U.S. Congress

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter said Thursday he would not support any troop increase to Afghanistan and predicted a troop increase announcement would meet a cold reception on Capitol Hill.

"We ought not to add troops to Afghanistan, I even question staying there, unless it is indispensible to our fight against al-Qaeda," said Specter on a conference call. "Staying in Afghanistan really requires a reliable ally in the government, which we do not have in [Afghan president Hamid] Karzai."

He said he could be persuaded to devote resources to fighting al Qaeda, but remains "unconvinced" that adding U.S. soldiers to Afghanistan was the answer.

The administration should offer an exit strategy with clearly defined goals and milestones, though not necessarily a timeline, Specter said. He denied that his position was meant to counter his 2010 primary challenger Rep. Joe Sestak, D-PA, who has called for a "measured increase."

"If they talk about 40,000 troops, as the generals there want, I think [the reception in Congress] will be pretty cold," he said, pointing the oft-repeated estimate that each added troop would cost American $1 million per year.

Specter predicted senators would line up behind the idea of Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-MI, who has repeatedly called for faster increases in the Afghan security forces before more U.S. combat troops are added.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged those concerns today in his press conference.

"Clearly, a very important part of the strategy in Afghanistan has to be the increase in the size of the Afghan national security forces and their training, and partnering with us," Gates said. "And central to the strategy is the ability to transfer responsibility for security, as soon as conditions warrant, to the Afghans themselves."

The State Department and Congress don't see eye to eye on how to move forward with foreign-aid reform, but at least one Senator is firmly siding with Foggy Bottom: Jim Webb.

When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the Kerry-Lugar foreign aid reform on Monday, Webb spoke against the bill. He sent a follow-up letter, obtained by The Cable, to Chairman John Kerry Wednesday to document his objections. Among them, Webb thinks the bill would add unnecessary and burdensome bureaucracy not focused on the problem at hand.

"I believe that the problems in foreign assistance effectiveness are largely those of poor leadership and supervision, to be solved by the streamlining of executive branch responsibilities rather than the creation of yet another layer of infrastructure," Webb wrote.

Webb was talking about the bill's proposal to create a Council on Research and Evaluation of Foreign Assistance, or CORE, that would have oversight powers over all government foreign-assistance programs, a key component according to committee staffers.

He also referenced a letter sent Monday to Kerry by Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew, which called said the council "may be contrary to the underpinnings of the [Quadrennial Diplomacy and Defense Review]," which State is currently working on but won't be finishing until sometime next year.

Lew said that he wants Congress to give State the "flexibility" to work out foreign-assistance management issues in the QDDR, which he is running with Policy Planning Chief Anne Marie Slaughter, and in the White House's Presidential Study Directive, which is run by National Security Advisor Jim Jones and the National Economic Council's Larry Summers. The QDDR is managed day to day by Karen Hanrahan and the PSD is managed by Gayle Smith.

Lew also pointed to the recent nomination of Rajiv Shah to be administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development and asked Kerry to give Shah time to review the current structures before new ones are created. Shah met with Kerry Thursday morning, according to committee staff, and Dec. 1 is being considered for his nomination hearing although nothing has been formally scheduled.

In the end, committee staffers say that the Kerry-Lugar bill is a marker to let Congress weigh in on foreign assistance and there are no immediate plans to try to advance the bill any further. But if the administration's reviews don't have strong accountability measures, congressional ideas such as the CORE could get increasing traction, despite the objections of Webb and Lew.

President Obama entered office vowing to fully pay U.S. dues to international organizations, but his administration's efforts to do so have hit a snag: Tom Coburn.

Today comes word that the State Department is circulating a memo on Capitol Hill opposing a measure by the Oklahoma Senator that would shift funds currently designated for U.S. contributions to the United Nations for new benefits for American veterans.

The document points out that the U.S. has just finally paid its back bill owed to the U.N. after 10 years of being in arrears.

"The full payment of assessed contributions affects the standing and influence that the U.S. has at these organizations," the State Department memo reads. "As we call upon others to help reform and strengthen the UN, the United States must do its part -- and pay its bills."

