Senate panel to vote on Dempsey Joint Chiefs confirmation next week

After Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) short-lived threat to block
the confirmation of Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Senate Armed
Services Committee is moving forward with a vote next week.

Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) announced
Thursday that the panel would vote on Dempsey’s confirmation next week, after
Dempsey answered a list of 11 questions McCain and Levin sent him last week.

{mosads}The senators had asked for Dempsey’s assessment and opinion
on potential U.S. military action in Syria — stemming from the dispute that
prompted McCain’s threat to hold Dempsey’s confirmation last week.

McCain had blasted Dempsey at his confirmation hearing last
week when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs would not give his opinion on whether
the cost of U.S. military action was worse than doing nothing in the two-year
civil war.

McCain and Levin included a question in their follow up
letter essentially asking for Dempsey’s personal opinion. But Levin said Thursday that Dempsey had
responded to the letter with a classified assessment.

At the hearing, Dempsey said it was inappropriate for him to publicly give his opinion while the issue was being deliberated within the
administration.

Dempsey did provide an unclassified assessment to Levin on
Monday on the costs and benefits of potential military options in Syria, which was slammed
by McCain as “beyond anything that any rational military thinker that I
know would ever contemplate.”

Nevertheless, McCain said Tuesday that he was not going to
hold up Dempsey’s confirmation because he said the president has the right to
choose his team.