Week ending 9/26/14 NATIONAL SECURITY
1. Defense Budget: Lawmakers Renew Call to Roll Back Military Cuts Amid ISIS and Ebola Fights
Defense hawks on both sides of the aisle are pointing to the new war against the Islamic State to revive efforts to roll back across-the-board Pentagon budget cuts.
Citing President Obama’s calls for an expanded bombing campaign against the terror group — whose videotaped beheadings of three western hostages drew international revulsion — longtime foes of what’s known as sequestration say now is no time to slash military funding.
Rather, they argue, the Islamic State, or ISIS, is just the latest threat that underscores the need to undo the $487 billion in automatic Defense spending cuts required under the 2011 Budget Control Act.
“Even before these things erupted, it was not adequate,” Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said of Pentagon funding at a Senate Armed Services Hearing earlier this week. “As we all know, risk increases when adequacy is not met.”
The Oklahoma Republican was pressing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey on whether the Defense Department has enough money to carry out Obama’s goal of destroying ISIS. While the Obama administration has requested an additional $500 million to pay for arming and training Syrian rebels, more than a month of airstrikes against the terror group have already cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
The fact the administration wants to expand operations has fueled renewed worries over Defense funding, including among those who support the White House’s proposed strategy.
“I am troubled by the hit that readiness has taken through some of the budget cuts,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., told the Council on Foreign Relations last week, adding that while lawmakers have had some success restoring the funding, “the whole sequestration decision, looking back at it, was wrong.”
Beyond the task of fighting ISIS, crises like the Ebola pandemic in West Africa -- where U.S. military personnel are being deployed -- and the armed struggle in eastern Ukraine have military officials joining lawmakers in sounding the alarm.
“If sequestration occurs, we are going to have to continue to downsize the Army,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno told reporters in Germany this week, according to Reuters. “We are going to have to decide where we do it.”
Though top Democrats and Republicans have called for “fixing” the Defense portion of the sequester by reallocating federal dollars, the cuts themselves were the product of a congressional vote to drastically rein in spending — a reality many believed would never come to pass. Congress last year approved a bipartisan, two-year budget outline that provided some relief to the Pentagon.
Of course, Congress has other avenues it could use to appropriate money to the department, including war-fighting funds. But those efforts, along with what Hagel hinted would be a more robust budget request for fiscal 2016, are sure to encounter resistance among deficit-minded members intent on shrinking federal spending.
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate budget panel, told Politico this week he’s not prepared to say “we’ve got to obliterate the sequester” to deal with the new threats. “We lived with the Budget Control Act numbers last year,” he said. “We’ve lived with them this year, and savings that the Defense Department was then executing are just now being harvested.”
For now, those eyeing a re-upping of the Pentagon budget are hoping polls that show public opinion surging in favor of striking ISIS -- coupled with bipartisan backing of the administration's initial request for $500 million to train and equip Syrian rebels -- will lay the groundwork for rethinking the Defense sequester before the next round of cuts kicks in.
2. Army Chief: Division Headquarters Will Deploy Soon to Iraq
As the U.S. expands its war against the Islamic State, the Army is preparing to deploy a division headquarters to Iraq.
Officials have not identified the division that will deploy — the first division headquarters to go to Iraq since the U.S. withdrawal in 2011.
An official announcement is expected in the coming days. But Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno recently confirmed the Army “will send another division headquarters to Iraq to control what we’re doing there, a small headquarters.”
It’s unclear how many soldiers will be sent, or how long they will deploy. Division headquarters average between 100 and 500 soldiers and deploy for one year.
The division headquarters deploying to Iraq is expected to be responsible for coordinating the efforts of the 1,600 troops President Obama has sent to Iraq. Many of these troops are advising and assisting the Iraqi Security Forces, others are providing extra security, while others are providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. The headquarters also is expected to head up the joint operations center that since July has been run by Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard, the deputy commanding general for operations for U.S. Army Central.
Odierno’s comments were made Friday to a group of defense reporters in Washington, D.C.
During the wide-ranging interview, Odierno discussed the critical role played by the Army’s two-star division headquarters.
“The complexity of the environment that we have to operate in now, and probably the next 10 to 15 to 20 years, we need these headquarters,” he said. “If you ask me one of the stress points in the Army, it’s our headquarters.”
The Army has 10 division headquarters, including two in Afghanistan and one in South Korea.
On Monday night, the U.S. mounted its first airstrikes in Syria, targeting the Islamic State and also the Khorasan group, a little known terrorist cell.
Monday night’s massive air assault hitting 22 targets across Syria was a historic operation that signals a new expansion of a war that is likely to last for years.
U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps aircraft dropped precision-guided missiles on two separate and distinct extremists groups, targeting command-and-control headquarters, barracks, training camps logistical nodes and other sites, defense officials said.
“You are seeing the beginning of a sustained campaign,” Lt. Gen. William Mayville, the Joint Staff’s director of operations, told Pentagon reporters Tuesday.
On Friday, Odierno also emphasized that destroying the Islamic State will be a long-term effort.
“We have to realize this is a long-term threat, this is a long-term commitment,” he said. “If you don’t believe they want to attack the West and America, you’re kidding yourself. That is their goal.”