Foggy Bottom is just the latest actor to be roped into Coburn's ongoing feud with Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Daniel Akaka, D-HI, over Akaka's bill to authorize money for family caregivers tending to injured soldiers returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan and other new benefits that the Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost $3.7 billion. Akaka's bill has wide support, but Coburn has been holding it up as part of his promise to oppose any bill that isn't specifically paid for in advance.

The fight got dramatic last week when Akaka held a press conference to criticize Coburn's intransigence and Coburn showed up and sat in the front row. Coburn waved smugly at Akaka during the event and then got up and held his own impromptu presser to defend his position. Senate Democrats were not amused.

Late Tuesday, the Democrats and Republicans came to an agreement to vote on the bill, including a separate vote on Coburn's amendment.

"Paying for veterans' benefits is a cost of war; this is not the appropriate place or time for a debate about the United Nations," Akaka's spokesman Jesse Broder Van Dyke told The Cable. "Diplomacy can prevent wars so we shouldn't shortchange that. Our veterans shouldn't be used as pawns in that debate."

Coburn spokesman John Hart disagreed. "Dr. Coburn hopes his colleagues will put the needs of our wounded veterans ahead of the wishes of corrupt bureaucrats at the United Nations," he told The Cable.

The vote on Coburn's amendment will probably come tomorrow.

In yet another sign that the administration and Capitol Hill aren't exactly seeing eye to eye these days, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will mark up the Kerry-Lugar foreign aid reform bill Tuesday, moving the ball forward despite the State Department's desire that Congress hold off until administration reviews are finished.

The Kerry-Lugar bill, one of several foreign-aid reform bills in play, is seen as a strong but relatively modest attempt to increase the power and stature of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). It would, among other things, restore USAID's policy-planning staff and create new oversight and accountability mechanisms to watch over foreign-assistance programs government-wide.

But the State Department leadership has been asking Kerry to slow-walk the bill, not wanting the legislation to preempt State's Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), led by Deputy Secretary Jack Lew and Policy Planning chief Anne Marie Slaughter, and to a lesser degree the National Security Council's President Study Directive (PSD) on foreign assistance, led by Gayle Smith.

Apparently, Lew asked Kerry specifically not to mark up the bill. Kerry may have been inclined to go along with Lew's request, but was approached by Lugar, who threatened to pull his support for the bill if Kerry didn't move it through the process. Kerry sided with Lugar and scheduled the markup.

"At the end of the day, the State Department tried to convince Kerry not to markup this legislation. Kerry was somewhat sympathetic but he was going to lose Lugar," said one development expert close to the discussions. "It's important for Kerry to maintain his arm-link with Lugar, so he pushed back."

A committee staffer confirmed the substance of the account, and explained that the committee simply didn't want to wait until the reviews were completed. The PSD is expected perhaps in January but the QDDR won't be completed until summer or fall of 2010 (State has promised to release an interim report at some point).

"What's clear is that [State] wants to wait until the QDDR is done, so in the meantime, is Congress supposed to just remain silent?" the committee staffer asked. "You just can't wait that long to start reforming aid."

Although the long-awaited nomination of Rajiv Shah to be USAID administrator didn't factor into the committee's decision to move the bill (committee staff say the timing was purely based on logistics), they do view his still-undecided role as a barometer of how much Congress will need to weigh in.

If Shah is not given the authority and power within the administration that the bill envisions, or if the reviews don't give USAID the authority the Senate is seeking, Kerry and Lugar could then move the bill further along, over State's objections.

"If they come out with recommendations that don't include a policy mechanism or evaluations, then there would be added momentum to bring this bill to the floor," the staffer said.

The committee plans to markup this bill, then move to confirm Shah, probably in early December.

"We're not looking to take this thing and put into law tomorrow. But we are trying to lay out in an explicit way that this is what we think reform looks like," a different committee staffer said. "State doesn't always see it that way," he added, referring to State's pushback against the bill internally.

Meanwhile, overall confusion over where the administration reviews are going is creating a lot of uncertainty and unease both in Congress and in the development community. State Department officials talk about "elevating" USAID but also talk about "integrating" it into the State Department, words that can be interpreted in a variety of ways.

