Military

The Obama administration specifically requested that the Senate Armed Services Committee postpone a planned briefing today on the Fort Hood massacre, The Cable has learned, in another clear sign that the White House is pushing Congress away from doing its own investigative work into the tragedy.

The briefing, which had been announced last week to include Secretary of the Army John McHugh and Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey, was to be for members and staff only.

The development shows the administration is following up on remarks made by Obama over the weekend encouraging Congress to hold off pursuing independent action on the case while the government is still investigating.

"I know there will also be inquiries by Congress, and there should," Obama said in his weekly address on Saturday traveling around Asia. "But all of us should resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theater that sometimes dominates the discussion here in Washington. The stakes are far too high."

A spokesman for the committee confirmed to The Cable that the briefing was postponed at the administration's behest. The meeting was set to be closed, but knowing how Congress leaks like a sieve, the administration may not have wanted to risk giving lawmakers who want to try Hasan in the press any more ammunition. General Casey cautioned last week that too much public speculation could lead to a "backlash" against Muslim soldiers.

Several members of the committee have been out in front of the administration in making statements about the alleged shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and his alleged links to extremists, which may or may not have been overlooked by the military.

Among the committee members who are working actively on the "Hasan is a terrorist" angle is Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, who has pledged to use his Homeland Security committee to launch an investigation into Hasan's motives.

Committee ranking Republican John McCain might also be looking for evidence to support his statements regarding Hasan. During a question-and-answer session following his speech at the University of Louisville, McCain said of the incident, "I believe it was an act of terror."

A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

UPDATE: "Tomorrow morning, an interagency briefing team will go to the Hill to brief House and Senate leaders and committee chairs and ranking members. This is the latest in a series of engagements with the Hill since the horrific events at Fort Hood, and further evidence of the administration's commitment to appropriately inform Congress without interfering in the prosecution of this case," said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor.

Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher is in India today, meeting with counterparts before heading to the Czech Republic and Turkey.

She will talk missile defense in the Czech Republic and non-proliferation in Turkey, her spokesman said. The Czechs could have a new role in the administration's reformed scheme for missile defense, in light of the changes announced to the previous plan to deploy interceptors in Poland and advanced radar in the Czech Republic, what was termed the "third site." In India, Tauscher will lead a dialogue on non-proliferation.

Tauscher previewed her trip and talked about the status of missile defense plans and other strategic initiatives at the George Washington University on Tuesday. Primarily, she rejected the contention that the administration had abandoned Polish and Czech missile defense plans. Both countries have been offered alternative ways to participate in missile defense going forward, she said.

"We didn't abandon the third site," Tauscher said. "We already have two sites that protect the United States from the emerging Iranian long-range threat," she added, referring to existing sites in California and Alaska.

Aegis ships with SM-3 missiles will be deployed in the Mediterranean Sea and will be able to protect southern Europe by 2011, with land based SM-3 missiles "in a NATO-ized system" by 2015.

"The idea of putting a third site with a redundant capability in Poland to protect us against a threat that wasn't emerging as we expected, and have us naked now [to shorter range threats]... I thought it was crazy."

Back at home, Tauscher is preparing for two major efforts, to get the Senate to ratify follow on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) treaty and to seek ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Both pushes are slated for early next year.

She expressed confidence that the administration would be able to secure a START follow on by the time the current treaty expires on December 5. Negotiations with the Russians in Geneva are being led by Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller and are ongoing.

Senate Republicans have been somewhat open to supporting a START follow on, if certain concessions are met, but on CTBT leading GOP lawmakers such as Jon Kyl, R-AZ, are promising a fight.

"The CTBT will be very difficult to ratify. The opposition still remembers why they opposed it back in 1999, some of them are still in the Senate," she said, "And we still have a lot of people that don't know why they would be for it because there are 40 senators that have never voted on a treaty."

She said there is a "grand bargain" to be struck with regard to CTBT, which will include reassuring people that the nuclear arsenal is safe and secure even without testing. The Nuclear Posture Review will come out in January or February, she said, and the fiscal 2011 budget will come out around the same time.

Tauscher reiterated that the Reliable Replacement Warhead, a Bush administration program to build a new class of nuclear weapons, would not be in the 2011 budget. She said the Bush administration did a poor job explaining the program, giving the wrong impression to other countries.