3. Vietnam Welcomes Efforts By U.S. To End Its Weapons Embargo
Vietnam would welcome an end to the arms embargo clamped on it by the United States, the country's foreign minister said on Wednesday, as he played down the notion that the move would inflame Hanoi's maritime dispute with China.
Pham Binh Minh, who also serves as Vietnam's deputy prime minister, was responding to a Reuters report on Tuesday that said Washington was moving closer to lifting the embargo to help Vietnam deal with growing naval challenges from China.
U.S. officials with knowledge of the initiative said unarmed Lockheed Martin P-3 Orion surveillance planes could be among the first U.S. sales, to strengthen Vietnam's ability to monitor and defend its coastline.
Pham suggested that lifting the arms embargo was almost a routine step in the gradual resumption of links between the United States and Vietnam, which accelerated with a series of high-level diplomatic and military meetings in recent months.
"Nearly 20 years ago, we normalized relations with the United States and in 2013 we set up a comprehensive partnership with the United States," Pham said during an event at the Asia Society in New York, a few blocks from where the United Nations General Assembly was taking place.
"So the relation is normal and the ban on the lethal weapons to Vietnam is abnormal," Pham continued. "So we lift the ban, meaning that the relation is normal, even though we have normalized the relation 20 years ago."
Although he said maritime disputes with China and other countries over parts of the South China Sea were the "most disturbing" flashpoints emerging in the region, he laughed off the idea that ending the embargo would anger China, his country's largest trading partner.
Tensions flared in May when Beijing unexpectedly placed a large oil rig in waters that Hanoi claims as part of its 200-nautical-mile (370-km) exclusive economic zone. China moved the rig back toward its coast in mid-July.
Pham, who will visit Washington early next month for talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, said Vietnam could still buy weapons from other countries whether or not Washington lifts the embargo.
The communist-ruled country buys many weapons from Russia, its Cold War-era patron.
4. 2014 Jihadist Terrorism and Other Unconventional Threats
With ISIS and international extremists dominating the international news coverage, the threat of terrorism is at the forefront of Americans’ minds. In light of these developments, the Bipartisan Policy Center released a new threat assessment on September 23, authored by Peter Bergen, a member of BPC’s Homeland Security Project.
The report examines threats from ISIS, Al-Qaeda and other jihadist groups, cybersecurity concerns, and drone strikes and drone proliferation. It is the second report in an annual series by BPC’s Homeland Security Project, which is led by former 9/11 Commission co-chairs Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton.
The full report can be downloaded here http://bipartisanpolicy.org/library/report/2014-jihadist-terrorism-and-o...
5. POW/MIA Update
Army Pfc. Lawrence S. Gordon, 28, a Canadian citizen, will be buried Aug. 13 in Canada. On Aug. 13, 1944, Gordon and elements of the Reconnaissance Company, 32nd Armored Regiment, 3rd Armored Division were deployed to France. Gordon was the commander of an M8 armored car traveling near the village of Carrouges, France, when his vehicle was struck in the gas tank by German anti-tank fire, which caused the armored car to catch fire and burn. During this attack Gordon was reported as missing in action. His remains were not recovered after the attack.
Military salvage records later indicated that an M8 armored car, bearing Reconnaissance markings, was recorded to have burned due to enemy fire, and that the vehicle and crew members that had not survived the attack were recovered on Aug. 15, 1945. Two weeks after Gordon’s disappearance, his wallet was received by the Effects Quartermaster Corps. On April 3, 1945, Gordon’s status was changed to killed in action.
On July 22, 1947, the American Graves Registration Command (AGRC) was conducting field investigations on the loss of Gordon during anti-tank fire near Carrouges, but failed to locate Gordon’s remains. The investigators noted that prior to Aug. 18, 1944, two sets of unknown remains, clothed in German uniforms but believed to be those of American service members, were delivered to a temporary U.S. cemetery in Gorron, France. Due to lack of necessary documentation for identification and the high number of casualties between August1-18, 1944, the AGRC concluded there was insufficient information to pursue further identifications. On May 25, 1961, remains were transferred from the temporary cemetery to the custody of the German War Graves Commission and interred at Mont-de-Huisnes, France.
In August 1951, the AGRC issued a final report determining that due to paucity of remains and lack of information, there was no association between the remains buried at the temporary cemetery and Gordon. Therefore, Gordon was determined to be non-recoverable by a military review board on Sept. 25, 1951.
An independent researcher, Jed Henry, provided historical research that led to the disinterment and the subsequent identification of Gordon. Scientists from Bode Technology and the University of Wisconsin’s Biotechnology Center used circumstantial evidence and forensic identification tools, such as mitochondrial DNA sequence data.
The U.S. Army provides escort to ensure the fallen service member is properly transported, cared and accounted for until they are returned to their family. Gordon was returned to the family in July and a special escort was provided as he was returned to the U.S. The family has chosen to return Gordon to Canada via ground transportation and will be reimbursed for the transportation costs from Wisconsin to Canada. Honors are being provided at the funeral and were provided at brief ceremonies when Gordon was transitioned from one transportation mode to another.
Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died.
- FODPAL