The Kerry-Lugar idea of restoring USAID's policy-planning staff, which was removed by the Bush administration, is one that lawmakers and development advocates see as crucial.

"An agency without a policy and strategic planning capacity is without true independence," said Noam Unger, a fellow at the Brookings Institution. "We have an aid system that is weakened by fragmentation and our engagement of foreign countries suffers because of policy incoherence."

Slaughter, in a speech Monday at the Center for American Progress, repeated the cryptic mantra that has the whole development world scratching their heads.

"The overall aim of the QDDR is to integrate and elevate development and diplomacy across the spectrum of the American foreign policy," she said.

"You still need to integrate the power of development professionals, the ideas and the expertise, with the political clout and strategy and reach of diplomacy. That seems to me to be the perfect example of integrated power ...  and that is what Secretary Clinton would like to see as one of her legacies."

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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

The administration is pushing back against the latest Congressional effort to thwart their plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and try the prisoners on U.S. soil.

The Senate will start debate today on the Commerce, Justice, and Science spending bill, and there will definitely be a vote on an amendment by Senator Lindsey Graham, R-SC, that would prevent any money from being spent to try detainees who had a hand in the 9/11 attack in federal civilian courts.

Among the most famous of these is Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the attacks, who is sitting in Guantanamo now.

Graham's long-held position, with the support of John McCain, R-AZ, and Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, is that military commissions are preferred. For one thing, if a prisoner is acquitted in a civilian trial, he could be set free, Graham argues. The Senator is a former Air Force lawyer.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Attorney General Eric Holder wrote a letter  last week to Senate leaders Harry Reid, D-NV, and Mitch McConnell, R-KY, with their opposition to the Graham amendment.

"Our departments are currently involved in a careful case by case evaluation of the cases of Guantanamo detainees... to determine whether they should be prosecuted in a [civilian] court or military commission," the officials wrote, warning it "would set a dangerous precedent, for Congress to restrict the discretion of either department to fund particular prosecutions."

Of course, Congress has been doing just that repeatedly since Obama took office. A whole host of last year's spending bills included language restricting the transfer of detainees, often with Democratic support. A previous amendment offered by Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-HI, garnered 90 votes, showing just how reluctant Senate Democrats are to be seen as weak on the Guantanamo issue.

McConnell has also been skilled in helping to craft such amendments to pass easily and it's in his interest to have the Guantanamo issue debated as much as possible because it plays for the GOP politically. As such, Republicans expect the Graham amendment to pass by a wide margin.

The Democrats' defense for yielding to Republicans on Guantanamo has been that they are awaiting a detailed plan from Obama on how he plans to close the facility. There is widespread acknowledgment that Obama's promise to get it done by January will not be fulfilled.

An administration official, speaking on background basis, told The Cable that "much progress has been made and more details on plans to close the facility are expected in the coming weeks."

The official also touted the reforms to the military commissions process that were signed into law last week as part of the fiscal 2010 defense policy bill.

There are some signs that Democrats are beginning to toughen on Guantanamo.

The Homeland Security Department funding bill that cleared Congress at the end of October had a provision that would allow the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to U.S. soil, only for prosecution. Many Congressional Republicans had wanted a complete ban.

Because of that, some on the Hill believe the Graham admendment won't go through.

We don’t expect that members will vote to further tie the hands of the Administration as Graham amdt would do," said one senior Democratic Senate aide, "We do not expect it to pass."

Meanwhile, alleged embassy bomber Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani  has already been transferred to the U.S. to stand trial in a federal civilian court.

Obama himself defended the practice in a May speech at the National Archives.

"When feasible, we will try those who have violated American criminal laws in federal courts - courts provided for by the United States Constitution," he said, "Some have derided our federal courts as incapable of handling the trials of terrorists. They are wrong. Our courts and juries of our citizens are tough enough to convict terrorists, and the record makes that clear."

UPDATE: The Senate voted to table the Graham amendment late Thursday by a vote of 54-45. That pushes off consideration indefinitely.

The House is preparing to vote on a resolution condemning the U.N.'s Goldstone Report, but not before making changes to the text to respond to the complaints of Goldstone himself.

