The Senate will debate and vote on two controversial State Department nominations next week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has announced.

On Dec. 13, the Senate will debate and vote on whether to consider the nominations of Mari Carmen Aponte to be ambassador to El Salvador and Norm Eisen to be ambassador to the Czech Republic. Both are sitting ambassadors who were sent to their posts under recess appointments that expire at the end of the year.

"There will be at least two roll call votes at 5:30 p.m. in relation to the Eisen and Aponte nominations," Reid said on the Senate floor on Thursday night. The votes will be to move on to debating the nominations, not on the nominations themselves. If both votes surpass the 60 senator threshold necessary to achieve cloture, both ambassadors could be formally confirmed by the end of next week.

Reid indicated, but didn't say outright, that there could be more nominations moving next week as well. If the Senate doesn't act this month, the recess appointment of Matthew Bryza to be ambassador to Azerbaijan will expire and he will have to come home.

The nomination of NSC Senior Director Mike McFaul to become ambassador to Russia is also stalled due to a hold by Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), who wants assurances from the administration it will not give sensitive missile defense data to the Russian Federation.

Reid is personally committed to the Aponte nomination, a Senate Democratic aide told The Cable today.

"Reid's a big fan of hers and he doesn't think her nomination should be a Democratic or Republican issue," the aide said. "He thinks her accomplishments in the past should be proof enough that she's qualified for the position. She's done a lot of work to strengthen U.S. ties with Latin America."

Aponte's nomination to be ambassador to El Salvador was initially held up last year in an effort led by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who was demanding more information about Aponte's long-ago romance with Roberto Tamayo, a Cuban-born insurance salesman who allegedly had ties to both the FBI and Castro's intelligence apparatus, according to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigation at the time.

DeMint shows no signs of backing down, and Aponte was barely approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a 10-9 vote that fell along party lines.

Eisen was sent to Prague through a recess appointment because of objections by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IO). Grassley is still upset over the June 2009 removal of Gerald Walpin as Inspector General for the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), a position where he oversaw government programs such as AmeriCorps.

Eisen, the former White House ethics czar, was a key figure in the controversy and defended the White House's actions. He also made the case to Congress that Walpin was unfit for his position, writing in a letter to senators shortly after the sacking that Walpin "was confused, disoriented, unable to answer questions and exhibited other behavior that led the Board to question his capacity to serve." Walpin called those allegations "absolutely amazing."

Grassley, along with Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA), has never dropped the issue of Walpin's firing. Grassley's staffers contributed heavily to a joint House-Senate report released last November, which they say alleged not only that Walpin's firing was handled improperly but also that Eisen misled Congress about the matter.

UPDATE: Reid issued the following statement on the Aponte nomination late Friday afternoon:

Mari Carmen Aponte's accomplished record as our nation's current ambassador to El Salvador should be reason enough for the Senate to confirm her on Monday. In 15 months serving our country, Ms. Aponte has already brokered an important transnational, anti-crime agreement and has strengthened our ties with El Salvador. Experts on the region from across the political spectrum support her confirmation. The Puerto Rican community and all Americans are right to be proud of Ms. Aponte's accomplishments as a diplomat representing our nation, as I am.

Unfortunately, a handful of extreme Republicans are threatening to block her nomination just to score political points. I hope Senate Republicans will put politics aside, and do the right thing for our foreign policy by voting to confirm Ms. Aponte.

The Obama administration keeps on naming new ambassadors, but several key State Department nominees remain stalled in the Senate.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate Joseph Macmanus to be U.S. envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), William Todd to be ambassador to Cambodia, Jonathan Farrar to be ambassador to Panama, and Phyllis Powers to be ambassador to Nicaragua.

Macmanus, who is now principal deputy assistant secretary of state (PDAS) for legislative affairs, replaces Glyn Davies, the new special coordinator for North Korea policy. Previously, Macmanus has served as the executive assistant to Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice.

Todd, who spent the last year in the U.S. embassy in Kabul coordinating development and economic affairs, was previously the U.S. ambassador to Brunei. Joe Donovan, the recently departed PDAS for East Asian and Pacific affairs, had been rumored to be in line for the Cambodia post -- a consolation prize after he was considered as U.S. ambassador to Seoul but then was not selected. Inside South Korea, there was some criticism of Donovan's relatively low profile compared to other U.S. ambassadors in East Asia.

The Obama administration eventually picked Sung Kim as the U.S. envoy to Seoul and he's been welcomed warmly by the South Koreans as he's the first Korean-American to hold the post. Donovan is now working at the National Defense University. We're told that Tokyo Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Jim Zumwalt is expected to return to Washington as the new deputy assistant secretary at the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, although nothing has been formally announced.

Meanwhile, several State Department nominations remained stalled in the Senate due to various objections by GOP senators. The Cable has confirmed that Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) placed a hold Thursday on the nomination of National Security Council Senior Director for Russia Mike McFaul, who has been nominated as the new U.S. ambassador to Russia. Kirk and McFaul met on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Apparently, the meeting did not go well.

