U.S. Congress

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.

Lawmakers are actively but secretively trying to get to the bottom of the CIA's relationship with Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in light of the stunning New York Times article which cited unnamed sources stating he has been on the CIA's payroll for years while simultaneously facilitating massive drug trade in his region.

CIA Director Leon Panetta met with several Senators on both sides of the aisle Thursday behind closed doors and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry, D-MA, has submitted a formal request for information detailing the Agency's relationship with Karzai the brother.

Following his meeting with Panetta, Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, D-MI, said that he would not disclose what Panetta told him but that on the question of Ahmed Wali Karzai's relationship with the CIA, he had gotten some clarity.

"I think we know [about his relationship with the CIA] but I can't share that with you," Levin said, adding mysteriously, "I don't know that Karzai's brother is on the CIA payroll."

On the issue of whether or not the President's brother is facilitating the drug trade near Kandahar, lawmakers who are in the loop seem more confident and willing to publicly express their concerns.

"According to credible people, the President's brother is involved in various illicit activities," said Armed Services ranking Republican John McCain, R-AZ, "We can't have that."

McCain reiterated his call that Ahmed Wali Karzai should leave the country immediately.

Kerry was the only senior lawmaker to issue a statement expressing his frustration about not being aware of the relationship.

In an interview with The Cable, Kerry said although the CIA relationship with Karzai might not necessarily be nefarious, Congress had a right to know the details.

"If the CIA has a deal, I want to know what the realities are," he said, "I want to examine the relationships and know what the terms are and understand what's the impacts of that might or might not be."

"It may not be something you want to deal with publicly, but we have to be absolutely certain that nothing we are trying to do is being compromised," said Kerry.

The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee have been notably mum on the subject, presumably working behind the scenes.

Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, refused to comment and a spokesperson for ranking Republican Kit Bond, R-MO, said that Bond would only say the news shouldn't result in any delay in President Obama's decision on how to move forward in Afghanistan.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, D-WV, the immediate past chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said that he was not aware of the CIA's relationship with Karzai during his tenure but should have been.

"You know what the problem is? We on the committee own no intelligence," he said, "We only get what they choose to give us. That's why we are always fighting."

Before John Kerry could wind down from his whirlwind tour of South Asia this week, the U.S. Senate moved to pass new restrictions on aid to Pakistan, the thorny issue that required the senator to go to Islamabad in the first place.

Kerry was there to reassure Pakistanis that the U.S. was not infringing on their sovereignty after the botched rollout of the $7.5 billion Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid package angered many in Islamabad. Conditions on the relatively small proportion of military aid in that bill were not well received, and sparked a harsh reaction from both the Pakistani military and anti-American political elements there.

With that situation largely ameliorated, the Senate may have given Kerry a new headache today. There are several conditions on billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Pakistan found in the fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill that has just now gone to President Obama's desk for signing.

The conditions include monitoring of goods and services the U.S. is giving to Pakistan and reports by the U.S. administration certifying that the money is being spent in ways that contribute to U.S. interests.

Congressional Quarterly's John Donnelly dug out all the details (subscription only):

One provision affects the $1.6 billion the bill would authorize for a Coalition Support Fund to reimburse other countries, mostly Pakistan, for logistical and military support for counterinsurgency operations. The funds, like those for all the aid programs, are appropriated separately, in this case by the Defense spending measure (HR 3326), which a House-Senate conference is writing.

The Coalition Support Fund has accounted for 70 percent of the $12.3 billion in American military and non-military aid to Pakistan since Sept. 11, 2001 - money the U.S. government had little insight into or oversight of, according to a February report from the Government Accountability Office.

The defense authorization measure would require that, before any more such money is spent, the secretaries of Defense and State must certify that doing so is in the U.S. national interest and will not adversely affect the region's balance of power - a polite way of saying the money should not be spent on weapons aimed at India.

And in a provision that an aide said reflects congressional discontent with a lack of controls over the reimbursement program, the measure would require the administration to look for a new approach to garnering Pakistan's support for military operations.

Another certification is required before the Pentagon can begin spending any of the $700 million it might receive from requested State Department appropriations in the coming fiscal year for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund. That program, begun in fiscal 2009, is meant to train and equip the Pakistani military to fight insurgents and terrorists on its territory.

The defense authorization bill would require that, before those funds start to flow, the Defense secretary must certify to Congress that Pakistan is making "concerted efforts" to fight al Qaeda and the Taliban on the basis that Pakistan sees such initiatives as in its own interest...

Finally, after the bill becomes law, the president would have to report to Congress every 180 days on "progress toward long-term security and stability in Pakistan," including the effectiveness of security assistance to Pakistan in contributing to the goal of defeating al Qaeda. The report would have to include goals, timelines and measures of progress.

If I were Kerry, I wouldn't put away my travel toothbrush just yet...

