Overnight Defense: House to vote on new defense bill

THE TOPLINE: The House plans to vote on a new 2016 defense policy bill sometime this week.

House leaders plan to use the language of the National Defense Authorization Act vetoed by President Obama, but update the funding levels in accordance with a budget deal reached last week.

The deal left the Pentagon was $5 billion less than it had authorized, forcing lawmakers to revise the bill and get it approved again with the lower funding levels. 

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), along with the Senate Armed Services Committee and defense appropriators, agreed on cuts of $5 billion dollars on Monday, and are planning to reconsider the bill this week.

{mosads}”The new legislation, which is otherwise identical to the NDAA that passed the House and Senate earlier this year, has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Chairman Thornberry,” said a statement from the House Armed Services Committee. 

Obama vetoed the initial defense policy bill as part of a larger budget fight. The House planned to try and override the president’s veto of the original defense policy bill on Thursday.

But after Obama and Republicans struck a two-year budget deal, House leaders decided to move on a new defense bill.

While Republicans said they were within the ballpark figure of lawmakers needed to override the president’s veto, some Democrats insisted the veto would stand. 

PENTAGON POW-WOW WITH CHINA: Defense Secretary Ashton Carter discussed rising tensions over the South China Sea during a meeting with China’s defense minister Tuesday on the sidelines of a defense ministerial meeting in Malaysia.

The U.S. recently sent a Navy destroyer within 12 nautical miles of an artificial island built by China in the South China Sea to assert that the area is in international waters and remains free for other nations to sail through.

The sail-through, conducted by the USS Larson, occurred last week. U.S. defense officials said htey would occur twice quarterly, something Carter relayed during his meeting with China’s defense minister, Gen. Chang Wanquan.

“The secretary reiterated that the U.S. takes no position on maritime disputes in the South China Sea, which he said should be resolved peacefully,” Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in a readout of the meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Defense Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus). 

“He called on all parties to permanently halt reclamation and militarization activities, and noted President Xi’s statement during his recent state visit that China is ‘committed to respecting and upholding the freedom of navigation and overflight that countries enjoy according to international law,’ and that ‘China does not intend to pursue militarization,’ ” Cook added. 

“The secretary affirmed to the minister that the U.S. will continue to defend the principle of freedom of navigation, and will continue to fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows,” he said.

DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS PUSHES FOR PROBE: A month after a U.S. airstrike hit a hospital in Afghanistan and killed 30 people, Doctors Without Borders held memorials around the globe to push for an independent investigation into the bombing.

“For us, it is really important that we keep the spotlight on it, because otherwise it will fall into what I call forgotten causes,” the organization’s international president, Joanne Liu, said Tuesday at an event in Geneva, according to Agence France Presse.

In addition to the Geneva memorial, which reportedly attracted about 250 people and was punctuated by chants of “stop bombing hospitals,” Doctors Without Borders officials and supporters gathered in New York and London.

On Oct. 3, U.S. forces carried out an airstrike in Kunduz, Afghanistan, that hit the Doctors Without Borders hospital. U.S. officials have said the airstrike was requested by Afghan forces under fire from the Taliban and that the hospital was hit by mistake.

The bombing killed 13 Doctors Without Borders staff members and 10 patients, according to the charity. Seven bodies were not identified.

Pentagon, NATO and Afghan officials are investigating the bombing.

But Doctors Without Borders also wants an investigation by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission, which can’t investigate without U.S. and Afghan approval.

On Tuesday, Lui told the news service that her organization has not been updated on any of the investigations.

“What we are after is the safeguard of medical humanitarian space in the chaos of war,” she said. 

AFGHAN GAS STATION CRITICISM WIDENS: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is calling for answers over a $43 million compressed natural gas station in Afghanistan, penning a letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Tuesday. 

“This gas station cost many more times than it should have,” Grassley said in a press release announcing the letter. “So far, the Defense Department has been unable or unwilling to explain what happened.”

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction released a report Monday slamming the Pentagon for spending $43 million on a station in Sheberghan, Afghanistan, that was meant to encourage natural gas use in the country.

A similar station built in Pakistan cost $500,000, or $306,000 at the current exchange rate, according to the report.

The report also said the Pentagon could not explain why the cost ballooned, telling the special inspector that it no longer had the personnel or documentation to answer since the task force behind the project disbanded in March.

In his letter, Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asks Carter to provide the special inspector general with all records on the construction of the station, a list of all former personnel assigned to the task force and a “plausible explanation” for withholding or restricting access to documents.

Grassley’s letter follows one sent to Carter on Monday by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) asking for documents on the project by Nov. 23.

ICYMI: 

— House urges Europe to combat anti-Semitism

— Defense policy bill cuts would slash counterterrorism fund

— Poll: Clinton Benghazi hearing eased voter concerns about email

— Bill Press Show: The Hill’s Kristina Wong discusses US military action in Syria

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