Showing posts with label SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE. Show all posts

Friday, May 8, 2015

SECRETARY CARTER TESTIFIES BEFORE SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

FROM:  U..S DEFENSE DEPARTMENT

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee in Washington, D.C., May 6, 2015. DoD Photo by Glenn Fawcett   

Carter Urges Senators to Support Stable Defense Budget
By Cheryl Pellerin
DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, May 6, 2015 – Slashed budgets and high worldwide demand for U.S. military forces have created an unbalanced defense program that is taking on increasingly greater risks, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a Senate panel this morning.

The secretary testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee on the Defense Department’s fiscal year 2016 budget request. Joining him was Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“Over the past three fiscal years the Defense Department has taken more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars in cuts to its future-years defense spending,” Carter said.

The frequently sudden and unpredictable timing and nature of the cuts and continued uncertainty over sequestration have made the stresses greater, he added, forcing DoD to make a series of incremental, inefficient decisions.
A Tumultuous World

“Even as budgets have dropped precipitously, our forces have been responding to unexpectedly high demand from a tumultuous world,” the secretary said.
Carter said he believes the result is an unbalanced defense program.
“We’ve been forced to prioritize force structure and readiness over modernization, taking on risks in capabilities and infrastructure that are far too great,” he added.

“High demands on smaller force structure mean the equipment and capabilities of too many components of the military are growing too old, too fast -- from our nuclear deterrent to our tactical forces,” Carter told the panel.
A Road to Nowhere

The secretary said that in recent weeks some in Congress have tried to give DoD its full fiscal year 2016 budget request by transferring funds from the base budget into DoD accounts for overseas contingency operations, or OCO –- funds that are meant to fund the incremental, temporary costs of overseas conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

“While this approach clearly recognizes that the budget total we’ve requested is needed, the avenue it takes is just as clearly a road to nowhere,” Carter said, explaining that President Barack Obama has said he won’t accept a budget that locks in sequestration going forward, as this approach does.

“And he won’t accept a budget that severs the link between our national security and economic security,” the secretary added, “[so] legislation that implements this budget framework will … be subject to veto.”

If the Defense Department and Congress don’t find a different path by fall when a budget is needed, Carter said, the department will again have to make hasty and drastic decisions.

‘Holding the Bag’

“The Joint Chiefs and I are concerned that if our congressional committees continue to advance this idea and don’t explore alternatives we’ll all be left holding the bag,” Carter said, adding that the OCO approach does nothing to reduce the deficit.

“Most importantly,” he added, “because it doesn’t provide a stable multi-year budget horizon, this one-year approach is managerially unsound and unfairly dispiriting to our force. Our military personnel and their families deserve to know their future more than just one year at a time -- and not just them.”
Defense industry partners also need stability and longer-term plans to be efficient and cutting-edge, Carter said, “[and] … as a nation we need to base our defense budgeting on a long-term military strategy, and that’s not a one-year project.”
Such a funding approach reflects a narrow way of looking at national security, the secretary said.

Ignoring Vital Contributions

Year-to-year funding “ignores the vital contributions made by the State Department, the Justice Department, the Treasury Department and the Homeland Security Department,” he said.

And it disregards the enduring long-term connection between the nation’s security and factors like supporting the U.S. technological edge with scientific research and development, educating a future all-volunteer military force, and bolstering the general economic strength of the nation, Carter said.

“Finally, the secretary added, “I’m also concerned that how we deal with the budget is being watched by the rest of the world -– by our friends and potential foes alike. It could give a misleadingly diminished picture of America’s great strength and resolve.”

A Better Solution

To create a better solution than the one now being considered, he said, “I hope we can come together for a longer-term, multi-year agreement that provides the budget stability we need by locking in defense and nondefense budget levels consistent with the president’s request.”

Carter pledged his personal support and that of the department to this effort, and, he told the panel, “I would like to work with each of you, as well as other leaders and members of Congress, to this end.”

