House Passes Spending Bill
September 26th, 2008 by Jason
On Wednesday, the House voted 370-58 to pass H.R.2638, a continuing resolution which funds most government programs at fiscal 2008 levels until March 6, 2009. New appropriations were included only for the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs, all with considerable increases over fiscal 2008.
The Senate is expected to pass the bill on Saturday.
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste blasted the bill, decrying the lack of transparency and public consideration of its contents. “In my years in Washington, I have rarely seen a bigger sham of the legislative process.” Can’t be more succinct than that.
Posted in Congress, Legislation | Comment »
Congress forms Human Rights Commission
September 25th, 2008 by Jason
Yesterday Congress passed H.Res.1451, a bill creating the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. This is a nonpartisan effort in which Congress will raise awareness and develop strategies to promote, defend, and advocate internationally recognized human rights norms. Tom Lantos founded the Commission’s predecessor, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, in 1983. The transition from a caucus to a formal commission will strengthen the institution and provide it with funding and permanent staff. Chief sponsor Jim McGovern (D-MA) released a statement saying,
“The Commission will promote and protect all human rights as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – whether that’s the freedom to worship as you choose, run a newspaper or be a journalist without interference, organize a union, expect fair and equal justice before the courts, or receive fair treatment regardless of your gender, your race, your religion, your ethnic heritage or your sexual orientation.
“The passage of this resolution sends a clear message to all the ruthless leaders who seek to suppress freedom through the denial of dignity and human rights, that the United States will not tolerate their actions. The United States will stand as a beacon of hope and decency in a world filled with turmoil and unrest.”
You’ll find the bill text, sponsors, and other relevant info here.
Posted in Congress, Human Rights, Legislation | Comment »
POMED Notes: Senate Markup of State, Foreign Operations Bill
July 18th, 2008 by Stephen
Yesterday afternoon, the full Senate Appropriations Committee held a session to markup three of the annual appropriations bills for Fiscal Year 2009: for State and Foreign Operations, Agriculture, and Defense. The markup of the State and Foreign Operations bill, which contains all funding for foreign assistance and nearly all funding for other international affairs programs, was considered rather quickly and approved by a 28-1 vote.
The bill grants $36.62 billion, which represents a $3.82 billion increase over the levels granted for FY08, but just over $1 billion less than the President’s budget request for FY09. Of note was the sharp reduction in funding for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, down from more than $1.5 billion a year ago to only $254 million to cover administrative costs. The committee has not yet released the full text or all details of the bill, but they have made available a summary of key points on their website.
For POMED’s notes on yesterday’s markup, click here.
Posted in Congress, Congressional Hearing Notes (Senate), Foreign Aid, Legislation | Comment »
House Passes Supplemental Spending Bill
June 20th, 2008 by Adam
On Thursday the House of Representatives passed the latest version of H.R. 2642, the long debated supplemental spending bill. The domestic spending measure passed by an overwhelming 416 to 12. The amendment containing the $161.8 billion in war funding passed by a vote of 268 to 155. The bill requires that State Department and USAID reconstruction aid be matched dollar-for-dollar by the Iraqi government. Furthermore, the bill prohibits the use of military construction funds to establish permanent bases in Iraq. The Senate is expected to pass the bill before Congress goes into its Fourth of July recess.
Posted in Congress, Foreign Aid | Comment »
Debating Sanctions
June 18th, 2008 by Sarah
Laura Rozen at War and Piece reports that the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to consider legislation today to impose additional sanctions on Iran, but the effort appears snarled by language in the bill that would block a proposed nuclear deal with Russia. Senators Biden and Lugar said the language “would likely make it impossible to obtain Russian agreement on further measures and would thus preclude the possibility of broad cooperation on additional U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran.”
Posted in Congress, Iran | Comment »
Freedom House Analyzes FY09 Budget Request
June 9th, 2008 by Sarah
Freedom House releases an analysis of the Bush administration’s FY09 Budget Request.
They made several recommendations including the reinstatement of funding for the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy Human Rights and Labor, and USAID’s Office of Transition.
In addition, they warn that cutting funding initiatives to Russia and China—countries with growing international influence and diminishing freedom domestically—will adversely affect the work of democracy and human rights advocates from these countries.
In regards to the Middle East, Freedom House urges Congress to fully fund democracy and human rights assistance for Egypt and consider conditioning a portion of Egypt’s military assistance on political reform. Country specific funding should be provided for democracy activists in the Gulf while Tunisia and Algeria should each receive $1 million.
For the full report, click here.
