OVERNIGHT DEFENSE: House presses administration on Libya

by Jeremy Herb and Carlo Muñoz - 10/02/12 10:12 PM ET

{mosads}Next week’s hearing — which will be held while Congress is
on recess — shows that Republicans have no intention of dropping their
criticism of the Obama administration’s actions before and after the Libya
attack.

The GOP has criticized the administration for its shifting
position on the attack, after officials first said it stemmed from protests of
an anti-Islamic video posted online.

GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has not been as vocal about the Libyan incident — he
stumbled in his response the day after the attack — but it’s become the key part of a
broader critique he’s made of President Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle
East, a policy area that appeared to tilt handily toward Obama in the
presidential campaign until last month.

Romney had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Monday that called for a “new strategy toward
the Middle East,” and his aides said he will give a “major foreign policy
address” in the coming weeks.

Wednesday’s presidential debate is focused primarily on domestic issues,
with the foreign policy debate coming later this month. But Libya could wind up
getting some air Wednesday while it remains a hot topic, either in the form of
a question from moderator Jim Lehrer or if Romney finds a way to bring it up.

Administration says
it ‘absolutely’ did not pressure Lockheed: White House press secretary Jay
Carney said the White House did not pressure Lockheed not to issue layoff
notices related to sequestration. “Absolutely not,” Carney said in an Air Force One
gaggle, when asked about “allegations” of political pressure from the White
House. “I think the WARN Act action has been thoroughly explained and
described, and individual companies like Lockheed make the decisions according
to their own interests. So I would refer you to Lockheed.”

Republicans, of course, see things differently. The
administration said Friday it would cover the severance costs associated with
the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act — which requires 60 days’ notice for mass layoffs or plant closings
— if companies lay off workers under sequestration, but only if the companies
don’t send WARN notices related to the looming spending cuts, which could be avoided by Congress.

Republican lawmakers questioned the legality of that
directive, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said he’d try to block those payouts
if they were to occur.

Carney was not asked Tuesday about the guidance differentiating
between companies that send and don’t WARN Act notices now, which helped prompt
Lockheed to say two days later it was not sending the layoff notices.

Double time:
Despite the rise in insider attacks, persistent readiness questions about
Afghan forces and the ongoing threat of Taliban double agents inside the
country’s military and police forces, DOD has been steadfast in its plan to bring U.S.
troops home from Afghanistan by 2014. But NATO forces aren’t sure if two more years in
Afghanistan is two years too many.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen claims the
alliance could speed up its withdrawal from the country, well ahead of the
two-year deadline set by the White House. In an interview with the British
newspaper The Guardian, Rasmussen raised the idea of European troops coming
home early: “If the security situation allows, I would not exclude the
possibility that in certain areas you could accelerate the process.”

But the NATO chief said the alliance would hold off on any
decision over withdrawals until Gen. John Allen, head of all U.S. forces in
Afghanistan, provides his recommendations to the White House. Those
recommendations could come as soon as this fall, DOD spokesman George Little
said on Tuesday. That said, Little was adamant that “there is absolutely
no daylight” between U.S. and NATO plans to stay the course in
Afghanistan. Further, Little told reporters at the Pentagon Rasmussen’s
comments to The Guardian were taken out of context.

The alliance’s forces in the country total just over 120,000
boots on the ground, along with the remaining 68,000-man American force left in
Afghanistan after this summer’s initial drawdown. The last of the 32,000 U.S.
surge forces the White House sent into southern Afghanistan in 2009 arrived
home earlier this month.

Footing the bill:
It’s been less than a year since the last U.S. units rolled out of Iraq, but the
situation in the country continues to deteriorate into terrorist violence and sectarian
bloodshed. That worsening situation prompted the Pentagon on Tuesday to pay for
extended security and counterterrorism training in the county out of its own
pocket.

Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. James
Winnefeld approved the $1.7 million for U.S-led training missions, which would
extend those operations for another three months. That 90-day stipend, he
added, will be a “temporary bridge” until DOD number crunchers submit
their budget proposal for fiscal 2013 early next year, Pentagon press secretary
George Little said Tuesday.

Little said the funding transfer was not a “zero-sum
trade,” noting that ongoing U.S. military operations or current Pentagon
programs would not be negatively affected by the move. The Pentagon has also
deployed a unit of U.S. Special Operations Forces into Iraq to assist security
forces with intelligence and counterterrorism operations. The unit was sent at
the request of the Iraqi government.

DOD’s decision to extend Iraqi training operations comes as
U.S. forces are starting to find themselves drawn back into the country, as
militant terror groups continue to threaten the government’s hold on power. On
Monday, a chain of coordinated bombings shattered several Shiite neighborhoods
and Iraqi security outposts across the country, leaving 26 dead.

Locked up: On
Tuesday, the Department of Justice became the proud owners of a new maximum
security prison, courtesy of the State of Illinois. The sale of the Thomson
Correctional Center has renewed arguments on Capitol Hill over White House’s
desire to close Guantánamo Bay and bring terror detainees stateside.

Sen. Dick Durbin (R-Ill.) praised the sale, which cost the
government $165 million under the terms of the deal reached with Illinois Gov.
Pat Quinn. Durbin said refurbishing the prison, which has been closed since
April 2010, would create 1,100 new jobs in the state. But the buy also opens
the door for foreign terror suspects to be brought stateside, according to two
top House Republicans.

GOP Reps. Hal Rogers (Ky.), who heads the House
Appropriations Committee, and House Appropriations Commerce, Justice and
Science subcommittee chief Frank Wolf (Va.) said the White House was clearly supporting
a prisoner swap by going ahead with the transfer. Rogers and Wolf led the
Republican effort in the House to shut down the Thomson facility sale earlier
this year.

Thompson was one of the sites being considered to house
suspected terrorists in the U.S. as part of the White House’s plan to shutter
the Guantánamo Bay facility. The White House had repeatedly said it planned to
close the Guantánamo Bay prison within President Obama’s first term in office,
but has acknowledged it will not be able to keep that promise.

Attorney General Eric Holder told lawmakers just as much
during June 12 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, “We will not move
people from Guantanamo, regardless of the state of the law, to Thomson. That is
my pledge as attorney general,” Holder said at the time.