Kirk told the Associated Press on Thursday that "he wants written assurances that the United States will not provide Russia with any currently classified information on the missile defense system."

Other State Department nominations currently facing GOP Senate opposition include the nominations of Norm Eisen to be ambassador to the Czech Republic, Mari Carmen Aponte to be ambassador to El Salvador, and Roberta Jacobson to become assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs. Eisen and Aponte are currently serving in their posts under recess appointment that expire at the end of this month.

The Senate is almost set to consider a three-bill spending package that includes all the funding for the State Department and foreign operations, but two senators are refusing to go along because of language related to Cuba.

The Senate was stalled on Monday evening as senators started debate on the energy and water appropriations bill, which Senate Democratic leaders want to combine with the State and foreign ops and financial services appropriations bills into a miniature omnibus measure that's affectionately known on the Hill as a "minibus." By packaging three bills together, the Senate hopes to be able to get more work done faster. However, two senators won't let that happen until their concerns about language allowing U.S. banks to do business in Cuba are addressed.

"There is concern among a group of senators on both sides of the aisle with longstanding concerns for human rights and democracy in Cuba with regard to the loosening of restrictions on Cuba in the financial services bill," a senior GOP Senate aide told The Cable Monday afternoon. "If that language was taken out, those senators would drop their objection to bringing up foreign ops for consideration."

Procedurally, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has already brought up the energy and water appropriations bill and wants to add the other two bills (state/foreign ops and financial services) as an amendment. But Reid needs unanimous consent in order to do that without a lengthy cloture process, and we're told by Senate sources that Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) are objecting.

"Senator Rubio is objecting to a provision in the bill that would allow Cuba to become the only country on the State Department's State Sponsors of Terrorism list with a general exception for access to U.S.-based financial institutions," Rubio's spokesman Alex Conant told The Cable. "Under Cuban law, the Castro regime has a monopoly on all banking, commerce and trade, so this amendment would allow Cuba's totalitarian regime to directly open corresponding accounts in U.S.-based financial institutions, and vice versa."

The senators don't have any problem with the State and foreign ops section of the minibus, but Reid's attempt at adding both bills as one amendment has embroiled them in the dispute.

We're told by Senate sources that Reid plans to bring up the amendment containing both the State and foreign ops and financial services bills anyway and call for a unanimous consent vote, forcing any senators who object to show their cards. When the objections are made, Reid will be ready with a new amendment that doesn't contain the disputed Cuba provisions, which is likely to achieve unanimous consent.

After all this plays out, the real debate over the State and foreign ops appropriations bill can begin. When that happens, which will probably be late Monday evening or early Tuesday, senators will begin offering a host of amendments to the State and foreign ops bill.

Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT) has introduced an amendment that would reinstate a ban on U.S. funding for foreign organizations that even discuss abortion. The amendment's language is a version of what has been known since 1984 as the Mexico City policy, named for the city where President Ronald Reagan first announced it. It's been a partisan ping-pong issue ever since: President Bill Clinton rescinded the policy in 1993, President George W. Bush reinstated it in 2001, and President Barack Obama rescinded it again in 2009. Republicans have since been trying to restore the policy under the Obama administration.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) introduced an amendment that would bar any funding for the administration to negotiate a United Nations arms trade treaty if it "restricts the Second Amendment rights of United States citizens."

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) is expected to introduce an amendment to mandate sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran in response to the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States, and in light of a new International Atomic Energy Agency report, which states that Iran has made significant progress toward constructing a nuclear weapon.

And Sen. Dan Coats (R-IN) introduced an amendment late on Monday that would prevent the president from trying to get around a law barring U.S. funding for UNESCO. The United States automatically cut off contributions to UNESCO this month when the organization overwhelmingly voted to admit Palestine as a member.

"Despite our legal obligation to suspend funding ... there have been some discussions, some speculation, that it may be possible to find alternative ways to financially support U.N. agencies like UNESCO that have taken this step of admitting the Palestinians as a member," Coats said on the Senate floor late Monday.

"That would be a total mistake and I want to reiterate the fact that it would be a violation of the law. And so, therefore, I come to the floor today to introduce a bill that serves as an emphatic statement, restatement of that."

Several more amendments are expected on Tuesday in what should be a lively debate over foreign affairs funding, if and when the Senate gets around to it. Of course, the Senate action is just a precursor to the House-Senate conference over the bill, where all the final decisions are made behind closed doors.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is temporarily bringing back U.S. ambassador to Brazil Tom Shannon to serve as acting undersecretary of state for political affairs while the State Department awaits the confirmation of President Barack Obama's nominee for the post, Wendy Sherman.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed to The Cable that Shannon will begin work next week as the temporary successor to Bill Burns, who was promoted to replace Jim Steinberg as deputy secretary of state. Shannon, a well-respected career member of the Foreign Service, served as assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs from 2005 to 2009 and was the National Security Council senior director for the same region from 2003 to 2005.

