Global and inter-agency communication

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.

Thornberry said that today's post-Sept. 11 national security issues require government agencies to work together for solutions. In addition, he said that this communication is important for international diplomacy to solve global issues. Thornberry proposed the creation of a private organization much like the United States Information Agency (USIA) which was dissolved in 1999, to reach this goal.

Dr. Michael Doran, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Support to Public Diplomacy, said that learning about the motivations and traditions of other cultures is extremely important for understanding policy positions and decisions in other nations. He also said that this understanding could only be facilitated through greater communication between nations.

James Dickmeyer, director of Foreign Press Centers at the State Department suggested that advanced communication would be easily established by working with international embassies and ambassadors, as these establishments best represent the interests of our nation abroad.

The battle of the biggest budget begins

The House Armed Services Committee began the long and tedious process of marking up the Defense Authorization bill for fiscal 2009. The markup is expected to go on throughout the day. The Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO), in his opening statement expressed his position that the war in Afghanistan should be the primary focus of the American military efforts in the Middle East. This runs somewhat contrary to statements made by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates when he spoke at the Heritage Foundation in Colorado Springs yesterday, "The risk of overextending the Army is real. But I believe the risk is far greater — to that institution, as well as to our country — if we were to fail in Iraq. That is the war we are in. That is the war we must win."

Skelton also said that the bill offered a pay increase for the military, a greater commitment to fighting weapons of mass destruction, and reforms for the contracting structure within the U.S. Army. He said that the bill addresses the command and control issues that have arisen in Afghanistan and the combined NATO operations there. Ranking Member Dunking Hunter (R-CA) emphasizes future combat systems funding and the need to increase the size of the Army.

The first subcommittee to present their markup and amendments was the Terrorism and Unconventional Threats and Capabilities. The subcommittee chairman Adam Smith (D-WA) said that they have authorized $185 million beyond the president's budget for special operations capabilities. The ranking member of the subcommittee, Mac Thorberry made the most political statement saying that fighting terrorism goes beyond the Armed Services Committee and that the failure to pass FISA in the House and the limits currently being extracted on intelligence officials' interrogation techniques increase, "Our potential vulnerability to new threats..." He spoke out against Nancy Pelosi saying that "no good deed goes unpunished" as she uses Iraq war funding and the Colombia Free Trade Agreement as leverage against President Bush.