016 and 2017."
3. House Subcommittee on Foreign Relations
Congressional supporters of Andrew Tahmooressi, a U.S. Marine veteran on trial in Tijuana on firearms charges, said Wednesday they believe Mexican prosecutors could move to dismiss the case soon on humanitarian grounds.
The basis for the release would be findings by an expert witness for the prosecution this week that Tahmooressi suffers from combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder and requires treatment in the United States.
Tahmooressi has been detained in Baja California since he drove into Mexico on March 31 with three loaded weapons and more than 400 rounds of ammunition. He is on trial for possession of the weapons and ammunition; if convicted, he faces up to 21 years behind bars.
The Florida native, who served two tours of duty in Afghanistan and had begun treatment for PTSD, had recently moved to San Diego at the time of his arrest. Though he had registered earlier in the day at a hotel in Tijuana, he has maintained that he drove into Mexico by accident later that night, after coming back across the border, retrieving his vehicle, and taking a wrong turn in San Ysidro.
During a House subcommittee hearing on Wednesday focusing on Tahmooressi’s case, U.S. Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., relayed that Mexico’s attorney general, Jesús Murillo Karam, told him last week that “he has the authority within Mexican law to dismiss Sgt. Tahmooressi’s case on humanitarian grounds once he has the expert testimony that verifies his combat-specific PTSD diagnosis.”
U.S. Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton, head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he had received similar assurances in a separate conversation with Murillo Karam.
A psychiatrist from Mexico City hired as an expert witness by the prosecution met with Tahmooressi on Monday, said Fernando Benítez, Tahmooressi’s defense attorney. On Tuesday, Dr. Alberto Pinzón Picaseño concurred with the finding of another psychiatrist hired by the defense team that Tahmooressi suffers from a condition that has him “feeling in constant danger.” The physician recommended that the treatment be headed “by specialized persons in his country of origin,” according to his report.
The finding supports the Tahmooressi defense team’s argument that Mexico’s penal system is not equipped to treat someone with foreign combat-related PTSD — and thus Tahmooressi should be released so he can be treated in the United States.
Wednesday’s subcommittee hearing included testimony from Tahmooressi’s mother, Jill; media personality and U.S. Navy veteran Montel Williams; Marine veteran Roberto Buchanan, who served with Tahmooressi in Afghanistan; and Pete Hegseth, head of Concerned Veterans for America.
Several Republican members of the House spoke on Tahmooressi’s behalf, including Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine. The members of Congress criticized President Barack Obama for not directly advocating on Tahmooressi’s behalf with the Mexican government and securing his release. The president “ought to get his tail down there and play on some of those Mexican golf courses and get him out of jail in person,” Hunter said.
Mexico has maintained that Tahmooressi’s case will be resolved through the judicial system. “The case is a legal matter, not a political one,” Ariel Moutsatsos, a spokesman for the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C., said in an email Wednesday. “This is in the hands of the judge.”
4. Hearings and meetings
This week, staff from the national security division were invited to a panel discussion at the Heritage Foundation regarding the rapidly shifting political terrain in parts of the Middle East and North Africa over the last four years which has been marked by the rise of Islamist parties. Religious-based political parties have long played an important role in the politics and democratic evolution of countries throughout the greater Middle East. However, the ideological underpinnings and anti-democratic practices of the Islamist elements among them pose risks to U.S. counterterrorism objectives and threaten religious freedom and other fundamental rights of the citizens in the countries in which they operate. In this context the panel discussed how the United States can develop consistent policy approaches that simultaneously bolster democratic development, help counter terrorist movements, and support American strategic interests.
Also, on Thursday, Assistant Commandant, General John M. Paxton, Jr., spoke at the Center for International and Strategic Studies about the future of the United States Marine Corps with a particular emphasis on amphibious capabilities and capacity. General Paxton discussed the demands of the "new normal," future risks, and the ways in which the Corps is working to mitigate risk across the force.
He also offered his perspectives on the Harold Brown Chair's new report, Amphibious Shipping Shortfalls: Risks and Opportunities to Bridge the Gap. The report describes the current and projected gap in amphibious shipping and offers a framework for evaluating various approaches to mitigating the associated risk. A video of the event can be seen here: http://csis.org/event/forward-and-ready
5. POW/MIA Update
Army Pfc. Cecil E. Harris, 19, of Shelbyville, Tenn., has a funeral on Aug. 29, in Chattanooga, Tenn., and will be buried Oct. 22, in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. On Jan. 2, 1945, Harris and elements of the Company D, 179th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division were deployed to France. Harris was a member of the rifle platoon, whose mission was to hold a defensive position, near Dambach, France. During this mission, Harris’ platoon was attacked by German forces and was forced to withdraw to a more defensible position. After the attack, Harris was reported missing.
Between January 12 and May 20, 1949, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC) conducted investigations on the loss of Harris, but were unsuccessful in locating his remains.
On Sept. 3, 2013, the American Battlefield Monuments Commission (ABMC) contacted the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) to inform them a private citizen, while hiking near Dambach, found possible human remains and an identification tag with Harris’ name. French authorities took possession of the remains.
From Sept. 9-11, 2013, a JPAC recovery team excavated a burial site in Dambach recovering possible human remains, personal effects, and military gear that correlated to Harris.
To identify Harris’ remains, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) used forensic identification tools such as dental comparison with his records and mitochondrial DNA, which matched Harris’ sister and niece.
Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died. Today, more than 73,000 are unaccounted for from the conflict.
- FODPAL