Shannon will lead an office that has oversight of the State Department's regional bureaus and has responsibility for the day-to-day management of regional and bilateral issues. In a way, Shannon's return to Foggy Bottom temporarily solves two problems for Clinton, as he also will be able to keep an eye on the western hemisphere bureau, which remains leaderless since the May departure of Arturo Valenzuela.

Nuland emphasized that the State Department intends to return Shannon to Brazil as soon as Sherman is confirmed. She said that Shannon will return "for what we hope will be only a few weeks ... until the Senate acts on the president's nomination of Wendy Sherman."

"This stop-gap measure will help the secretary and department officials manage business until the confirmation of Ambassador Sherman. We have every expectation that the Senate will act quickly on Ambassador Sherman's nomination as soon as possible after Labor Day," Nuland told The Cable.

But Sherman's nomination still faces resistance by some GOP senators. They have three main concerns. One is due to Sherman's time as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's counselor and North Korea policy coordinator. Some in the Senate GOP caucus are upset that the Obama administration has begun meeting bilaterally with the North Koreans and might use this nomination, along with the nomination of Sung Kim to be ambassador to Seoul, to make their point.

Second, senators are poised to demand that Sherman disclose her private client list as a vice president at the consulting firm of Albright-Stonebridge. There's suspicion, but as of yet no evidence, that Sherman worked on behalf of Chinese state-owned firms. Senators will demand full disclosure.

Lastly, senators will criticize Sherman for being president of the Fannie Mae Foundation from 1996 to 1997. Fannie Mae practices, mostly outside the Foundation, contributed to the financial meltdown, although those abuses occurred largely after she left.

State Department officials feel they have a strong candidate in Sherman and are prepared to fight for her confirmation. It's too early to see exactly how strong the GOP opposition to her confirmation will be, but there is more than one Republican senator opposed to her confirmation.

No Senate holds have been placed on the nomination yet -- that can only happen after Sherman is approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sherman has yet to receive a hearing before the committee, which will only occur after Congress returns from vacation in September.

Meanwhile, Shannon will keep her chair warm. Another Latin America hand at State, Brian Naranjo, has been managing the staff of the office of undersecretary for political affairs office in Burns' and Shannon's absence. He will continue on in his job as the acting executive assistant to the undersecretary, placing him as Shannon's right hand man and head of the office staff.

It's not that unusual for an acting undersecretary to be put in place when there's a prolonged vacancy. During former President George W. Bush's administration, Assistant Secretary Chris Burnham served as acting undersecretary for management under then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Assistant Secretary John Rood worked as acting undersecretary for arms control for about 18 months from 2007 to 2009.

State is hoping that Shannon won't have to serve in his acting capacity that long. He will keep his diplomatic credentials in Brazil. Todd Chapman, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Brazil, will mind the store as chargé d'affaires during Shannon's absence.

The State Department's Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Arturo Valenzuela will soon leave the administration and return to his teaching post at Georgetown University.

"As you may know the University gave me a two year leave of absence to serve in the administration -- and those two years have come to an end this Spring. Although the exact date of my departure has not been set, it will take place sometime later this Summer," he wrote on May 5 in an email to friends, obtained by The Cable.

Valenzuela's tenure at the State Department is viewed critically by many in the diplomatic community and some in Congress. House Foreign Affairs chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) issued a statement saying that Valenzuela's time at State was "marked by abject failure by the U.S. to stand up to the attacks against democracy and fundamental freedoms.... U.S. interests have suffered as a result."

He has been criticized for being out of the loop on high-level administration policy making, lacking strong relationships with regional leaders, and ineffectively maneuvering through the State Department's complicated and politicized bureaucracy, according to two Latin America hands based in Washington.

By the end of his two years at State, Valenzuela was somewhat sidelined in the policy process, as regional ambassadors bypassed him to work directly with the office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Deputy Secretary Jim Steinberg, or the NSC Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs Dan Restrepo.

Clinton is said to have preferred to deal with two ambassadors in the region who were extremely active and well-respected -- Ambassador to Brazil Tom Shannon, who had previously served as assistant secretary, and U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual, these experts said.

"It was not that difficult to marginalize [Valenzuela] because he was already marginal," said one Washington based Latin America hand.

Pascual recently left his post in Mexico City following the breakdown of his relationship with Mexican President Felipe Calderon due to the WikiLeaked revelation that Pascual had criticized Calderon's handling of the Mexican drug war -- and also because Pascual was dating the daughter of a major opposition leader in Mexico.

The State Department announced today that Pascual will be named the new special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs, succeeding David Goldwyn, who left the administration in January.

So who will succeed Valenzuela? Multiple Latin America hands said that one name was on everybody's short list: Bill Brownfield, former U.S. ambassador to Colombia and current assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs (INL).

Many experts said that, whatever his faults, Valenzuela was not solely to blame for the administration's Latin America policy, which is widely viewed in Washington as standoffish, unimaginative, and ineffective.

"The problem is ... having a sustained, high-level focus on the region's agenda," Michael Shifter, the president of the Inter-American Dialogue, told the Miami Herald. "That's what's been lacking. It's a policy of fits and starts."

