Blog post

IAVA Daily Brief 11.24.09
Posted by Terrell Frazier on November 24

Here are some of today's top stories and happenings at IAVA.  Prefer to receive real-time updates about major stories and legislation that IAVA is tracking?  Follow us on Twitter @IAVAPressRoom.

MUST READS

1) Obama calls security meeting on Afghanistan

President Barack Obama called his war council together Monday as he moves toward a decision on whether to add more U.S. forces in Afghanistan. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said he's not aware of any more such strategy sessions being scheduled, the latest signal that Obama is closing in on a revamped war strategy after several weeks of review. Gibbs said the soonest Obama would announce a decision would be next week. Obama's discussion with his war advisers was expected to center on how and when any additional troops could be pulled back out of Afghanistan. Earlier this month, Obama rejected all of his war options in their current form, pushing instead for revisions to clarify when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, and under what conditions.

2) Major military contractor indicted for defrauding U.S. government

The Army says there will be an outside review of how body armor for its soldiers is tested. The Government Accountability Office said last month that the Army made mistakes in testing a new body armor design. And it recommended the process be reviewed before the armor is sent to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army maintains that no U.S. troops have been killed in combat as a result of any problems with the armor.

3) Obama, Mullen Send Thanksgiving Day Messages

President Barack Obama and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, released Thanksgiving messages Monday.  Obama recalled that President George Washington proclaimed the first public thanksgiving, and President Abraham Lincoln established the annual Thanksgiving Day holiday to mend the nation during the Civil War.  It is Thanksgiving as a unique American tradition that “binds us together as one people, each of us thankful for our common blessings,” the president said.

AFGHANISTAN

While the Pentagon has stated that each additional service member deployed to Afghanistan will cost the government roughly $500,000 a year, the White House has countered by saying that the total cost will be closer to twice that much. Now a memo leaked to the Los Angeles Times shows that the Pentagon agrees. In the memo, the Pentagon's comptroller recalculates the numbers, taking into account construction and security costs. Under this formula, the total cost of a 20,000-person surge would be $30 billion to $35 billion (about $750,000 per person), while a 40,000-person surge would cost between $20 billion to $25 billion—about the same at the White House prediction. Earlier estimates did not account for one-time costs like weapons purchases and new bases. In spite of the news, Obama has said that will he will not allow cost to affect his decision about how many additional troops to deploy.

The push to get low-level Taliban fighters to abandon the battlefield marks a "rare instance of high-level cooperation between the Afghan leader and his foreign patrons," reports the Los Angeles Times. President Hamid Karzai alluded to the program in his inaugural address last week, and his government will lead the initiative with lots of support from the United States, Britain, and NATO's force. It is "loosely modeled" on the "Sons of Iraq" program that is credited with decreasing violence in Iraq. In fact, Gen. Stanley McChrystal convinced one of the key players in designing the Iraq program to help in setting up the effort. Although Afghanistan had long run a program that supposedly pushed Taliban fighters to drop their weapons, "it is widely regarded as ineffective to the point of being something of a sham," says the LA Times. At first, the focus will be on low-level fighters, but it could eventually reach factions of the Taliban leadership.

The U.S. on Monday agreed to hand out millions of dollars in development aid to provinces in Afghanistan that have eliminated or reduced the production of opium poppies, the raw ingredient in making heroin. The poppy crop in Afghanistan, which produces 90 percent of the world's supply of opium, is linked to corruption, addiction and a drug trade that bankrolls the Taliban insurgency. Curbing the cultivation of poppies is the goal of a U.S. program that has doled out $80 million since 2007. That includes the $38.7 million the U.S. announced it is giving to 27 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces that either reduced poppy cultivation by more than 10 percent or became poppy-free this year.

IRAQ

Iraq's parliament amended the country's vetoed election law on Monday with a version that failed to appease Sunni Arabs, who fear they are being marginalized. The outcome prompted predictions of another veto and a delay in the elections slated for January. The dispute highlights the ethnic and sectarian divisions in Iraq. While more secure than in past years of war, the country has yet to achieve the political reconciliation vital to long-term stability.