"We had to kill it to save it," she said, explaining that it will be replaced with a nuclear stockpile modernization program, which will increase reliability and confidence in the current stock of warheads.

Spencer Ackerman gets the details of an apparently uncomfortable conference call this morning between National Security Council staffers and Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. Ambassador to Kabul, whose confidential cables calling for caution in increasing troop levels in Afghanistan were leaked to the Washington Post.

It was a tense videoconference this morning at the White House, as Ambassador Karl Eikenberry addressed the National Security Council from Kabul just hours after the media got hold of his dissent on the crucial question of sending more troops to Afghanistan. "He is very unpopular here," said a National Security Council staffer.

No one was happy to read in The Washington Post that Eikenberry, who commanded the war himself from 2005 to 2007, thinks that the Karzai government needs to demonstrate its commitment to anti-corruption measures before the administration can responsibly authorize another troop increase. The prevailing theory is that "he leaked his own cables" because "he has a beef with McChrystal," the staffer said. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Eikenberry's successor as NATO commander in Afghanistan, has requested an increase in troops to support a counterinsurgency strategy with a substantial counterterrorism component.

But Eikenberry - who also briefed the White House by teleconference yesterday - reiterated his concerns. The ambassador told the NSC not to send additional troops to Afghanistan "without an exit strategy" and urged that the president to adopt a "purely civilian approach" with the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development in the lead, not the military...

Despite the dissatisfaction with Eikenberry's apparent leak, according to the staffer, Obama "demanded" an exit strategy for the war "after Eikenberry's cables." Certain members of the NSC dialed into the conference from the Fort Bragg, N.C. headquarters of the Joint Special Operations Command, which is playing a large if underreported role in shaping Afghanistan strategy. It would appear that much remains fluid in the administration's strategy debates.

Update:  Ackerman retracts:

I am retracting this post, published yesterday, titled “Inside This Morning’s White House Afghanistan Meeting: Anger With Eikenberry, ‘Beef’ With McChrystal.”

My original source for the post stands by the account provided. The individual, a National Security Council staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity, has provided truthful and verified information on past stories, and so I trusted the source for this one. Elements of the account have been subsequently borne out: yesterday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that President Obama will ask his Afghanistan-Pakistan advisers to provide him with an exit strategy for the eight-year war, which is congruent with but not identical to my source’s information that Obama has asked the team to derive timetables for troop withdrawal.

But there are greater problems with the post. For one, the source was not actually present for the video teleconference that is the post’s central scene, and passed information to me second-hand. Furthermore, not only has the White House’s Tommy Vietor denied, on the record, that Ambassador Karl Eikenberry participated in a video teleconference yesterday morning, but the other two individuals I named as being present for the meeting — the inspector generals for Iraq and Afghanistan — have, through representatives, denied being present. I cannot subsequently stand by this account.

President Obama has nominated Erin Conaton, the staff director of the House Armed Services Committee, to be the number two official at the Air Force.

If confirmed, Conaton would have a premier role in shepherding the Air Force through an extremely tumultuous time. As undersecretary, she would have a leading role in guiding the Air Force's interactions with Congress and would be involved in several of the major acquisitions issues the service is currently embroiled in.

"Erin is a good person who will be assuming a very tough position," said one Air Force insider, "Her connections to [Chairman Ike] Skelton will really help the Air Force, but she is taking on a heck of a challenge considering all the problems facing the service."

The Air Force has been on the losing side of some high profile inter-government battles as of late. They lost their bid to continue production of the F-22 fighter jet (although their official position was that they agreed with Obama's decision to end production of the plane).

The Air Force is also currently involved in budget negotiations with the Office of the Secretary of Defense over the fiscal 2011 program. Their F-35 fighter program, the largest system in their portfolio, could face cuts in light of over overall pressures and Defense Secretary Robert Gates' push to rebalance priorities toward more irregular and non-conventional capabilities.

The $100 billion Air Force program to replace its fleet of aerial refueling tankers is also in a state of somewhat limbo after two failed attempts to award the contract. The Air Force is also still pushing to get a new bomber and several other items that will be tough sells in this constrained budget environment.

No confirmation hearing has yet been scheduled.