Posted in Congress, Human Rights, Legislation, US foreign policy | Comment »
Bush’s Speech on Democracy in Egypt
May 19th, 2008 by Stephen
In his big speech before the World Economic Forum in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, President Bush focused on the need for democracy across the Middle East, declaring that,
“Some say any state that holds an election is a democracy. But true democracy requires vigorous political parties allowed to engage in free and lively debate…And true democracy requires competitive elections in which opposition candidates are allowed to campaign without fear or intimidation. Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail. America is deeply concerned about the plight of political prisoners in this region, as well as democratic activists who are intimidated or repressed, newspapers and civil society organizations that are shut down, and dissidents whose voices are stifled.”
Although this rhetoric seems to be directed at all of the autocratic leaders across the region, he reserved his most direct criticism for inimical regimes, declaring that the United States “must stand with the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and other nations in the region fighting against al Qaeda and other extremists” and “must stand with the good and decent people of Iran and Syria” but failing to make a similar commitment to the people of his host country, Egypt, or other close U.S. autocratic allies.
However, Bush did tell reporters on Saturday that in private meetings with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, he had expressed concern for the plight of jailed opposition leader Ayman Nour. Bush made no specific mention of jailed Egyptian blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Soliman (aka Kareem Amer), the first blogger in the Arab world imprisoned solely for expressing his opinions on his blog. Bush received a letter on Friday from Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and co-signed by thirteen other members of Congress, urging him to call for Kareem’s release.
Posted in Congress, Democracy Promotion, Egypt, Human Rights | Comment »
Freedom House Report on FY08 Appropriations
May 14th, 2008 by Stephen
Be sure to check out Freedom House’s new report, “Meeting our Commitment to Democracy and Human Rights,” which examines the Fiscal Year 2008 Foreign Operations appropriations passed by Congress in December 2007 as they relate to support for democracy and human rights abroad. The report notes that Congress appropriated a total of $ 153.0 million in democracy and governance funding for the Near East in FY08, a decrease from the $179.4 million allotted in the annual appropriations for FY07. Interestingly, although the Middle East is widely considered to be the focus of the Bush administration’s democracy promotion efforts, the Near East receives a smaller allocation for democracy and governance programs than four other regional groups - Central and South Asia, Europe and Eurasia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The report also makes note of the $5 million decrease in funding for democracy programs in Egypt.
See also POMED’s brief December 2007 report on the FY08 appropriations for State and Foreign Operations.
Posted in Congress, Democracy Promotion, Foreign Aid | Comment »
POMED Event on FY09 Appropriations and Budget
April 29th, 2008 by Stephen
This morning, the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) hosted a panel discussion on Capitol Hill entitled “Fiscal Year 2009 Appropriations and Democracy, Governance and Human Rights in the Middle East.” The panel examined President Bush’s fiscal year 2009 budget request and consequences for democracy and governance programs across the Middle East. The speakers discussed the budget request’s U.S. efforts to support democracy in the region, the changes in the international affairs budget request as compared to past fiscal years; and what the request says about the legacy of President Bush’s “freedom agenda.” Ambassador Edward Gabriel, President and CEO of The Gabriel Company, LLC, Stephen McInerney, Director of Advocacy for POMED, and Jennifer Windsor, Executive Director of Freedom House, spoke to these issues. POMED’s Executive Director, Andrew Albertson, moderated the event.
For detailed notes on the event, please click here.
Posted in Congress, Democracy Promotion, Foreign Aid | Comment »
Supporting the Afghani Private Sector and Culture
April 22nd, 2008 by Sharlina
Khaleda Atta and Hawa Ghaus implore Congress to pass legislation (S. 2776) introduced by Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Kit Bond (R-MO), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) that would authorize President Bush to designate Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZs) in Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan. Atta and Ghaus argue that “this sustainable approach will allow Afghanistan and Pakistan to transcend political differences and to find common ground in the promise and potential of the private sector.”
Meanwhile, Afghani Minister for Information and Culture, Abdul Karim Khurram, ordered television networks to stop broadcasting five soap operas on Tuesday, saying they were not in keeping with “Afghan religion and culture.”
Posted in Afghanistan, Congress, Freedom, Legislation, Pakistan | Comment »
Rice Discusses 2009 International Affairs Budget
April 10th, 2008 by Sharlina
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs yesterday to discuss President Bush’s budget request this year for State Operations and for Foreign Operations.
To view Chairman Leahy’s opening statement, click here.
To view Secretary Rice’s statement, click here. To view the video of her testimony, click here.