After years of delay and dispute, a British inquiry began hearings Tuesday into the Iraq war — a conflict that stirred deep opposition here as former Prime Minister Tony Blair broke ranks with major European allies to join the United States as its leading ally in the 2003 invasion. “We want to establish a clear understanding of the various core elements of the U.K.’s involvement in Iraq, and how these developed over time,” the head of the inquiry, Sir John Chilcot, formerly the highest-ranking civil servant in the Northern Ireland Office, said in an opening statement. “What we are committed to, and what the British general public can expect from us, is a guarantee to be thorough, impartial, objective and fair.”

 MILITARY AFFAIRS

The Pentagon says its review of personnel, health and other policies in light of the Fort Hood massacre will be completed by January 15th. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the review last week, and named two former senior Pentagon officials to head it. Gates was meeting with those officials on Monday, and the review team was expected to soon visit the Fort Hood Army base. The Pentagon says the review will look at whether there are weaknesses in Defense Department policies that could leave other soldiers vulnerable. The review also will look at how the Army handled the case of accused shooter Nidal Hasan.

Meanwhile, Maj. Hasan, who has been charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood is paralyzed from the chest down and doctors believe his paralysis will be permanent, Hasan's lawyer said Sunday. Hasan will remain in confinement until his military trial. Over the weekend, it was revealed that Hasan had intensified his communication with the radical Yemeni American cleric in the months before the shooting. Hasan had even discussed ways to send money abroad without alerting the authorities. Hasan "clearly became more radicalized toward the end, and was having discussions related to the transfer of money and finances," said the Washington Post's source. "It became very clear toward the end of those e-mails he was interested in taking action."

The Head Up Display was invented for the military during World War II, projecting imagery on to the cockpit canopy so the pilot did not have to look down at his instruments. These days HUDs are standard in all sorts of aircraft and cars, and there are even swimming goggles which will display a lap counter for you Researchers at the University of Washington are inching closer to the next step: contact lenses as display devices. The potential for integrating this technology with contact lenses would allow troops to wear sunglasses, protective goggles, or a night-vision device while still getting HUD-style info.  The lenses might also act as a sensor, providing a non-invasive way of continually monitoring and displaying blood glucose and other health factors.

INSIDE WASHINGTON

The top U.S. general and the U.S ambassador in Afghanistan have been told to prepare to testify before Congress as early as next week, according to White House and other U.S. officials, giving an indication of how and when President Obama plans to announce his war strategy. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans have yet to be announced, said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry have not been given a date for their appearance before committees that would consider additional war funding requests. But, the officials said, the two have been told that their testimony would quickly follow Obama's announcement, so that they could offer details and support for the president's strategy for how to proceed with the eight-year-old war.

CONGRESSIONAL SCHEDULE

THE SENATE

The Senate will reconvene at 2:00p.m. on Monday, November 30

SENATE FLOOR ACTIVITY of INTEREST

 No issues today

COMMITTEE HEARINGS of INTEREST

No issues today

FUTURE COMMITTEE HEARINGS of INTEREST

No issues

THE HOUSE of  REPRESENTATIVES



The House will reconvene at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 2, 2009

HOUSE FLOOR ACTIVITY of INTEREST

No issues today

HOUSE COMMITTEE HEARINGS of  INTEREST



No issues today

FUTURE  HOUSE COMMITTEE HEARINGS of  INTEREST



December 2, 2009  Veterans’ Affairs Committee Hearing:  VA Health Care Funding: Appropriations to Programs  10:00 a.m.; 334 Cannon HOB

December 3, 2009  Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity Roundtable  1:00 p.m.; 334 Cannon HOB 

A wide-range of views, positions, and publications are represented in these articles. These views, positions and publications are not endorsed by nor do they necessarily represent the views of IAVA