OVERNIGHT DEFENSE: US arms to Syria stalled

by Jeremy Herb and Carlo Muñoz - 07/09/13 11:10 PM ET

The exact nature of the restrictions is unknown because the
committees voted privately on the basis of classified information. What is known
is that the restrictions are sufficient to prevent the administration from
delivering arms as planned, according to the source.

Administration officials stopped shy of saying the votes had thwarted the effort to arm rebel groups, but said it certainly
didn’t make it easier.

“They’re raising a lot of questions without having
alternative answers,” said one senior administration official.

{mosads}Intelligence Committee leaders did not discuss what actions
the lawmakers had taken, but said they were using their oversight role.

“Whatever we do, we have to make sure we do it right,” Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence
Committee, said Tuesday.

“If we are going to arm, we have to make sure we have
control of what arms are out there and how people are trained to use those arms
so they don’t fall into the hands of our enemy al Qaeda,” he said.

For those not on the Intelligence committees, however, there
is a new concern that they are being shut out of the process.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), ranking member of the Foreign
Relations Committee, accused the administration of trying to covertly get the
Syria military aid approved behind the closed doors of the Intelligence
Committee.

“They should come and talk about this openly,” Corker told
reporters Tuesday. “It puts the Intelligence Committee in a very awkward place.
All of a sudden, they own it.”

Levin to talk Syria
Wednesday: Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) will discuss
his recent trip to Turkey and Jordan on Wednesday at a speech on the Syrian
conflict.

Levin is speaking at the Carnegie Endowment Wednesday
morning, where he is expected to discuss his push to get the Obama
administration to do more to end the two-year civil war in Syria.

On Tuesday, Levin issued a statement with Sen. Angus King
(I-Maine), after they visited Jordan and Turkey last week, calling
for the president to prepare for stepped-up multinational action against Syria’s
Bashar Assad.

Levin was one of the key Democrats pushing for the Obama
administration to arm the Syrian rebels earlier this year, and he has joined
GOP hawks Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in their call
for a no-fly zone.

McKeon: No ‘zero
option’ in Afghanistan: The Obama administration is not considering leaving
zero troops in Afghanistan after 2014, House Armed Services Chairman Buck
McKeon (R-Calif.) said
Tuesday.

“This evening, senior Administration officials assured me
that there is no ‘zero option’ scenario under consideration,” McKeon said in a
statement. “I was assured that the United States has committed to post-2014
support to include troops on the ground. I was further informed that a ‘zero
option’ would violate American commitments to the Afghan people.”

The New York Times reported
Monday that Obama was considering pulling out all troops amid frustration with
Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Senate Armed Services Committee leaders also expressed
skepticism about the notion of a “zero option,” and Sen. James Inhofe
(R-Okla.) said he’d never heard it discussed by an administration official.

The White House said Tuesday that no decision is imminent on
Afghanistan, and noted that the “zero option” has previously been considered by
the administration.

US advisers: Afghan
troops face ‘unrealistic expectations’: U.S. military advisers are
expressing concerns that Afghan security forces are facing
“unrealistic expectations” from Washington and Kabul ahead of the
withdrawal of NATO troops.

The U.S.-led coalition handed over security responsibility
to local forces last month and is scheduled to pull out all troops in 2014,
with talks about leaving a residual support force underway.

But even though Afghan forces are taking the lead in combat
operations across the country, and paying a heavy toll for it, some of the
efforts to professionalize the Afghan National Security Forces will
simply need more time, U.S. military commanders told The Hill.

Maj. Rich Schildman, executive officer for the main U.S.
advisory team in eastern Afghanistan’s Khost province, said Afghan forces “are
starting to feel the pressure.”

The Hill’s Carlo Muñoz is reporting from Afghanistan in
July. You can read more of his coverage here
and here.