Meanwhile in New York, the U.N. General Assembly was preparing for a possible vote on a resolution supporting the Goldstone Report on Wednesday and Arab U.N. delegations were circulating a draft today.

The Congressional resolution, which simply expresses the opinion of Congress and has no actual force of law, deems the report "irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy," and "calls on the President and the Secretary of State to strongly and unequivocally oppose any further consideration of the [report] and any other measures stemming from this report in multilateral fora."

Sponsored by House Foreign Affairs heads Howard Berman, D-CA, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-FL, the measure is expected to pass by a wide margin.

Justice Richard Goldstone, the primary author of the report, wrote a lengthy memorandum to the bill's sponsors criticizing the text of the House resolution. In a dear colleague letter circulated Monday, Berman and Gary Ackerman, D-NY, responded to each of Goldstone's complaints.

Chief among them was the issue of whether the U.N. Human Rights Council issued a mandate for the report that prejudged Israel's guilt in alleged war crimes committed during the Gaza operation. Berman and Ackerman rejected Goldstone's contention that he altered the mandate to include the examination of rocket attacks on Israel in addition to Israeli actions in Gaza.

"The broadened mandate Justice Goldstone sought was discussed, but not voted on, at an UNHRC plenary session. It was then announced via a press release in an altered formation, more restrictive than the formulation envisioned by Justice Goldstone," Berman and Ackerman wrote.

"Even though Justice Goldstone made earnest efforts to alter the mandate, he did not fully succeed ... we intend to alter the resolution to take account of Justice Goldstone's effort."

UPDATE: As expected, the House overwhelmingly passed the measure, with 344 members voting for, 36 voting against, and 22 voting "present."

Here are the new test portions of the resolution added before passage:

Whereas Justice Richard Goldstone, who chaired the `United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict,' told the then-President of theUNHRC, Nigerian Ambassador Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi, that he intended to broaden the mandate of the Mission to include "all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after," a phrase that, according to Justice Goldstone, was intended to allow him to investigate Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians;

Whereas Ambassador Uhomoibhi issued a statement on April 3, 2009, that endorsed part of Justice Goldstone's proposed broadened mandate but deleted the phrase "before, during, and after," and added inflammatory
anti-Israeli language;

Whereas a so-called broadened mandate was never officially endorsed by a plenary meeting of the UNHRC, neither in the form proposed by Justice Goldstone nor in the form proposed by Ambassador Uhomoibhi;

And this clause has been expanded, so it now reads that resolution:

calls on the President and the Secretary of State to continue to strongly and unequivocally oppose any endorsement of the `Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict' in multilateral fora, including through leading opposition to any United Nations General Assembly resolution and through vetoing, if necessary, any United Nations Security Council resolution that endorses the contents of this report, seeks to act upon the recommendations contained in this report, or calls on any other international body to take further action regarding this report.

So often in Washington, the findings of a major commission are released, discussed, and then tossed aside. Not so with the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, whose recommendations are finding their way into legislation this fall.

One of the key recommendations moving in Congress this week is the idea of creating a capability inside the U.S. government to help developing countries find alternatives to nuclear and petroleum-based energy that are environmentally and fiscally sustainable.

Senator Daniel Akaka, D-HI, added a mirror of the Energy Development Program Implementation Act, which requires the State and Energy Departments to create strategic and implementation plans to carry out this effort, to a larger WMD-related bill moving through the committee process now.

"This bill will create an alternative energy Peace Corps, as called for 31 years ago by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978," former senators Bob Graham and Jim Talent, the chairs of the WMD commission, testified before the Senate Homeland Security committee last month, "As our report recommended, this bill would help reduce the further spread of nuclear technologies ostensibly for civilian purposes."

The energy development legislation has widespread support in Congress and the nonproliferation community. Congressman Jeff Fortenberry, R-NE, has a companion measure in the House.

"This is an idea whose time has come," said Christopher Paine, director of the nuclear program and the Natural Resources Defense Council, "Environmentally sustainable energy supply should be a central pillar of U.S. foreign policy. This bill just makes good sense."

The overall bill, entitled the WMD Prevention and Preparedness Act, is led by committee heads Joseph Lieberman, I-CT, and Susan Collins, R-ME. The markup of that bill continues next week.