Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

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Senate Democrats Propose 7-Month Continuing Resolution

Last Friday, Senate Democrats released a summary of their version of a Continuing Resolution for the rest of FY 2011 that would cut $51 billion from the President’s FY 2011 request compared to the $100 billion that the House cut in HR 1.

The Senate CR proposes $2.327 billion for the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account, which is $360 million below the FY 2011 request but nearly $300 million more than HR 1. The bill summary states that this level of funding maintains U.S. efforts to secure vulnerable nuclear materials in 4 years.

I have not seen a figure for the Defense Department’s Cooperative Threat Reduction program or the State Department’s nuclear security programs.  The draft Senate CR funds the Pentagon base budget at $513.6 billion and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at $157.8 billion for a total of $671.3 billion. That total is $17.3 billion less than the President’s request and $2.1 billion less than HR 1.

Also of note, the Senate CR provides $6.824 billion for NNSA’s weapons activities account, which is $185 million below the FY 2011 request but over $120 million more than HR 1.

The Senate will hold stand-alone votes on both HR 1 and the Senate Democratic alternative this week (probably tomorrow), both of which are likely to fail to achieve cloture.  Negotiations will then begin on a full year CR.  However the House and the Senate may not be able to reconcile their differences before the current two week CR expires on March 18, meaning there will likely be yet another short term CR to fund the government through the rest of March.

The Senate proposal for the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account is an improvement over the House proposal, but it is still not enough. The number in the draft Senate CR is likely to be the high-water mark for NNSA’s nonproliferation budget for the next two years unless the administration and members of Congress make a strong push for the full FY2011 request.

Official Discomfort with Afghanistan War?

By: John Isaacs

While key Administration officials continue to vigorously support the war in Afghanistan, there appears to be a less-than-enthusiastic larger view about the war.

Take Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. In his recent speech at West Point, he pointed out:

“In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”

That does not sound like a high level official who thinks that the United States military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq were bang up good ideas. Gates is not advocating getting out; he just does not think getting in was smart.

This skepticism was amplified at a February 17, 2011 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. There, Admiral Michael Mullen (USN), Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not make the situation in Afghanistan sound exactly rosy.

Mullen thinks that the military situation in Afghanistan is going well: “On the military side, Senator McCain, I’m probably — I’m more optimistic than I’ve been.” [unofficial transcript]

The other aspects of the war are not so hot.

“But on the political side, the economic side, I — it’s — at least from my perspective, it looks worse than it has in a long time. So I share your concern. I share — I — the vector is going in the wrong direction overall for the country. We’re very unpopular there. You’ve seen that. It gets highlighted in each crisis, whether — I mean, we provided extraordinary support for the floods last year — we the military. And then that registers in a — in a popular way shortly. You have an incident like the one we’re going through right now, and our popularity is back down in very small numbers.”

Mullen wants to continue prosecuting the war. Neither he nor Gates has joined the “out now” caucus. But for Mullen, two out of three basic indicators of the war – economic and political progress – are in the toilet.

Gates did endorse the withdrawal dates put forward by the Obama Administration in the same hearing:

Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI):Secretary, you indicated that we are on track to end the presence of our combat troops in Iraq by the end of this year, as decided upon by President Bush. Do you continue to support that decision?

Sec. Gates: Yes, I do.

Levin: And are you planning to begin reductions of our troops in Afghanistan by July of this year, as ordered by President Obama, with the pace to be determined — of the reductions determined by conditions on the ground? And do you support that decision?

Gates: Yes, sir.

Levin: And can you tell us why?

Gates: Well, frankly, this was the most difficult part of the Afghan strategy going forward for me to come to support. I steadfastly — as some on this committee will remember — steadfastly opposed any deadlines in Iraq, and so came to this with a certain skepticism.

But I also realized that there is a difference between Iraq and Afghanistan in this respect. The truth of the matter is, the Iraqis want us out of the country as quickly as possible. On the other hand, the Afghans — at least, a certain number of them — would like us to stay forever. They live in a very dangerous neighborhood, and having U.S. forces there to support them and help them, often in the place of their own troops, is something that they would like to see. And so it seemed to me that we needed to do something that would grab the attention of the Afghan leadership and bring a sense of urgency to them of the need for them to step up to the plate to take ownership of the war and to recruit their own young men to fight.

Quote of the Day: Fissile Materials Edition

“If we are serious about reducing the possibility that fissile material could fall into terrorists’ hands, then we must reduce the amount of such material that is available.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Remarks at the Conference on Disarmament, Geneva Switzerland, February 28, 2011

Right on, Madam Secretary.

I suppose it’s safe to assume that if the White House is serious about preventing fissile material from falling into terrorists’ hands, then it’s pulling out all the stops to persuade Congress to fund critical nuclear security programs to lesson the likelihood that fissile material falls into terrorists’ hands. Right?