Posted in Congress, US foreign policy | Comment »
Petraeus/Crocker Testimony Day 1 Roundup
April 9th, 2008 by Stephen
The editors of the Small Wars Journal blog have a comprehensive roundup of commentary on yesterday’s two Senate hearings with General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. Included are links to a few dozen articles, analyses, reactions, and live-blogging from the two hearings. Petraeus and Crocker are now speaking before the House Armed Services Committee, and will appear before the House Committee on Foreign Afffairs this afternoon. We’ll have further details on today’s hearings later on.
Posted in Committee Meetings, Congress, Iraq | Comment »
Day 1 of General Petraeus at Congress
April 8th, 2008 by Sharlina
In the first of 2 days of hearings before Congress, General David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker are reported to tell the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today that security has improved in Iraq and that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has taken steps toward political reconciliation and economic stability. To get a preview of Petraeus’s statement, check out the advance copy of his testimony.
Many took this chance to suggest questions they would ask if they were in Congress. Douglas J. Feith, Max Hastings, and Andrew J. Bacevich made their suggestions at The New York Times, while William M. Arkin posted his own questions over at The Washington Post. Abu Muqawama also posted their own questions.
Of course the upcoming testimonies prompted many to discuss Petraeus’s efforts in Iraq. An editorial in The New York Times, with similar sentiments echoed by Tom Engelhardt over at tomdispatch.com, argues, “it is clear that neither he nor Mr. Bush have a strategy for ending America’s disastrous involvement in Iraq,” while The Wall Street Journal feels “his surge has achieved remarkable results.”
In a discussion of the fruits of the surge, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Steven Simon argues that the short-term gains come at the expense of a long-term stable Iraq, while Rich Lowry at The National Review states that only seven of the 18 benchmarks set by Congress last year are relevant to the surge, and that “almost all these security benchmarks have been met.”
Steve Coll at The New Yorker believes Petraeus, at best, “during the past year has helped to piece together a stalemate of heavily armed, bloodstained, conspiracy-minded, ambiguously motivated Iraqi militias. Nobody knows how long this gridlock will hold.” The New York Times‘ David Brooks states in regards to the surge, “There has been political progress. It just doesn’t look the way we expected it to.”
Council on Foreign Relations’ Max Boot writes at The Los Angeles Times of recent progress on debaathification, laws on provincial powers, amnesty to detainees, and the new national budget as indicating factors of political progress in Iraq that suggest the need to “listen to the best advice of Petraeus and Crocker and resist the urge to pull our troops out too fast.”
Meanwhile, Major Gen. Robert H. Scales (Ret.) declares at The Wall Street Journal that no matter what Petraeus says, “it is clear that the writing is on the wall. The bulk of American ground forces will be leaving Iraq. The only question is how many and how fast.”
Many see Petraeus’s appearance in Congress as timely in debating Iran’s influence in Iraq and thus U.S. foreign policy. Abu Muqawama argues, “Yes, Iran is causing all kinds of mischief in Iraq and is responsible for the deaths of a lot of American boys, but are you seriously going to argue that we should go to war with Iran because of it.” The Times (UK) suggests Petraeus will discuss Iran’s contributions to the recent battle for Basra while Tulin Daloglu over at The Washington Times argues, “The bloody Iraqi battlefield gives Iran confidence that it would remain untouched even if it continues building a nuclear weapon.”
Posted in Congress, Iran, Iraq, Military, US foreign policy | Comment »
POMED Notes: Hearing on Iraq in 2012
April 3rd, 2008 by Sharlina
On Thursday, the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing entitled, “Iraq 2012: What Can it Look Like, How do We Get There?” Committee Chairman Senator Joseph R. Biden presided over the hearing and gave opening remarks, in addition to Chairman Senator Dick Lugar’s opening remarks.
The panel of witnesses included Professor Carole O’Leary, Program Director, Scholar in Residence, Center for Global Peace, American University, Dr. Dawn Brancati, Fellow, Institute of Quantitative Social Studies, Harvard University, The Honorable Carlos Pascual, Vice President, Director of Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution, Dr. F. Gregory Gause, III, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Vermont, and Dr. Terrence K. Kelly, Senior Operations Researcher, RAND Corporation.
For full POMED notes on the hearing, click here.
Posted in Committee Meetings, Congress, Iraq, US foreign policy | Comment »
Iranian Minority Groups and the U.S.
March 25th, 2008 by Sharlina
In the first Congressional hearing focusing on internal minority issues in Iran, high tensions were reported because of the hint of a change in Bush Administration policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran such that the United States could try to use Iran’s minorities to help promote regime change in Tehran. An example used to describe efforts to activate minority groups in Iran is the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty seeking funding for Azeri-language broadcasts that would be specifically targeted toward Iran’s Azeri minority.