Jim DeMint is ready to release his holds against two top administration Latin America appointees, the South Carolina senator told The Cable, and he predicts the State Department will soon recognize the upcoming Honduran elections as legitimate.

In an exclusive interview, DeMint said he was seeing signs of movement from the State Department related to U.S. policy toward Honduras and that he had come close to an agreement over his hold in his meeting earlier this week with Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon.

"We got a lot of agreement in the area of coming to terms with recognizing the upcoming elections there," DeMint said of his meeting with Shannon."That's what I'm waiting for from our government, signals that we're going to recognize those elections and move forward."

"I'm anxious to release both of the holds, but I'm not going to do that until I see some positive movements from the administration," he added.

DeMint is singularly holding up Shannon's nomination to become ambassador to Brazil as well as the nomination of Arturo Valenzuela to take Shannon's post. Shannon just returned from Honduras, where he met with de facto regime leader Roberto Micheletti as part of an Organization of American States delegation.

The State Department had been freezing out the Micheletti government, refusing to deal with its leaders directly and even pulling their visas to visit the United States. But as Micheletti gets closer to an agreement with ousted former President Manuel Zelaya, DeMint said the State Department would have no choice but to adjust its approach.

DeMint credited the congressional delegations that have visited Tegucigalpa, including one he led personally, with loosening the State Department's stance. He predicted that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would come out in support of the elections once the two sides in Honduras come to terms, but noted that Shannon wasn't yet ready to go that far.

"He realized that it is essential that these elections go forward and are recognized," DeMint said of Shannon. "But he did not say they are ready to recognize them."

Now that the House has passed Barney Frank's Iran divestment bill, the attention turns to the Senate, where Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback is working to advance his companion measure.

Both pieces of legislation have basically the same idea, to allow both public and private entities to more easily rid themselves of investments in the Iranian economy. The measure is being sold as a way to tweak Iran without actually imposing new sanctions.

After the House passed its version by a 414-6 vote, Brownback said he would try to add his bill as an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill, which is on the Senate floor this week.

"I think we've got a pretty good shot at getting it moved. I haven't heard of any opposition to it," Brownback told The Cable.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-CT, has another Iran sanctions bill that would crack down on refined petroleum exports to Iran and seek to freeze Iranian financial assets.

"You're going to see the banking committee come up with a bundle of steps and there's going to be broad bipartisan support for that as well," Brownback said.

The administration wants Dodd to wait until its ongoing engagement push with Iran plays out. But Dodd is set on moving forward in his committee this month.

As the long wait for an appointment of an administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development continues, the development community in Washington is looking at the State Department's once-in-four-years policy review for clues about the fate of the agency.

The future of USAID was the main topic of interest at Wednesday's conference put on by the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition and featuring a panel with Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew, Director of Policy Planning Anne-Marie Slaughter (above left), and acting USAID Administrator Alonzo Fulgham.

Development-community sources said that the administration has its pick for USAID administrator in mind, but that person has told the White House he won't accept the job until questions about his role and authorities are settled.

More generally, the independency of the agency, its ability to have an intellectual identity, and its control over its own funding are all at stake in State's ongoing review, which is called the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, or QDDR.

Lew gave only hints about how the QDDR would settle these questions, but he seemed clear that USAID was on its way to becoming a more, not less, integrated part of the State Department.

"We're seeing a lot of the development versus diplomacy line starting to disappear ... and I think that's ultimately going to be the path to success," he said.

Slaughter struck a slightly different tone. "The vision that the secretary has coming out of the QDDR is of a much stronger, much better-resourced USAID ... and better integrated in the counsels of decision in every country," she said. "What we want to make sure is that we've got equal strength on the diplomacy side and the development side."

Many attendees lamented that USAID had lost its policy-planning staff and budget power under former Secretary Condoleezza Rice.

"An immediate action that can be taken, you don't need the QDDR or anything else ... is to recreate the policy-planning office in USAID and its budget function so they can give guidance to Alonzo when he meets people on other sides of the agency," said Irving Rosenthal, a former USAID official.

"I couldn't agree more," said Fulgham, adding, "We‘ve got to get our house in order."

Lew also said the administration could not comment yet on the many USAID-related bills sitting in Congress until the QDDR was complete. Senate Foreign Relations Committee heads John Kerry, D-MA, and Richard Lugar, D-IN, have a bill aimed at rebuilding the agency, increasing funding, and updating the authorizations established over 20 years ago.

House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Howard Berman, D-CA, has a bill in his chamber that would call on the administration to put forth a comprehensive global development policy. And Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), and Ben Cardin, D-MD introduced a resolution Tuesday aimed at strengthening the agency and its future leader.

"What's a little bit difficult is to take positions while you're still reviewing, before you've reached your own conclusions," he said.

Lew warned that State wouldn't try to solve every problem in this, its first attempt at a comprehensive review, saying, "Don't think that the first QDDR will answer all the questions."

FILE; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News