Army Chief of Staff George Casey took to the airwaves Sunday to warn the public not to overemphasize unconfirmed reports about anti-American and religious statements allegedly made by alleged Fort Hood gunman Major Nidal Hasan.

"I think we need to be very careful here about speculating based on anecdotes like that," Casey said on ABC's This Week, "We all want to know what happened and what motivated the suspect, but I think we need to be very, very careful here in these early days to let the investigation take its course."

He warned that any effort to prejudge Hasan as a terrorist or as having religious motivations could cause unnecessary and harmful effects for the 3,000 plus Muslims currently serving in the military.

"I think the speculation could potentially heighten backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And what happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here," Casey said.

Meanwhile, Senator Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, was on Fox news talking all about Hasan's motivations and warning that the attack could be a new model of terrorism on U.S. soil.

"It's clear that he was, one, under personal stress and, two, if the reports that we're receiving of various statements he made, acts he took, are valid, he had turned to Islamist extremism," Lieberman said, "And therefore, if that is true, the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11."

Lieberman stated that the evidence was not all in, but he went on to detail each and every reported allegation of Hasan's anti-American behavior, including reports that he compared suicide bombers to U.S. soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in war and that he shouted ‘Allah Ahkbar' during the attack.

"The fact that he did that at the moment of these murders - if that's confirmed, of course - raises genuine concerns that this was a terrorist act," Lieberman said, ""There's concern from what we know now about Hasan that, in fact, that's exactly what he was, a self-radicalized home-grown terrorist."

He promised to start an investigation in his Homeland Security Committee as to Hasan's motives. The Army declined to comment Lieberman's investigation.

Chris Kleponis/Getty Images

For the protocol-obsessed Japanese, scheduling a cabinet-level meeting and then canceling it is a rare occurrence. But that's exactly what happened today when the State Department had to withdraw its announcement that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would meet Friday with Japanese Foreign Minister Katusya Okada.

The diplomatic SNAFU is emblematic of the shifting ground underneath the U.S.-Japan alliance. The Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which took over the government in September, campaigned on a pledge to reform relations with the U.S., but now in power, they are battling internally to determine how far and wide those changes should go. The latest twist certainly won't dampen the view of those who've proclaimed a "crisis" in the U.S. relationship with Japan since the elections; a State Department official told The Cable that Clinton was still holding time in her Friday schedule, just in case Okada is able to make the trip.

Reports out of Japan suggest that Okada wanted to secure a deal on his pet issue, the Futenma air base in Okinawa, ahead of President Obama's trip to Tokyo next week. But Okada is being reined in by Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who doesn't want Okada gallivanting around making policy while the issue is still a matter of intense internal discussion within the Japanese government.

And both sides are trying to recover from a tumultuous couple of weeks in the relationship following the Tokyo visit of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who was seen as focusing too much on Futenma, a minor issue for the U.S. but a major emotional hot button for the Japanese.

More broadly, the center of gravity in the U.S.-Japan relationship may be shifting from the Defense Department to the State Department. While Okada might have wanted to focus on Futenma, administration sources said that Clinton's goal was much broader. She wanted to start engaging the new Japanese leadership on a larger set of strategic issues, from Afghanistan to China and everything in between.

The agenda shows the Obama administration's desire to focus less on incremental military issues such as military basing and start bringing the discussion with the new Japanese government around to larger strategic issues. But the Obama administration is unable to advance the conversation due to the ongoing foreign policy fight within the Japanese cabinet.

Hatoyama is refereeing a complex battle between various elements of his party and his cabinet over the direction of Japanese foreign policy, especially with regard to the U.S.-Japan alliance. Okada's interests may lie in making things for Hatoyama as difficult as possible, hence the (maybe) cancelled trip.

Inside the Japan policy infrastructure in Washington, the officials in charge of managing the relationship are taking a two pronged-approach. The first element of their strategy is "wait and see," letting the new DPJ government settle internal disputes and then come to the U.S. side with policy positions, negotiating stances, and the like.

The second part of the approach is "Don't blink," meaning that the U.S. interlocutors are trying to avoid overreacting to what some see as antagonistic or contradictory statements on the alliance coming out of different DPJ leaders. Also, the U.S. managers are determined not to negotiate away any of their positions while the new Japanese government is going through its growing pains.