Friday, March 6, 2015

MARINE COMMANDANT TELLS CONGRESS BUDGET CONSTRAINTS CAUSING PRIORITIZING OF READINESS

FROM:  U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
Marine Commandant Outlines Budget-based Priority Shifts
By Amaani Lyle
DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, March 5, 2015 – The Marine Corps has adjusted to budget constraints by prioritizing the readiness of forward deployed forces, the service’s top officer told Congress yesterday.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. told the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee that amid budget uncertainty, the Marine Corps will strive to meet America’s expectations to successfully operate forward, engage with partners, deter potential adversaries and respond to crises, with 31,000 Marines currently forward deployed and engaged.

Recent Marine Corps missions, Dunford reported, include support to U.S. citizen evacuations in Sudan, Libya and Yemen, ongoing strikes in Syria and Iraq, Iraqi army training and U.S. Embassy protection in Baghdad.

Concurrently, 22,500 Marines remain west of the International Date Line in support of the U.S. rebalance to the Pacific region, the general said.
Budget Informs Decisions

The budget informs how the Marine Corps mans, trains and equips, Dunford said, and also informs how it prioritizes and allocates resources Congress allows.
“I can assure that your forward-deployed Marines are well-trained, well-led and well-equipped,” he told the senators, “but we’ve had to make tough choices to deal with the effects of two wars, sequestration in 2013, and reduced budgets in 2014 and 2015.”

But forward-deployed force readiness, Dunford acknowledged, has come at the expense of investments in home-station readiness, modernization, infrastructure sustainment and quality-of-life programs.

“Approximately half of our nondeployed units … who would respond to unforeseen contingencies suffer personnel, equipment or training shortfalls,” the general said. “In a major conflict, those shortfalls will result in a delayed response and/or the unnecessary loss of young American lives.”

Failure to Modernize Threatens Competitive Advantage

Over time, underinvesting in modernization will force the Marine Corps to maintain older, degraded or obsolete equipment at a higher cost, the commandant said. “It will eventually ruin our competitive advantage,” he added, “and we don’t ever want our Marines and sailors in a fair fight.”

Ultimately, the Marine Corps can meet defense strategic guidance requirements with the president’s fiscal year 2016 budget request, but there is no margin attached to that bottom line, Dunford emphasized.

“Funding below the president’s budget level will require we develop a new strategy,” the general told the Senate panel.

Budget Control Act funding levels, which currently require a return to sequestration spending cuts, would exacerbate the current readiness state, forcing of the Marine Corps to reduce the size of battalions and squadrons required to respond immediately to crises involving diplomatic posts, Americans citizens or U.S. interests.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

SECRETARY KERRY'S OPENING REMARKS BEFORE SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN OPERATIONS

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
FY2016 U.S. Department of State Budget Hearing
Testimony
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Opening Remarks Before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Foreign Operations
Washington, DC
February 24, 2015

Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you very, very much. It’s really a pleasure to be here with you today and with all my former colleagues and several of my non-former. But I deeply appreciate the opportunity to testify. And I welcome your chairmanship, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member Leahy’s continued efforts on this committee. I have always found this committee has worked very hard to be bipartisan or apolitical and find the important middle ground for America, and I appreciate those efforts.

To respect your time, I’m going to summarize. The heart of my message, Mr. Chairman, is really pretty straightforward, and you spoke to it in your own opening. We do an awful lot on very little, and the simple reality is that America is leading all around the world. I’m not going to go through all the places where we are literally taking the lead and making things happen, whether it’s pushing back in parts of Asia against potentially aggressive behavior; or it’s Ebola, the coalition to deal with that; the ISIL coalition; Syria; Ukraine, Europe, sanctions; the effort to negotiate with Iran. I can run a long list.

The bottom line I want to make to all of you is we’re a great country, and we need to behave like a great country. And when it comes to the issue of sequestration, it’s kind of a public admission that the Congress is unwilling to or unable to make choices. Our job is to make choices, all of us. And the simple fact is we cannot lead, we cannot do what we need to do in the world, on the cheap. As this committee knows well, the funds that we devote to the entire range of foreign policy programming – everything from our counterterrorism to nonproliferation initiatives, to helping businesspeople and travelers be able to open doors, get their visas, move through rapidly, do business in various countries, all of which creates jobs here at home, may I add – all of that amounts to less than 1 percent of the federal budget.

