Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), along with a panel of foreign policy and communications experts, spoke at the Heritage Foundation about creating a new organization to facilitate international communication and diplomacy. (more…)
Bruce I. Turner, acting director of the Office of European Security and Political Affairs from the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, says that nature of security threats have changed and that weapons of mass destruction have fallen into the hands of non-state actors. Turner points out that the emergence of competing powers has made it more important to cooperate with other countries which share the same values.(0:53)
Panelists discussed “Humanity as a Weapon of War,” a new report on the military’s role in humanitarian assistance written by Reuben Brigerty, at the Center of American Progress. Brigerty, Director of the Sustainable Security Program at CAP, said decisions being made at the Pentagon suggest the military is realizing that force alone is not an effective strategy in warfare.
Brigerty said his paper outlines the US military’s shift from a direct line of approach in times of conflict, a “kill or capture” technique, to a softer approach that recognizes the causes of insurgencies and works to alleviate them. He said the Department of Defense is beginning to see that humanitarian efforts are not only moral undertakings, but also national security operations. According to Brigerty, the US military benefits from humanitarian ventures by showing American goodwill to skeptical populations and by planting people in the field that can observe local sentiment. He also said the US public must realize, despite written evidence, that US security interests rely on diplomacy and the military equally.
Elisabeth Kvitashvili, deputy assistant administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, expressed discomfort with the military’s role in humanitarian efforts. She said USAID has called upon the military in the past to assist in a supportive role and added that civilian agencies like USAID and the Department of State should continue to lead development efforts. Kvitashvili said workers at the DoS and USAID have been trained development methods and that large-scale military participation in humanitarian assistance may cause recipients of aid to doubt the neutrality of non-military organizations.
Judge Arthur Brennan, who had served in Iraq in 2007 as the Director of the Office of Accountability and Transparency, says in a hearing titled “Have Bush Administration Reconstruction and Anti-Corruption Failures Undermined the U.S. Mission in Iraq?” that the Department of State misled the U.S. Congress, the American people, and the people of Iraq. He also says the Department of State contributed to the consequences of corruption, and that “billions of U.S. and Iraqi dollars have been lost, stolen, and wasted.” (0:46)
In the Democratic Policy Committee hearing “Have Bush Administration Reconstruction and Anti-Corruption Failures Undermined the U.S. Mission in Iraq?” Chairman Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) said the U.S. government had contributed to the culture of corruption in Iraq, and that corruption involved both Iraqi and American money. This was the fourteenth in a series of oversight hearings to examine contracting fraud, waste, and abuse in Iraq. (more…)
At the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on “Neglected Responsibilities: The U.S. Response to the Iraqi Refugee Crisis,” Congressman William Delahunt (D-MA) says that we cannot allow a breeding ground for terrorism to fester in the Middle East, and he says he suggests the vast numbers of refugees will produce terrorist of the future unless they are treated with respect and dignity. (:27)
At the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on “Neglected Responsibilities: The U.S. Response to the Iraqi Refugee Crisis,” Chairman Gary L. Ackerman, (D-NY) says that at the hearing last year, a witness said that the U.S. response to the refugee crisis could be the first step to rehabilitating our image in the Middle East and globally, but a year later, we have yet to seize that moment. (:23)
At the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on “Neglected Responsibilities: The U.S. Response to the Iraqi Refugee Crisis,” Chairman Gary L. Ackerman, (D-NY) said Congress increased to 5000 the number of Special Immigrant Visas available to Iraqis who worked for the United States. However, in terms of refugees, only 1,608 were resettled during Fiscal Year 2007. In order to reach the goal of 12,000 refugees resettled during this Fiscal Year, he said, the Administration would have to triple the number of refugees processed each month. A year later, and we have yet to “seize the moment” in terms of rehabilitating the image of the United States in the Middle East. (more…)
The 2009 Fiscal Year budget released today by the White House sets aside $39.5 billion for the Department of State (DoS) and other international programs.
$400 million of the budget will be allocated to U.S. personnel executing various functions in Iraq. Palestinians will receive $75 million to support the Fatah faction there while Lebanon will receive $142 million to support the western-backed Saniora government whose authority is being challenged by powerful opposition. The DoS says that Pakistan will receive $830 million “to achieve stability, development, and democracy goals…”
Israel will receive $2.55 billion in the first installment of a ten year plan to deliver $30 billion there. Israel will be by far the largest receiver of funds in the 2009 FY DoS Budget.
In Latin America, the DoS is setting aside $550 million to support the Merida Initiative which they say is aimed to address security concerns such as drug trafficking.
The DoS also announced plans to introduce 1,076 new positions within the department to provide staff with more education and training. 300 of these positions will be reserved for language instructors specifically to train personnel in “hard languages” such as Arabic, Farsi, and Chinese.
This year’s budget sees a $3.3 billion increase from the 2008 FY DoS budget which totaled $36.2 billion.
