CommunityEditor
04-15-2008, 11:51 PM
The idea of boosting the number of multiagency government civilians involved in national defense and better coordinating their efforts in tandem with the military — shortfalls that became apparent after the 2003 invasion of Iraq — appears to have drawn broad support.
The personnel shortfalls had their genesis in the post-Cold War drawdown of the 1990s, when the number of State Department Foreign Service Officers slipped dramatically to the current total of a little less than 6,500.
That was according to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who testified before the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday in a joint appearance with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
“I think Bob Gates has said that’s somewhere near the number of people in ... military bands or Pentagon lawyers,” Rice told the committee.
Gates interrupted her. “A lot more lawyers,” he said with a wry grin, drawing chuckles from the committee and observers.
Rice has asked Congress to fund another 1,100 FSOs and 300 new positions at the Agency for International Development. And Gates and Rice, as well as most if not all committee members, said they agree that at the very least, government agencies need to do a better job of working together, particularly when it comes to fighting terrorism.
“We are facing a continuum between war and peace,” Rice said. “Countries with which we are not at war but which we must make capable of waging counterterrorism operations, countries that have emerged from war but are not yet in a position in which they are stable and in which we are still helping them to fight terrorists in their midst or insurgencies in their midst.
“And this is why the ability of the Department of State and the Department of Defense to work together in these environments is so crucial to our success.”
The question is how to get these and other agencies together beyond the most visible examples, like the provincial reconstruction teams hailed by on-the-ground U.S. commanders as integral to the rebuilding efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Another example is State’s proposal to create an expeditionary Civilian Response Corps that would deploy alongside a military unit such as the 82nd Airborne Division within 48 hours of a conflict breaking out, providing expertise from doctors, lawyers, engineers, agricultural experts, police officers and public administrators.
Possibilities raised Tuesday ran from “chipping away” at change in the short term, as Gates put it, to launching wide-ranging legislation similar to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which mandated joint military cooperation. Another would give one cabinet secretary “uber-authority” over multiple agencies.
The big question, of course, is money. The Pentagon’s budget is by far the largest of the agencies involved, raising questions about whether, in a tight budget environment, a rebalancing of spending on the relevant agencies would come at the Pentagon’s expense.
The State Department’s budget of $34 billion, for instance, is a fraction of the Pentagon’s — less than the Defense Department spends on health care, Gates said.
Yet while funding has been boosted in recent years, the increases were “almost immediately swallowed up” by the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rice said.
The Pentagon is authorized to transfer up to $100 million annually to the State Department for the furnishing of reconstruction, security and stabilization aid. But such transfers generally are drawn from the Pentagon’s critical operations and maintenance funds, said Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the committee chairman.
And while the work often involves budding democracies in poor countries that can ill afford such assistance, oil-rich Iraq jumped to the fore during questions by Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C.
Some have said Iraq is earning more than enough from its vast oil resources to pay for most, if not all, of its reconstruction costs. Jones said U.S. allies bordering Iraq also should be contributing much more.
“I’m pumping gas,” Jones said. “People around me are buying gas. In the year 2001, the gas was $1.42 [a gallon] for 87 octane. It’s now $3.36, even higher in some places, for the same 87 octane. These countries who are making a profit on that $3.36 per gallon cost of 87 octane — it’s our men and women who are losing their legs and their arms, it’s our responsibility as a government to take care of them for the next 30 years.
“When I look at this growing debt and spending roughly $12 billion a month in Iraq, why can’t we make the Middle East, the rich countries, pay their bills to this country?”
Rice said she has repeatedly asked those nations to do so and would repeat the request at an April 22 “neighbors conference” in Kuwait.
Security concerns have precluded work on previously pledged projects, but security in Iraq has improved, she said.
Within the U.S. government, however, the problem is not one of willingness to share.
“A big part of the problem that we face here is not a lack of will, but a lack of capability,” Gates said.
The Treasury Department recently sent about a dozen experts to Baghdad to help Iraqi agencies with budget execution, he said. And other agencies also are contributing.
“But it’s been a long start-up time,” Gates said.
One problem is that Congress does not have a broad, all-encompassing view of what each executive agency brings to national security because each reports to different committees that rarely overlap.
To solve this, Gates said, Congress could form some sort of “overarching joint committee” with representatives from each concerned committee.
