The State Department was awarded a big slice of the
foreign military assistance pie in the President's new fiscal 2011 budget
request, $1.2 billion for Pakistani military training that was previously in
the hands of the Pentagon.
The
Cable has reported extensively on the
turf wars between State and Defense over authorities for a range of foreign
assistance funding, money that should logically go through State but has been
controlled by the Pentagon for a variety of reasons. The movement of the
Pakistani Counterinsurgency Capability Funding from DOD to State represents a
test of the State Department's ability to manage these types of new, large scale
foreign military assistance programs.
Some senior lawmakers have wanted the PCCF money to
be given to State for a while. Appropriators wanted to make the change in the
fiscal 2009 supplemental bill, but relented after Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both testified that
State wasn't ready to take on the mission at that time.
"I know there's been some concern
here on the Hill about whether this money ought to be in the State Department
or it ought to be in the Defense Department," Defense Secretary Robert Gates
told the Senate Appropriations Committee last April, "Part of the problem is
authorities and capacity in the State Department to be able to apply this money
with the agility Secretary Clinton was talking about."
PCCF received $400 million in the first tranche of
fiscal 2009 war funding. House Foreign Affairs chairman Howard Berman had directed
in his bill that the money should go to State but he eventually relented after
the administration made it clear that this wasn't wise.
This money is separate from the Kerry-Lugar Pakistan aid bill, which
authorized $1.5 billion in varied assistance to Pakistan over 5 years.
As we reported earlier, the State Department did not receive the so-called "1206"
money, which is also called "Global Train and Equip," but sources said that if
State does well with the PCCF fund, 1206 will be back on the table for fiscal
2012.
As for the "1207" funds, that did transfer over to State. That $100 million
will now be called the Complex Crises Fund, which is meant "to prevent or
respond to emerging or unforeseen crises that address reconstruction, security,
or stabilization needs."
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