Posted in Congress, Iran, US foreign policy | Comment »
Marking Five Years of War In Iraq
March 17th, 2008 by Amanda
The Washington Post reports on the visits of Vice President Cheney and Republican presidential nominee John McCain to Iraq three days before the 5th year anniversary of the Iraq War. The Vice President, considering the War in Iraq a “successful endeavor”, is “pushing Iraqi leaders to move forward with provincial elections” currently set for October.
Five years later, opinions among policymakers and military personnel vary.
The former presidential envoy to Iraq, Paul Bremer, comments in the New York Times on the inability of the United States to stabilize the country after invasion, arguing that it “did not have a plan to provide the most basic function of any government — security for the population.”
Others cite additional reasons for the debacle; Paul D. Eaton, also in the the New York Times, argues that Congress failed “to defend the welfare of our armed forces by challenging the concentration of power in the hands of the president”. Eaton led the training of the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004.
In the Guardian, Max Hastings is less optimistic, “The Iraq experience has laid bare the limits of raw military power. It would be naive to suggest that an abrupt American departure would now promise the country a happy future. But there seems no purpose in a continued US military presence, save within the context of new regional policies vastly different from those that prevail today.”
Posted in Congress, Elections, Iraq, US foreign policy | Comment »
Biden-Lugar Amendment to 2009 International Affairs Budget
March 13th, 2008 by Sharlina
An amendment sponsored by Senators Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) to restore $4.1 billion that the Senate Budget Committee cut from the Administration’s International Affairs Budget will be considered by the full Senate today. Earlier this week, the House provided $38.3 billion for the International Affairs Budget, a $1.5 billion reduction from the Administration’s request of $39.8 billion.
Posted in Congress, Foreign Aid, Legislation | Comment »
Gates and U.S. Foreign Policy Budget Imbalance
March 6th, 2008 by Sharlina
In a meeting this morning with members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Defense Secretary Gates met to discuss “the persistent imbalance between U.S. funding for defense and diplomacy.” Acting Chairman Howard L. Berman (D-CA) highlighted the committee’s purpose in “examining the issue closely to guard against the Defense Department over-reaching into areas traditionally under the authority of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. We’re concerned that an overly expansive military role in support of short-term security interests could work to the detriment of long-term foreign policy goals, which would be dangerous and destabilizing.”
Posted in Congress, Foreign Aid, US foreign policy | Comment »
Debate in Congress Begins Again on Iraq
February 26th, 2008 by Sharlina
Tuesday, the Senate will debate and vote on two bills proposed by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI): S.2633, cutting off any funds for deploying troops after 120 days, with the exception of temporary targeted missions; and S.2634, requiring a report on the global strategy for combating and defeating al Qaeda, including the redistribution of US forces to meet the threat of al Qaeda.
Posted in Congress, Foreign Aid, Iraq, Military, Terrorism, US foreign policy | Comment »
Remembering Congressman Tom Lantos
February 12th, 2008 by Sharlina
Following the death of Congressman Tom Lantos yesterday, many obituaries have focused on his extraordinary commitment to fighting for human rights and against government repression abroad. A tribute to Lantos in The San Francisco Chronicle opens, “In the nearly 60 years Tom Lantos spent in the United States, he never lost his Hungarian accent, his love for animals or his stubborn belief that political leaders have a duty to speak out against tyranny or oppression, wherever it occurs.”
Karen Tumulty of Time Magazine addresses Lantos’ numerous contributions to supporting human rights: sponsoring the first U.S. aid to the newly freed countries of Eastern Europe, speaking out on human rights violations in China, working for funding to fight AIDS around the world, and driving efforts to provide $300 million in humantarian relief for Darfur while accusing the international community of failing to intervene there because of “the same double standard that stayed our hand in Rwanda in the 1990s.”
Speaker and fellow Californian Nancy Pelosi notes that Lantos “used his chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee to empower the powerless and give voice to the voiceless throughout the world.” Senator Joseph Biden said that his friend’s “steadfast commitment to human rights and freedom across the world will live long after today.”
At The Plank, Eve Fairbanks notes that Lantos’ politics were “complex–a big supporter of authorizing Bush to go to war in Iraq in ‘02, he also was one of the first legislators to go to Libya as things were starting to thaw in ‘04, and argued for normalizing relations–but the authority of his voice when he spoke about human rights was something incredibly special. That voice can’t be replaced.”
Posted in Congress | Comment »