And yet I make – it’s not an exaggeration to say that that 1 percent probably has an impact on 50 percent or more of the history that will be written about this era. So I invite members of this committee to work with me and my colleagues to shape that history in ways that will advance our nation’s interests and uphold the values that our citizens represent. And that is really what a budget is – it is a statement of your priorities and of your values.

Now, one place to begin is with our efforts to mobilize countries everywhere to counter violent terrorism. Last week here in Washington, but every day around the globe, literally, we are preparing and acting to confront this challenge, and it goes well beyond ISIL or Daesh, although Daesh obviously is a central part of it.

Since September, we’ve put together a coalition of more than 60 countries with 5 Arab nations joining us in the efforts in Syria today. We’ve launched some 2,500 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. And whenever we have combined our air support with able partners on the ground, the terrorists have literally been routed. We’ve helped the Iraqis to take back territory. Approximately 30 percent of the territory that had been gained by ISIL has now been restored to Iraqi hands, and we are training the Iraqis and preparing for the moment where they can do more. Thousands of ISIL-Daesh leaders have been taken off the battlefield. We’re undertaking a global effort to restrict their revenues, curb the recruitment of foreign fighters. And we’re engaged in a round-the-clock campaign to rebut the terrorist messaging on social media and on other outlets.

Now, we are in the early stages of what is going to be a multi-year effort, but the momentum that ISIL had built up last fall, last summer, has dissipated. A key supply line has been completely severed. ISIL militants can no longer maneuver out in the open the way they did before. Convoys can’t move and they can’t talk to each other the way they used to.

Throughout, the coalition has been working closely with Iraq. And obviously – we’ve said from day one: President Obama made the right choice in saying that he was going to calibrate the early bombing in order to try to make certain that we had a government transition in Iraq that gave us a government we could work with. And frankly, with pretty effective diplomacy on the ground – with our ambassador, our assistant secretary, the Vice President, others – we were able to help the Iraqis themselves to make that transition. And now we have an inclusive government backed by professional security forces that are enjoying the full support of its people.

So we’re looking to you for the resources to help us be able to continue to bring Sunni tribal leaders more fully into this process. It’s also important that Iraqis speak against Daesh with one voice. And it’s vital that Americans and the rest of our partners do so as well. The leaders of Daesh have to understand that they’re not going to divide us and they’re not going to beat us. Earlier this month, the President transmitted to Congress a draft Authorization for Use of Military Force. It reflects our views, but frankly, it profited greatly from the testimony that I gave the Foreign Relations Committee last December and the discussions we had on the Hill.

Mr. Chairman, bringing people together and finding answers to these tough challenges is what we do in our country, I think pretty darn well. And if we get caught trying to make a difference in many of these places, then we’re living up to what the world expects from us.

In Europe, we’ve been supporting Ukraine. We can go into that in some greater detail. I won’t tie it all up now except to say that we’re working also on the bilateral economic reforms necessary and through the IMF. And while the situation in the east obviously still remains very tricky, very tenuous, even grim, the ultimate outcome is undecided and Ukrainians are coming together to rebuild their own democracy. And Europe is standing firm, and Russia is paying a very significant price.

We are focused, obviously, on Iran. The President has made clear – I want to – I can’t state this more firmly: The policy is Iran will not get a nuclear weapon. And anybody running around right now jumping in to say, “Well, we don’t like the deal,” or this or that, doesn’t know what the deal is. There is no deal yet. And I caution people to wait and see what these negotiations produce. Since 2013, we have been testing whether or not we can achieve that goal diplomatically. I don’t know yet. But it’s the most effective way to solve a problem, and we will prove that over the course of these next weeks and months. The P5+1 talks have made inroads since the Joint Plan of Action. We’ve halted the progress of Tehran’s nuclear program, we’ve gained unprecedented insight into it, and we expect to know soon whether or not Iran is willing to put together an acceptable and verifiable plan.

