OVERNIGHT DEFENSE: World War II Memorial open for vets

Republicans have seized on the decision to barricade the memorial as evidence that the Obama administration is seeking to inflict pain from the shutdown.

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Reince Priebus also appeared at the memorial Wednesday afternoon, as the RNC offered to pay for five security guards to keep the memorial open.

“The Obama administration has decided they want to make the government shutdown as painful as possible, even taking the unnecessary step of keeping the Greatest Generation away from a monument built in their honor,” Priebus said. “That’s not right, and it’s not fair.”

{mosads}Democrats dismissed the RNC offer as a “silly stunt,” and accused the party of grandstanding on the issue.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Republican lawmakers who acted “as if they were surprised” that the monument would shut down “clearly didn’t pay attention.”

“The fact is, when you shut down the government, you shut down a lot of services,” he said.

The memorial debate has also spilled onto the floor, where House Republicans are pushing piecemeal bills to fund the Parks Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Vets will keep flowing to memorial: Caught in the middle of the political fight over the memorial are hundreds of World War II-era veterans who have long been scheduled to visit.

In the two days since the shutdown began, five groups from Honor Flight have attended the memorial. Another 11 groups, stretching from Florida to Oregon, are slated to take a tour of the memorial through the weekend.

Another 15 tours are on deck the week after.

While the fountains aren’t functioning at the World War II Memorial, the veterans groups are being given free rein to tour the memorial.

They were also walking through the Vietnam Memorial on Wednesday. Although it is also closed in the shutdown, the fence acting as a barricade was simply moved aside. No one appeared to object.

The veterans at the memorials said they appreciated the help from lawmakers, but were not pleased with their efforts to avoid a government shutdown.

“I think it’s the damndest thing I ever heard of,” Kansas City resident Bob Hines, 92, said of the shutdown. “I think the government is so screwed up that they’re ruining a helluva good country.”

Bad Intel: Financial pressures facing the U.S. intelligence community, prompted by the government shutdown, has created an opening for foreign agents looking to recruit spies on American soil. 

“This is a dreamland for foreign intelligence services to recruit, particularly as our employees already … [subjected] to furloughs driven by sequestration, are gonna have even greater financial challenges” as a result of the shutdown, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Wednesday. 

“I’ve been in the intelligence business for about 50 years. I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday. 

That loss of income, from sequestration and now the shutdown, could make members of the intelligence community more susceptible to bribes by foreign intelligence agencies, in exchange for extremely sensitive or classified national security secrets. 

Roughly 70 percent of the intelligence community’s civilian employees, including support staff and and analysts, have been furloughed as a result of the shutdown, according to a senior intelligence official.

Those cuts could also create an opportunity for terror groups to attack the United States, according to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). 

“If, God forbid, we see an attack on the United States because the intelligence community was not adequately funded, every member of the committee would be horrified,” Cruz said during the committee’s hearing on the government’s surveillance programs.

When Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) asked Clapper, point blank, whether the intelligence community could guarantee the security of the United States in the face of the ongoing shutdown, Clapper said no. 

“I don’t feel that I can make such a guarantee to the American people,” he told Grassley. “It would be much more difficult to make such a guarantee as each day of this shutdown goes by.” 

GOP presses Pentagon on civilian pay: Defense Republicans are increasing pressure on the Pentagon to put its civilian workforce back on the payroll, despite the ongoing government shutdown. 

Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has been in contact with Pentagon leaders on extending full pay to civilian workers during the shutdown. 

On Wednesday, the Oklahoma Republican demanded the “immediate issuance of new guidance” on the exemption status for “our men and women in uniform, as well as the civilians and contractors who support them.” 

House Armed Services Committee member Rep. Michael Turner went a step further, calling upon the Pentagon and White House to bring back all 400,000 civilian workers. 

“I am astonished the President is willing to use the Department of Defense civilian personnel and risk our national security as a bargaining chip,” the Ohio Republican wrote in a letter to Obama on Wednesday. The military pay legislation “clearly authorizes” the Pentagon to pay service members and civilians alike, according to Turner.  

On Monday, President Obama signed the “Pay Our Military Act,” which ensures U.S. service members will continue to receive regular paychecks, as well as the civilian employees deemed exempt from the shutdown. 

While all service members will continue working during the shutdown, about half of the department’s 800,000 civilians are being furloughed.

On Tuesday, Hagel said department leaders were exploring options to expand the list of civilian employees deemed necessary for day-to-day Pentagon operations. But department officials have yet to provide an update on those options to McKeon or other members of Congress.

In Case You Missed It: 

— DOD eyes rebuilding Syrian security forces 

— Afghan postwar plan hits roadblock over counterterror ops 

— Senate extends Iraqi visa program 

— WWI memorial better guarded than Benghazi consulate, says GOP 

— RNC offers to pay for security at WWII memorial 

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