"Latin Americans feel disappointed as the new U.S. president, challenged by domestic problems and distracted by international emergencies, has failed to meet their high and clearly unrealistic expectations about a major redefinition of U.S. policies toward its southern neighbors," wrote Moises Naim of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in a recent article in the journal Americas Quarterly. "They are right. President Obama would be hard-pressed to describe in which fundamental ways his government's policies toward Latin America differ from those of his predecessor."

Restrepo defended the administration's approach to the region in the same publication.

"In keeping with the president's National Security Strategy, we are leveraging our deep ties and working as equal partners to enhance common security, expand economic opportunity, secure a clean energy future, and defend shared democratic values," he wrote.

The White House announced a new policy on Monday for moving forward with the trials of some prisoners at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, while also setting forth a new process for keeping tabs on the prisoners who won't be tried or released anytime soon.

President Barack Obama's administration is framing the move as a continuation of its pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. But by restarting new military commission trials and reforming the procedures to deal with prisoners who are set to remain there for years, the administration is implicitly acknowledging that the prison isn't being shuttered in the near future.

"Today, I am announcing several steps that broaden our ability to bring terrorists to justice, provide oversight for our actions, and ensure the humane treatment of detainees," Obama said in a statement. The new policy will be implemented through an order by U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates allowing for the resumption of military tribunals, and an executive order that updates the process for reviewing the threat posed by prisoners at Guantanamo.

Five senior administration officials explained the details of the new policy in a conference call with reporters on Monday afternoon. They made the case that the president is still committed to closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, as he affirmed in his May 2009 speech at the National Archives.

"The President does remain committed to closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, based on the judgment of our military commanders and our national security team that it hinders our security in the long run," a senior administration official said.

For those prisoners who the U.S. government is not prepared to prosecute but cannot be released due to concerns they still pose a threat, the administration is establishing a new "periodic review board," made up of representatives from the Departments of Defense, Justice, State, and Homeland Security, to assess whether each prisoner's detention "is necessary to protect against a significant threat to the security of the United States." Every prisoner will receive a full review within one year of today and another full review every three years.

The new prisoner periodic review boards are an effort to reform the administrative review boards,  which have been used to judge whether prisoners should be held without trial up until now. However, it is still unclear how this policy will be implemented.

The administration contends that civilian courts could still be used for terror trials, but there are no definite plans to do so right now.

"We are reaffirming our commitment to Article III (civilian) courts as a fundamental tool of American justice and as a tool that the government has to bring terrorists to justice has been the case frequently in recent months and years," another senior administration official said.

In a related move, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced today that she asked the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to begin work to ratify Additional Protocol II to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which mandates stricter enforcement measures to guarantee the humane treatment of prisoners. She also announced that the United States will voluntarily adhere to the norms established under Article 75 of Protocol I in international armed conflicts, which also prohibits inhumane treatment of prisoners.

"These steps we take today are not about who our enemies are, but about who we are: a nation committed to providing all detainees in our custody with humane treatment," Clinton said in a statement.

Military law experts said that the Obama administration's moves represent progress in its efforts to break the legal logjam at Guantanamo Bay, but also an admission that the president's stated goal of quickly closing the prison will be again delayed.

The administration's decision to implement its new policy through executive order also bypassed efforts to involve Congress in the decision-making process.

Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that the administration had promised to work with Congress to establish a new process for military commissions that updates the 2006 military commissions law, but now they've decided to simply push forward on their own.

"It's the beginning of a breaking of a paralysis that has been devastating for this administration on this subject," said Wittes. "But it's only a beginning and whether they break further free remains to be seen."

Rajiv Shah, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has a message for those in Congress who want to slash development and foreign-aid budgets: Cuts will undermine U.S. national security.

On the heels of a major speech on the coming reforms to America's premier development agency, Shah sat down for an exclusive interview with The Cable to explain his vision for making USAID more responsible and accountable, an effort he said will require increased short-term investment in order to realize long-term savings.

But if Congress follows through on a massive defunding of USAID as the 165-member Republican Study Group recommended yesterday, it would not only put USAID's reforms in jeopardy, but have real and drastic negative implications for American power and the ongoing missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Shah.

"That first and foremost puts our national security in real jeopardy because we are working hand and glove with our military to keep us safe," said Shah, referring to USAID missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, the Horn of Africa, and Central America, and responding directly to congressional calls for cuts in foreign aid and development.

The RSC plan calls for $1.39 billion in annual savings from USAID. The USAID operating budget for fiscal 2010 was approximately $1.65 billion. The RSC spending plan summary was not clear if all the cuts would come from operations or from USAID administered programs. 

"That would have massive negative implications for our fundamental security," said Shah. "And as people start to engage in a discussion of what that would mean for protecting our border, for preventing terrorist safe havens and keeping our country safe from extremists' ideology … and what that would mean for literally taking children that we feed and keep alive through medicines or food and leaving them to starve. I think those are the types of things people will back away from."