"We're waiting for them to give us some indication of where they see the path as leading from here," said one senior U.S. official dealing with the U.S.-Japan alliance.

There is also a feeling among Obama administration Japan managers that the reports about the "crisis" in U.S.-Japan relations have been way overblown and that while a number of issues in the alliance are now up for discussion, which is new, that is not necessarily a bad thing.

"You can take any of this stuff and make a story out of it, but none of these issues are unmanageable," the official said, "The U.S. and Japan still rely on each other in a lot of fundamental ways."

The official said that there is a pretty clear path out of the current tense situation, whenever the Japanese are ready to take it. For example, on the issue of the plan for the relocation of the Futenma air base, U.S. officials believe that ultimately there is no real alternative to the current plan. Okada's idea, to combine Futenma with the Kadena air base, is seen as a non-starter inside the Obama administration.

However, there are "sweeteners" that could alleviate some concerns of Okinawa residents and allow Hatoyama and Okada to save face by claiming they got concessions before ultimately accepting the bulk of the current plan as is.

But the talks between the United States and Japan haven't gotten to that stage and probably won't by the time Obama visits Tokyo next week. Obama himself is said to be too far above the issue to negotiate such details and is likely to simply affirm the strength of the alliance, mark its 50^th anniversary, and leave the negotiations for lower officials to resume after the trip.

Traditionally, the Japan relationship inside Washington more heavily managed by the Defense Department as compared to relations with other countries. There are historical and logistical explanations for this phenomenon, but with new administrations on both sides, a change might be in store.

At the National Security Council, the Japan policy is managed by Jeffrey Bader, a former Ambassador and senior State Department official and Daniel Russel, former State Department Japan office director.

At the State Department, Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell is in charge of all things Japan, aided by Japan desk chief Kevin Maher. Campbell has been back and forth to Tokyo several times since assuming his post and is scheduled to stop in Tokyo on Thursday on his way home from Burma.

The Japan team at the Pentagon is centered around Assistant Secretary Gen. Chip Gregson, Principal Deputy Derek Mitchell, Deputy Michael Schiffer, and Japan desk officer Suzanne Bassala.

Photo: Pool/Getty Images

President Obama today nominated of Philip Coyle, a leading critic of Bush administration missile defense schemes, to be a top White House scientific advisor.

Coyle, who was the head weapons tester at the Pentagon during the Clinton administration, was nominated to become the Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. There he will lead a team tasked with giving scientific advice to Obama on a range of national security issues and will report to Director John Holdren.

Since his last tour at the Pentagon, Coyle has been a leading analyst on weapons systems for the Center for Defense Information, a component of the World Security Institute, a defense-minded think thank. From that perch, he's been actively involved in several of the national security debates involving advanced technology and a staunch watchdog on the missile defense system the Bush administration rushed to deploy throughout its tenure.

Coyle has often pointed out that the testing done by the Pentagon on ballistic missile defense components since 2001 has been either shoddy or thin. Moreover, he has repeatedly questioned the basic rationale for investing billions to deploy ballistic missile defense around the world, especially in Eastern Europe.

"In my view, Iran is not so suicidal as to attack Europe or the United States with missiles," he testified before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee in February, "But if you believe that Iran is bound and determined to attack Europe or America, no matter what, then I think you also have to assume that Iran would do whatever it takes to overwhelm our missile defenses, including using decoys to fool the defenses, launching stealthy warheads, and launching many missiles, not just one or two."

Coyle has often argued that the Bush administration rushed to deploy missile defense systems around the world to build momentum and keep money flowing into the program. He has repeatedly said that the Missile Defense Agency has been amassing hardware that is either not aligned with the threat or can't be relied on in case of an actual emergency.

Over $120 billion has been spent on ballistic missile defense since its inception during the Reagan administration.

Coyle's views line up with Ellen Tauscher, who was then the subcommittee chairwoman but who is now Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, which oversees missile defense diplomacy.

Tauscher was part of the decision making process that led to huge changes in the Bush administration plans for missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Obama plan now calls for more short and medium range systems, most of them mobile. These are changes Coyle has also supported.

Coyle must now be confirmed by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The vetting and confirmation process could take months.

Much ado was made last month about the reported rift between U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Chris Hill and the top U.S. military commander in Baghdad Gen. Ray Odierno, a rift that Hill strenuously denied.

