Eye On Congress

There is a need for a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security - diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action, and economic reconstruction and development."

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates speaking at Kansas State University, 11/26/07

Your representative can make an investment this year in building peace by supporting the Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Act (H.R. 1084). Instead of sending the military to countries teetering on the brink of war or emerging from conflict, the U.S. could send civilian experts who specialize in training police, running hospitals and schools, improving farm production, and other specialties. These trained civilians would help governments strengthen the public institutions that meet people's basic needs and give them confidence in their government's ability to protect and support them.

The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to require the president to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq within 30 days and set a goal for withdrawal of most combat troops by the end of 2008. The bill would also ban the use of torture in interrogations, direct the administration to seek regional stability in conversation with Iraq's neighbors, and prohibit the U.S. from building permanent military installations in Iraq. But the bill, which provides $50 billion in additional funding for war, will never become law because President Bush will veto it and Congress does not have enough votes to override the president's veto.

Some Democratic lawmakers have questioned whether a new Bush administration request for $88 million to fit "bunker-busting" bombs to B-2 stealth bombers was part of preparations for an attack on Iran.

A Bush administration summary said the request was needed for "development of a Massive Ordnance Penetrator for the B-2 aircraft in response to an urgent operational need from theater commanders," but gave no details. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator is a conventional bomb designed to destroy hardened or deeply buried targets.

"My assumption is that it is Iran, because you wouldn't use them in Iraq, and I don't know where you would use them in Afghanistan; it doesn't have any weapons facilities underground that we know of," said Rep. Jim Moran, a Virginia Democrat who is on the House Appropriations Committee and intends to argue against the request.

November 5 is a Global Day of Action against cluster bombs. People all over the world are taking action to urge the banning of these indiscriminate killers. The call-in day is a chance to show senators that there is strong public opposition to these inhumane weapons in the U.S. and strong support for S.594. The bill would substantially restrict both the use and export of cluster bombs by:
1) requiring that they not be used in areas where civilians are known to be present, and 2) requiring that they have a dud rate of less than 1 percent (meaning that they will leave behind fewer deadly submunitions on the ground after the combat ends).

In spite of claims that military spending creates jobs, much of the money spent on the military never makes it back to the States. NPP's findings, based on recently released federal spending data, show that 32 states pay more in taxes for the military than they receive back in military spending.

NPP also offers state rankings and breakdowns that show what each state received to fund education, food and nutrition and the Environmental Protection Agency as compared to military spending, along with a breakdown of total expenditures by state compared to taxes paid. Spending data at state and county levels for dozens of federal spending programs from 1983-2005 is also available at The NPP Database.

NOTE: November Scientific American has articles on nuclear weapons

Can you define torture? President Bush wasn't able to when he was asked this week. How reassuring is his claim that "We don't torture" if he can't say what it is that United States isn't doing?

According to the Justice Department, the U.S. is legally allowed to do things to prisoners that most people would consider torture. In a 2005 secret legal opinion that still defines government practice, the
department said that painful physical abuse -- including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures -- is not cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment and isn't torture.

The U.S. needs to end the word games and secrecy. Congress needs to shine a light on what the CIA is doing to U.S. detainees by restoring the courts' power to independently review the way our government is
treating every single person it holds against their will.

Your senators can help to open a window on torture by supporting and championing the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act (S. 185). Habeas corpus is the right of all prisoners to have a court consider why they are in
prison and how they are being treated. As of mid-October, 32 senators have cosponsored this legislation, and 56 senators voted for the bill on the Senate floor in September. But in today's partisan Senate,
legislation needs 60 votes to come to a vote and avoid a filibuster:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/CCKCHTFSZY/MKSUHTFVKX/1491663841.

New NAPF Video - Nuclear Weapons and the Human Future The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is pleased to announce the release of its newest video, Nuclear Weapons and the Human Future. Co-edited by Foundation volunteers Ryan Roberson and Ivan Van Wingerden, the video outlines the Foundation's case against nuclear weapons.

Please contact Rick Wayman at (805) 965-3443 or rwayman@napf.org to order a free copy of this DVD. We encourage you to show the video to your friends, neighbors and family.

Prepared by Christopher Hellman, Military Policy Fellow

www.armscontrolcenter.org
September 10, 2007

chellman@armscontrolcenter.org
(703) 945-3950 Cell

With the attention of the media and most of the country focused on the report on Iraq being delivered to Congress this week by Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker, the Senate will also be taking up the Pentagon¹s annual funding legislation. It does so with a number of competing forces at work ­ the Democrats¹ desire to continue using Iraq to make political points; the unwillingness of members of Congress to appear not to be supporting U.S. troops; and inability of the opponents of the Iraq war on Capitol Hill to round up enough bi-partisan support to force the issue with the Bush Administration.

The panic and distraction of the security crisis should not be used as cover for handing Iraq’s wealth to foreigners

Glad tidings from Baghdad at last. The Iraqi parliament has gone into summer recess without passing the oil law that Washington was pressing it to adopt. For the Bush administration this is irritating, since passage of the law was billed as a “benchmark” in its battle to get Congress not to set a timetable for US troop withdrawals. The political hoops through which the government of Nouri al-Maliki has been asked to jump were meant to be a companion piece to the US “surge”. Just as General David Petraeus, the current US commander, is due to give his report on military progress next month, George Bush is supposed to tell Congress in mid-September how the Maliki government is moving forward on reform.

The House Appropriations Committee completed its markup of the Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Appropriations bill on July 25. The bill includes $459.6 billion for the Department of Defense, $3.5 billion below the Bush Administration’s request ($463.1 billion) and $39.7 billion above current levels (excluding supplementals). The full House will begin consideration of the Defense Appropriations bill the week of July 30. The Senate Appropriations Committee has not yet scheduled action on the bill.

This bill does NOT fund the Administration request of $141.7 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which will bring the total defense budget above $600 billion for the year. The House is expected to address this Iraq and Afghanistan funding in September. Nor does it include funding for military construction, military housing, or nuclear weapons activities of the Department of Energy, which are funded through other appropriations accounts.

This week the House voted 399 to 24 to extend the ban on the U.S.
building permanent bases in Iraq past the end of September 2007.
Although this measure by itself will not stop the war or the president's plans for a long-term military presence in Iraq, the House action is another demonstration that members of Congress are concerned about the direction of U.S. policy in Iraq.

But the campaign to persuade Congress to change course still has a long way to go. A minority of Senators last week again blocked legislation to require the U.S. to begin withdrawing combat troops from Iraq. After that vote, the Senate leadership withdrew a military policy bill without allowing a vote on legislation to turn the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group into U.S. policy. Read more on why we at FCNL believe this bipartisan legislation is the next practical step that Congress should take to change U.S. policy on Iraq:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/utr/1/BFTN...

The Senate should be debating the Defense Appropriations Bill at any time.
Here are some highlights. Many of these are Cold War Weapons, which is a good subject for letters to the editor:

Future Combat Systems (FCS) ­ Fully funds the Administration's $3.6 billion request for Future Combat Systems, an advanced collection of armored vehicles, robots, and aerial drones connected through a sophisticated battle command network. The House cut $867 million from FCS in its version of the authorization bill.

Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) ­ For RRW funding in the Department of Energy, the bill cuts $43 million from the Administration's $238.1 million RRW request, limits the funding that can be used for RRW in FY2008 to $195.1 million, and limits RRW program activities to Phase 2A and below. The Committee also zeroed out the Administration's $15 million RRW request for Navy research and development.