The interests between the development community and U.S. national security objectives don't always align, and this tension is at the core of the debate on how to reinvigorate USAID. Short-term foreign-policy objectives sometimes don't match long-term development needs, and U.S. foreign-policy priorities are not made with development foremost in mind.

But Shah's ambitious drive to reform USAID seems to embrace the idea that development investments can be justified due to their linkage with national security. He is preparing to unveil next month USAID's first ever policy on combating violent extremism and executing counterinsurgency. He also plans to focus USAID's efforts on hot spots like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, and parts of sub-Saharan Africa, while transitioning away from other countries that are faring well and downgrading the agency's presence in places like Paris, Rome, and Tokyo.

Shah pointed out that Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, and ISAF Commander Gen. David Petraeus have all come out in strong support of increasing USAID's capacity to do foreign aid.

"In the military they call us a high-value, low-density partner because we are of high value to the national security mission but there aren't enough of us and we don't have enough capability," he said. "This is actually a much, much, much more efficient investment than sending in our troops, not even counting the tremendous risk to American lives when we have to do that."

For those less concerned with matters of national security, Shah also framed his argument for development aid in terms of increased domestic economic and job opportunities: If we want to export more, we need to help develop new markets that are U.S.-friendly.

"If we are going to be competitive as a country and create jobs at home, we cannot ignore the billions of people who are currently very low income but will in fact form a major new middle-class market in the next two decades," he said.

One of the main criticisms of USAID both on Capitol Hill and elsewhere is that the agency has been reduced over the years to not much more than a contracting outfit, disbursing billions of dollars around the world to organizations that have mixed performance records. In Shah's view, if Congress wants USAID to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, it has to increase the agency's operating budget and allow the agency to monitor contracts in-house.

"It was the Bush administration that helped launch the effort to reinvest in USAID's capabilities and hiring and people, and the reason they did that is they recognized you save a lot more money by being better managers of contracts," Shah said. "We have a choice. We have a critical need to make the smart investments in our own operations … which over time will save hundreds of millions of dollars, as opposed to trying to save a little bit now by cutting our capacity to do oversight and monitoring."

Shah wouldn't comment on the latest and greatest USAID contracting scandal, where the agency suspended contractor AED from receiving any new contracts amid allegations of widespread fraud. But he did say that his office would be personally reviewing large sole-source contracts from now on, requiring independent and public evaluations, and that more corrective actions are in the works.

"I suspect you'll see more instances of effective, proactive oversight that in fact saves American taxpayers significant resources," he said.

Incoming House Foreign Affairs chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) defeated a bill Thursday evening that would have committed the United States to combating forced child marriages abroad, by invoking concerns about the legislation's cost and that funds could be used to promote abortion. The episode highlights the tough road that the Obama administration will face in advancing its women's rights and foreign aid agenda during the next Congressional session.

Non-governmental organizations, women's rights advocates, and lawmakers from both parties spent years developing and lobbying for the "International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2010," which the House failed to pass in a vote Thursday. The bill failed even though 241 Congressmen voted for it and only 166 voted against, because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) brought it up under "suspension of the rules." This procedure has the advantage of not allowing any amendments or changes to the bill, but carries the disadvantage of requiring two-thirds of the votes for passage.

Even still, supporters in both parties fully expected the bill to garner the 290 votes needed -- right up until the bill failed. After all, it passed the Senate unanimously Dec. 1 with the co-sponsorship of several Republicans, including Appropriations Committee ranking Republican Thad Cochran (R-MS), Foreign Relations Committee member Roger Wicker (R-MS), and human rights advocate Sam Brownback (R-KS).

If passed, the bill would have authorized the president to provide assistance "to prevent the incidence of child marriage in developing countries through the promotion of educational, health, economic, social, and legal empowerment of girls and women." It would have also mandated that the administration develop a multi-year strategy on the issue and that the State Department include the incidence of forced child marriage during its annual evaluation of countries' human rights practices.

So what happened? Ros-Lehtinen first argued that the bill was simply unaffordable. In a Dec. 16 "Dear Colleague" letter, she objected to the cost of the bill, which would be $108 million over five years, and criticized it for not providing an accounting of how much the U.S. was already spending on this effort. The actual CBO estimate (PDF) said the bill would authorize $108 million, but would only require $67 million in outlays from fiscal years 2011 to 2015.

Ros-Lehtinen introduced her own version of the bill, which she said would only cost $1 million. But in a fact sheet (PDF), organizations supporting the original legislation said that Ros-Lehtinen's bill removed the implementation procedures that gave the legislation teeth. "Without such activities, the bill becomes merely a strategy with no actual implementation. And without implementation of a strategy, the bill will have an extraordinarily limited impact," they wrote.

Regardless, the supporters still thought the bill would pass because House Republican leadership had not come out against it. But about one hour before the vote, every Republican House office received a message on the bill from GOP leadership, known as a Whip Alert, saying that leadership would vote "no" on the bill and encouraging all Republicans do the same. The last line on the alert particularly shocked the bill's supporters.