But a real policy dispute lies at the heart of the story, senior diplomatic and military sources in Baghdad tell The Cable. Increasingly, the two men are said to differ over the proper American role in Baghdad, specifically with regard to how heavy a hand the U.S. should apply in trying to influence the decisions of the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The clashing approaches speak to both the institutional culture of the two organizations and their different view of U.S. priorities and interests during this critical time of pullback in the U.S. presence in Iraq, the sources said. "State has a respect for sovereignty and institutional relations," one official explained. "DOD is much more activist and hands on in pretty much every area. Their attitude is if there's a problem you get in there and do what you can to fix it."

The current dispute between the two camps centers around how involved the U.S. should be in the Maliki government's coalition politics ahead of Iraq's January 2010 elections, an event that has Middle East hands worried after the Iraqi parliament again failed Monday to pass a crucial law that would govern the polls. The U.S. government has hinged the entire redeployment strategy around the elections law, one government official working on Iraq in Washington said, warning that if it the process drags on, the withdrawal of U.S. troops will have to be correspondingly delayed.

Maliki has assembled a wide coalition for the upcoming poll. But according to reports, Iraq's lower house of parliament, the Council of Representatives (COR), might remove members of the Independent High Election Commission or withdraw its vote of confidence in the body at the prime minister's behest -- a move that military officials want to try to forestall.

But because the State Department places a high priority on holding the January elections on time as a precursor to fulfilling President Obama's withdrawal timeline, the embassy favors a more hands-off approach, and the White House is said to agree.

"State believes it would be fraught with danger to intervene on these COR decisions, and yet at the same time, it is equally dangerous if the COR decides to remove IHEC officials so close to the election," one senior military source in the region said, arguing that State's concerns about the Jan. 10 election date slipping are overblown.

A senior diplomatic source in Iraq responded by presenting the issue of U.S. involvement in Maliki's dealings as a balance between risk and reward.

"To what extent do we try to pick winners? What are the risks of that? How have we fared in the past with such an approach? This is not so much a civil-military problem, but it does go to the heart of how to disengage," the source explained. "Subtly versus with a heavy hand, could well determine what kind of partner we might have in Iraq."

The source also said State is very involved in the COR processes, including having embassy officers in every meeting and exerting influence when appropriate, such as in prodding individual members and suggesting solutions to get around impasses. "We are on it like the proverbial Iraqi carpet," the source said.

Clash of civilizations

Maliki alluded to the controversy in his remarks Monday after meeting with President Obama, saying that the two had "discussed the issue of the elections and the importance that these elections be held on time based on the national principles."

But the elections aren't the only issue in dispute, some Iraq experts say, pointing to the several outstanding issues between the Maliki government and both the Sunni and Kurdish communities as additional examples of how the State Department wants to disengage from Iraq at a faster pace than the military there.

"The question is, in this period of transition: What are the few things we really need to get traction on, and how much leverage do we have to do that?" said Sam Parker, an Iraq expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace. "It's about how much you should get involved."

Major disputes still exist between the Maliki government and the Iraqi minority communities over such things as the status of the city of Kirkuk, the distribution of oil profits, and payments to former Sunni insurgents who have been persuaded to lay down their arms.

"Odierno continues to believe that the Sunni community depends on the U.S. to defend them against the Maliki government," said one Washington Iraq expert. "State doesn't believe that the U.S. military should play a significant role in any of that."

Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Center on Foreign Relations, said that part of the dispute was a lack of agreement on the trustworthiness of Maliki.

"The key question is, What model of Maliki's motivations do we use as we make policy?" said Biddle. "As long as it's at least an open possibility that he's opportunistic or trying to consolidate power in his office in an unnatural way, either one of those implies increased U.S. engagement."

Some Iraq experts defend State's approach as the most pragmatic and realistic way to acknowledge the fact that the Americans are leaving Iraq.

"The Defense Department has to come to terms with the fact that its influence is waning there," said Marc Lynch, director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University.

"Sure, Chris Hill isn't doing as much on a personal level as [previous U.S. ambassador] Ryan Crocker did, but it's not clear that he should be," said Lynch. "The surge improved things militarily, but the political problems remain and those will have to be solved by the Iraqis. There is little we can do about it at this point."