Eyes turn to Senate for defense debates

Now that the House has passed its defense authorization bill,
attention turns to the Senate as it prepares to take up the mammoth
policy legislation for fiscal 2011.

While the Senate Armed Services Committee’s bill contains nothing at
this point that would trigger a presidential veto, there will be
internal fights over several provisions, the most polarizing over the
repeal of the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

{mosads}Republicans are eyeing a provision that would require all service
chiefs to certify that repeal — allowing gays and lesbians to serve
openly — can be implemented consistent with the military’s standards
of readiness, effectiveness, unit cohesion and recruitment and
retention.

The way the congressional provisions are written now, only President
Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen have to provide that
certification.

In letters solicited by Senate Armed Services ranking member John
McCain (R-Ariz), the service chiefs said that they wanted Congress to
delay voting on the issue until Dec. 1, after the Pentagon finishes a
review of how the military should carry out the changes. That puts
them at sharp odds with the White House.

Gay-rights groups fighting for repeal have called a potential
amendment that expands the certification process to include the
service chiefs “a killer amendment” that would delay open service for
years.

Even if supporters for repeal cannot avoid such an amendment and do not have a
filibuster-proof majority in the Senate that ensures passage, the bill
will be in the hands of a Senate-House conference committee.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) is the only one of the Big Four — the
chairmen and ranking members of both chambers’ Armed Services
committees — to back repeal. McCain and Rep. Buck Mckeon (Calif.),
the top Republican on the House panel, are fighting it. The Democratic
House chairman, Rep. Ike Skelton (Mo.), has opposed repeal from the
beginning; he was one of the principal writers of the current ban.

The conference committee will also have to wrestle with authorized
funding for a secondary F-35 Joint Strike Fighter engine that the
Pentagon does not want. The administration has threatened to veto any
defense bill containing funds for the engine made by General Electric
and Rolls-Royce. So far the threats seem real, and the gay ban repeal
does not appear to be a good buffer to avoid the veto.

Another McCain-backed provision mandating that the president deploy
6,000 National Guard troops to the Southwest border will ignite floor
debate of the defense authorization bill. The amendment was proposed
by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) during the markup of the defense
authorization bill, but has strong support from McCain, whose state of
Arizona has some of worst violence related to the drug trade.

Levin, however, said he thought it would be unprecedented for Congress
to direct the commander in chief to send troops to a specific
location. Levin vowed to fight the provision on the floor, or in
conference negotiations with the House, which did not include such a
provision.

McCain voted against his own committee’s bill because of the “Don’t
ask, don’t tell” repeal provision — not the first time he has done so.

Meanwhile, the administration is fighting a $1 billion cut in its $2
billion request for U.S. military training of Iraqi security forces.
Levin acknowledged before the Senate left for the Memorial Day recess
that he expected Obama to dislike his panel’s massive cut.

This article has been updated and corrected from its original version.

“Some of us feel pretty strongly about this issue: that it’s time —
given the amount of money that Iraq is taking in oil revenue and the
fact they cut their own defense budget in half in the parliament — it’s
kind of hard to justify putting billions of dollars in for the Iraq army,” Levin said.