"There are also concerns that funding will be directed to NGOs that promote and perform abortion and efforts to combat child marriage could be usurped as a way to overturn pro-life laws," the alert read.

The bill doesn't contain any funding for abortion activities and federal funding for abortion activities is already prohibited by what's known as the "Helms Amendment," which has been boiler plate language in appropriations bills since 1973.

Invoking the abortion issue sent the bill's supporters reeling. They believed that it was little more than a stunt, considering that Republican pro-life senators had carefully reviewed the legislation and concluded it would not have an impact on the abortion issue.

Rep. Stephen LaTourrette (R-OH) called out the Republican leadership for invoking the abortion issue to defeat the forced child marriage act in a floor speech Friday morning.

"Yesterday I was on the floor and I was a co-sponsor with [on] a piece of legislation with [Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN)] that would have moved money, no new money, would have moved money so that societies that are coercing young girls into marriage... we could make sure that they stay in school so they're not forced into marriage at the age of 12 and 13," LaTourette said. "All of a sudden there was a fiscal argument. When that didn't work people had to add an abortion element to it. This is a partisan place. I'm a Republican. I'm glad we beat their butt in the election, but there comes a time when enough is enough."

But it was too late for LaTourette and other Republicans who had fought hard for the bill, including Aaron Schock (R-IL). The bill is even less likely to pass next year, when the GOP will control the House and Ros-Lehtinen will control the Foreign Affairs committee.

The main author of the bill was Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), who was incensed when the bill failed in the House.

"The action on the House floor stopping the Child Marriage bill tonight will endanger the lives of millions of women and girls around the world," Durbin said in a Thursday statement. "These young girls, enslaved in marriage, will be brutalized and many will die when their young bodies are torn apart while giving birth. Those who voted to continue this barbaric practice brought shame to Capitol Hill."

For the NGO and women's advocacy community, the implications of this defeat extend much further than just this bill. They also saw Republicans invoke the abortion issue when objecting to the International Violence Against Women Act and expect the new Congress to push for reinstatement of the "Mexico City Policy," which would prevent federal funding for any organizations that even discuss abortion.

"Any time a health bill that has to do with women and girls comes to the House floor, we're going to see a debate like the one we just saw," said one advocacy leader who supported the bill. "It's hard to imagine how any development bills are going to pass in this environment."

The protection of women and girls is a major focus of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who promised to elevate the issue Thursday when rolling out the State Department's Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review. She has said that forced child marriage is "a clear and unacceptable violation of human rights", and that "the Department of State categorically denounces all cases of child marriage as child abuse".

State's Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer has worked hard on the issue behind the scenes. But at the eleventh hour, when the going got tough, the bill's supporters said that the administration was nowhere to be found. In October, the White House decided to waive all penalties under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, another Durbin led bill that the NGO community supports.

United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 60 million girls in developing countries now between the ages of 20 and 24 were married before they reached 18. The Population Council, a group focused on reproductive and child health, estimates that the number will increase by 100 million over the next decade if current trends continue.

More than $1 billion of aid to earthquake-torn Haiti still has not reached the island nation, but that's not the fault of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) -- despite the recent charge leveled against the conservative senator by the Daily Show's Jon Stewart. Rather, the complicated State Department-Congressional appropriations process is to blame for the delay.

On Sept. 30, Stewart took Coburn to task for his hold on the Haiti Empowerment, Assistance and Rebuilding Act of 2010, a pending bill that would set five years' worth of authorizations (how Congress wants to see the money spent) for Haiti reconstruction and relief funding. Coburn wants to see Congress find savings in other parts of the State Department to pay for $500 million for Haiti next year, in fiscal 2011. Stewart's rant was based on this Sept. 28. AP article.

Referencing that, Stewart called Coburn an "international a**hole of mystery" and continued: "So for any Haitian who right now lives on top of a pile of rubble washing their clothes in their own urine bucket, while Sean Penn gives your kids cigarettes while regaling you with Fast Times at Ridgemont High anecdotes, hang in there. Cause we need to sort all this out so you won't have to fill out duplicate forms. You're welcome!"

The problem is that Coburn's hold is not responsible for delaying the $1.15 billion Congress already appropriated in late July to help Haiti. That bill, which is totally separate from the one Coburn is holding up, was the supplemental appropriations act signed by President Obama on July 29. Authorization bills, like the one that Coburn objects to, are useful for setting out Congressional direction on how money should be spend, but aren't strictly necessary to the disbursement of the funds. The appropriations bills are the ones that actually spend the money.

Even the State Department acknowledges that Coburn is not responsible for the delay in this tranche of funds for Haiti.

"Senator Coburn's hold is not related to the $1.15 billion pledge made by the administration in March," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told The Cable. He explained that the State Department and Congress are still working on how exactly to spend the money, totally apart from Coburn's hold on the separate authorization bill.