That would give congressional leadership “an integrated look at the balance of resources going one place or the other,” Gates said.
Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/04/military_cooperation_041508w/
The personnel shortfalls had their genesis in the post-Cold War drawdown of the 1990s, when the number of State Department Foreign Service Officers slipped dramatically to the current total of a little less than 6,500.
That was according to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who testified before the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday in a joint appearance with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
“I think Bob Gates has said that’s somewhere near the number of people in ... military bands or Pentagon lawyers,” Rice told the committee.
Gates interrupted her. “A lot more lawyers,” he said with a wry grin, drawing chuckles from the committee and observers.
Rice has asked Congress to fund another 1,100 FSOs and 300 new positions at the Agency for International Development. And Gates and Rice, as well as most if not all committee members, said they agree that at the very least, government agencies need to do a better job of working together, particularly when it comes to fighting terrorism.
“We are facing a continuum between war and peace,” Rice said. “Countries with which we are not at war but which we must make capable of waging counterterrorism operations, countries that have emerged from war but are not yet in a position in which they are stable and in which we are still helping them to fight terrorists in their midst or insurgencies in their midst.
“And this is why the ability of the Department of State and the Department of Defense to work together in these environments is so crucial to our success.”
The question is how to get these and other agencies together beyond the most visible examples, like the provincial reconstruction teams hailed by on-the-ground U.S. commanders as integral to the rebuilding efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Another example is State’s proposal to create an expeditionary Civilian Response Corps that would deploy alongside a military unit such as the 82nd Airborne Division within 48 hours of a conflict breaking out, providing expertise from doctors, lawyers, engineers, agricultural experts, police officers and public administrators.
Possibilities raised Tuesday ran from “chipping away” at change in the short term, as Gates put it, to launching wide-ranging legislation similar to the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which mandated joint military cooperation. Another would give one cabinet secretary “uber-authority” over multiple agencies.
The big question, of course, is money. The Pentagon’s budget is by far the largest of the agencies involved, raising questions about whether, in a tight budget environment, a rebalancing of spending on the relevant agencies would come at the Pentagon’s expense.
The State Department’s budget of $34 billion, for instance, is a fraction of the Pentagon’s — less than the Defense Department spends on health care, Gates said.
Yet while funding has been boosted in recent years, the increases were “almost immediately swallowed up” by the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Rice said.
The Pentagon is authorized to transfer up to $100 million annually to the State Department for the furnishing of reconstruction, security and stabilization aid. But such transfers generally are drawn from the Pentagon’s critical operations and maintenance funds, said Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the committee chairman.
And while the work often involves budding democracies in poor countries that can ill afford such assistance, oil-rich Iraq jumped to the fore during questions by Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C.
Some have said Iraq is earning more than enough from its vast oil resources to pay for most, if not all, of its reconstruction costs. Jones said U.S. allies bordering Iraq also should be contributing much more.
“I’m pumping gas,” Jones said. “People around me are buying gas. In the year 2001, the gas was $1.42 [a gallon] for 87 octane. It’s now $3.36, even higher in some places, for the same 87 octane. These countries who are making a profit on that $3.36 per gallon cost of 87 octane — it’s our men and women who are losing their legs and their arms, it’s our responsibility as a government to take care of them for the next 30 years.
“When I look at this growing debt and spending roughly $12 billion a month in Iraq, why can’t we make the Middle East, the rich countries, pay their bills to this country?”
Rice said she has repeatedly asked those nations to do so and would repeat the request at an April 22 “neighbors conference” in Kuwait.
Security concerns have precluded work on previously pledged projects, but security in Iraq has improved, she said.
Within the U.S. government, however, the problem is not one of willingness to share.
“A big part of the problem that we face here is not a lack of will, but a lack of capability,” Gates said.
The Treasury Department recently sent about a dozen experts to Baghdad to help Iraqi agencies with budget execution, he said. And other agencies also are contributing.
“But it’s been a long start-up time,” Gates said.
One problem is that Congress does not have a broad, all-encompassing view of what each executive agency brings to national security because each reports to different committees that rarely overlap.
To solve this, Gates said, Congress could form some sort of “overarching joint committee” with representatives from each concerned committee.
That would give congressional leadership “an integrated look at the balance of resources going one place or the other,” Gates said.
Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2008/04/military_cooperation_041508w/