As you know, in December, President Obama announced plans to normalize relations with Cuba. Last month, Assistant Secretary of State Jacobson went to the island for historic meetings with the government. The next meeting will take place here on Friday. We’ll exclusively be talking about the road to the diplomatic process.

But she conveyed the message echoed by many of you that America’s support for democratic reforms, human rights, internet freedom, and the release of political prisoners is unequivocal. And the change that we are making, we believe, actually assists the United States to be able to promote the democracy and the rights that we want for the people of Cuba. It will also make it harder for those who want to close the door to blame America for what is happening there, and we believe, in the end, can help create accountability for the hardships that those folks live under.

So Mr. Chairman, much has happened since my last budget testimony. For example, in the wake of a fractious election, we have helped Afghanistan’s new unity government to come together to build on the past economic and social progress and take full responsibility for the security of its citizens. I was intimately involved in both negotiating the BSA and this transition. And I can tell you there is a very different process of governance now taking hold in Kabul in Afghanistan.

In addition, we led a successful international effort that eliminated Syria’s declared stockpile of chemical weapons, placing those weapons beyond the reach of both government forces and terrorists. And I ask you just to stop and think: If we hadn’t done that – there were many people saying all you have to do is drop a bomb or two. Well, a bomb or two would not have gotten the weapons out. Diplomacy got the weapons out. And thank God they’re out, because if they weren’t, ISIS, which controls a significant portion of Syria, would have access to them.

So we’ve been modernizing our alliances in the Asia Pacific, maintaining our steadfast support for the denuclearized Korean Peninsula, we’re pursuing ambitious trade agreements in Europe and Asia, and last August, as you know, President Obama hosted an historic summit with African leaders. Especially we’re moving forward in the areas of food security, youth leadership, and the economic participation of women. We’ve supported peace operations by the UN and African Union to save civilian lives. And our former colleague Russ Feingold did an outstanding job of serving as a special envoy to the Great Lakes region and helping to negotiate an end to the violence with M23 and a process for the disarmament which we are now working on enforcing.

We have PEPFAR, which you mentioned, Mr. Chairman. With congressional support, we’ve been able to further reduce HIV infections, create an AIDS-free generation; that’s what we’re on the cusp of. And there are many other challenges, obviously, on that continent. We’ve also been leading on the environment, on the oceans and marine sanctuaries, promoting democracy and good governance, supporting human rights and religious liberty.

And I’d just close by saying to you, Mr. Chairman, Dean Acheson served as Secretary of State in 1949-1953 in the shadow of World War II. And he wrote that the problems that bedevil American foreign policy are not like headaches that can be cured by taking an aspirin and getting a good night’s sleep. He wrote, “All our lives, the danger, the uncertainty, the need for alertness, for effort, for discipline, will be upon us.”

It is true today, never more so in many ways. Those words remind us that we long ago entered an era of ever-present danger. And the test of our leadership has never been to completely be able to eliminate those risks because that’s just probably not possible. The test has been whether we can manage them decisively over time in ways that reduce the peril and strengthen the forces of democracy, humanity, justice, law, human rights. And that is precisely the task that confronts us today, and I believe that once again, the United States of America is answering that call.

And I want to express our gratitude to the young men and women in uniform around the world who bear an enormous amount of this burden of helping us to do that; also to the average Americans who contribute to civil society; the work of our development professionals who put themselves at risk; to journalists who have lost lives covering these challenges; and also to you, the members of Congress who travel, who learn about these countries, who set the international gold standard, frankly, for meeting with our partners overseas and thinking constantly about how we best harness our resources to address the world’s problem.

So like Secretary Acheson, we’ve had our share of headaches, and this is an explosive moment in the world. But the transition that’s taking place is really a emergence, really, of people from a kind of darkness, a recognition that we’re living in a new modern global world where everybody’s in touch with everybody all of the time, that raises the possibilities and also raises the stakes. And it obviously pushes back against culture, against learning, against people’s beliefs. So we’re in an era of uncertainty, but I’ll tell you this: One thing remains absolutely sure. This Administration, the United States, I’m convinced this Congress, are absolutely prepared to answer the call.

And with that, Mr. Chairman, I’d be delighted to answer any questions.

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