State was given 45 days from July 29 to submit a "spend plan" for the Haiti money, after which Congress had two weeks to submit questions about its plan. Today, Coburn posted the State Department's spending plan for Haiti, along with its transmittal letter, which shows that it was given to Congress Sept 20. That's 52 days after the bill was signed, more than the 45 allowed -- but still not bad for government work.

Now, State and the relevant congressional committees are finishing up their work on the spend plan and the State Department should start actually giving out the money soon, Crowley said.

"We continue to answer questions and address issues that members of Congress have raised, but we will soon be obligating those funds on the ground in high impact ways to help the people of Haiti build back better," Crowley said.

He also pointed out that Congress had already put $300 million on the ground in Haiti while the process to release this $1.15 billion progressed.

Coburn also posted USAID's fact sheet on humanitarian assistance to Haiti, which shows that over $1.1 billion has already been spent, although that was for emergency relief, not the longer term recovery and reconstruction assistance that is now being sought.

Overall, Crowley argues, "there has been no undue delay by the administration in releasing the $1.15 billion, given the notification requirements legislators included in the supplemental legislation."

Regardless, whether you are a Haitian or a late-night comedian wondering why the money hasn't flowed yet, in this instance, you should direct your questions to the State Department and Congress, not Tom Coburn.

"Coburn may be an a**hole when it comes to holding up bills, but he's not the bad guy here," said one Senate aide. "The a**hole here is the bureaucratic process... and Jon Stewart."

On Thursday, the Senate confirmed two top officials to the U.S. Agency for International Development, making them the first senior USAID leadership positions to be filled other than Administrator Rajiv Shah.

The officials who were confirmed are Mark Feierstein as assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean, and Nisha Desai Biswal as assistant administrator for Asia. They were two of the 28 presidential nominations officially confirmed by the Senate Thursday.  

Of the top 12 leadership slots at USAID, only two more officials have even been nominated and nine more slots are currently vacant or being staffed by "acting" officials: Nancy Lindborg, for assistant administrator of USAID's Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Affairs Bureau and Donald K. Steinberg as deputy administrator of USAID. One notable vacancy at USAID is the slot for director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA).

Feierstein had previously worked as a principal at the polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, and before that served as director of USAID's global elections office. He previously worked in the State Department as special assistant to the U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States and before that was director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the National Democratic Institute.

Biswal most recently worked as the majority clerk for the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the State Department and Foreign Operations. Before that, she was director of policy and advocacy at InterAction, the largest alliance of U.S.-based international humanitarian and development non-governmental organizations. She has also worked on the professional staff of the House International Relations Committee and has held numerous past positions at USAID, including in the management bureau, the Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance, and the Office of Transition Initiatives.

The United States had some rare interactions with the Cuban government recently, but it had nothing to do with U.S.-Cuba relations. The U.S. is keeping Cuba updated on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

"We have an obligation to inform countries in the region when there are situations like this and ... we have informed Cuba and chatted with them in the course of the oil spill," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Wednesday.

The State Department isn't aware of any adverse effects the spill has had on Cuba, so there isn't any move to offer assistance, Crowley said -- at least not yet. But Crowley said the State Department was compelled to keep Cuba in the loop.

"We have obligations under certain arrangements when there are oil spills. We inform governments that may be affected by that, and we've fulfilled that responsibility with Cuba," he said.

After President Obama has rolled out his nuclear policy review Tuesday morning, he used his down time to turn his attention to another major nuclear initiative: the Nuclear Security Summit being held in Washington next week.

With 47 world leaders coming to town, Obama simply can't very well schedule one-on-one meetings with all of them -- lest international diplomacy turn into the equivalent of speed dating. Still, the least the president can do is give a phone call to the leaders he's rejecting, and that's what he was doing Tuesday afternoon.

So far, the world leaders Obama has granted an audience to are (in alphabetical order by country): President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia, President Hu Jintao of China, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, King Abdullah II of Jordan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani of Pakistan, and President Jacob Zuma of South Africa.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev doesn't need a bilateral, because he will have lots of time to hang out with Obama Thursday in Prague when they meet there to sign the new START agreement. Obama just met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy last week. And British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is skipping the summit to gear up his campaign ahead of the May elections he announced this morning.

So who's not getting face time with Obama? One confirmed rejection is Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who got the consolation phone call from Obama just a few hours ago.

"President Saakashvili thanked President Obama for his invitation to the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington," according to a readout of the call from the Georgian side. "President Obama thanked President Saakashvili for Georgia's exceptional commitment of troops to the international effort in Afghanistan."

What Obama didn't mention in the call Georgia's aspirations to join NATO or Georgia's concern about the French sale of a new assault ship to Russia.

Hey, maybe they'll run into each other at the buffet.

So, who are the other countries may be soon getting the rejection call? Looks like the leaders of Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Finland, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, the Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and Vietnam.

Are you looking for something to do at 6 p.m. tonight? How about tuning into Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's "Townterview" (interview + town hall) at Zumbi dos Palmares University, Brazil's only Afro-Brazilian institute of higher learning.

The event will be streamed live by the State Department here.

"The audience of the event will include students and representatives of NGOs, educational institutions, government, and the business community. The Secretary will answer a range of questions from U.S.-Brazil relations, to the value both countries place on education, diversity, and social inclusion," State's release said.

"I have been wanting to come to Brazil ever since I became Secretary of State," Clinton said in remarks at the U.S. Embassy in Brasilia Wednesday. Expect Clinton to say little about U.S.-Brazil differences related to new Iran sanctions but a lot about the new Memorandum of Understanding she signed today regarding cooperation on climate change.

The Cable reported last week that the need to push emergency relief to Haiti was taking funding away from other vital U.S. government programs around the world. Now, aid groups are reporting that they are scaling back plans amid fears that budget cuts will send them scrambling for resources, leaving needy victims in the lurch.

About $200 million of funds from the emergency accounts of OFDA, USAID's Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, have been diverted to Haiti so far, with more expected. These funds, which represent about a quarter of the office's international assistance budget, could be replenished in the coming months, but meanwhile, aid groups in other crisis areas are forced to plan against the money they have, and as a result are looking at staff cuts and reductions in new programs.

"You have to make some hard choices about whether you are going to support the Haiti earthquake victims or are you going to reserve those funds and hold them to expand programs for other victims in, say, Somalia," explained Susan Reichle, the USAID official who heads the Haiti coordination effort.

"OFDA's current global priority is Haiti and this has impacted OFDA's budget globally," reads one email sent by OFDA rejecting a project proposal. "There have been modifications in overall planned programming and budgets in Latin America and the Caribbean," the email, which was obtained by The Cable, continues. "This may change in coming weeks or months as the situation evolves."

Todd Shelton, senior director for policy and communications at Interaction, the largest coalition of U.S.-based NGOs doing international humanitarian work, said his member organizations are feeling the pinch.

"They're robbing Peter to pay Paul and you're seeing that with OFDA programs ... we've heard that from several of our members in places like South Sudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia," Shelton said. One NGO's proposal for a nutrition program in Ethiopia was turned down, according to Shelton, and the USAID mission in Somalia told another organization that a water, sanitation, and hygiene program under discussion would only be considered later this year if supplemental funding comes through.

"That would have served about 40,000 beneficiaries and that would have started almost immediately," Shelton said. "In terms of potable water, you can't go back in time and put that water into needy children's mouths."

"We're supporting Haiti, but we're concerned about the rest of the world," said Lisa Kuennen-Asfaw, of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), which relies on USAID grant money. "Yes, there are negative effects, because even if funds are restored completely, there are delays in funding emergency needs and some of these programs won't get funding because other things will be seen as more pressing needs when the money comes in."

For example, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, USAID told CRS groups that their $32 million 2010 budget would be cut by 40 percent overall. CRS says it was told to expect reductions of between 30 and 50 percent to its programs in Ethiopia, southern Sudan, and Somalia.

One program in Congo to help families with hygiene and sanitation aid "can't expand to meet additional needs," Kuennen-Asfaw said. Other programs that don't yet exist are being rejected, with Haiti as the explanation.

Reichle told The Cable that there is no instruction for aid groups to make a 40 percent cut in their existing programs, as some groups have claimed, but admitted that international disaster assistance funds for Haiti were having an effect on plans for new programs and expansions of existing programs in the near term.

"What we're waiting for is additional funds to come in to replenish the accounts.... A lot will depend on when we receive supplemental funds and how much funds there are," she said."You can't fund additional things until you know what your budget is."

Program decisions should be made by OFDA based on the merit of a proposal, not based on whether funds were going to Haiti, she said. But nonetheless, until Congress acts, the limited funds will have to be prioritized. "It's a hard choice."

Help on the way?

With funding tight, the State Department is working with the White House now to figure out what the intermediate needs for Haiti will be. Hill staffers expect a new supplemental request for Haiti funding soon, but no final decisions have been made, and they aren't sure how much money will be needed.

A Senate aide close to the issue said that Congress was requesting a meeting with USAID to discuss how Haiti funding was affecting other countries' programs. The aide said that even if aid groups are sounding the alarm bells prematurely, the effects of the funding shift are real.

"I don't believe any of them have actually experienced a cut in funding because they haven't submitted proposals yet, but there's no question that OFDA is drawing down funds that would have been used for purposes other than Haiti," the aide said.

The supplemental request from the administration is expected soon and will include funds to backfill accounts, but the impact of the funding shift will depend on how long Congress takes to act.

"Until they actually have the money in hand they worry they aren't going to get it," the aide explained. "I think they are going to get it; it's just a matter of when."

Rep.  Nita Lowey, D-NY, told The Cable last week that Congress would be actively considering the effect Haiti funding will have on other programs as lawmakers digest the new budget requests.

"There are so many places in the world that need our assistance and you're always making judgments depending upon where you can do the least harm if you're taking funding from other accounts," Lowey said. "This is why I'm saying that the future and reconstruction money has to be evaluated in the context of the other tremendous needs around the world."

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