ON BENGHAZI
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will testify on a report expected to be released next week on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya. "I have just received confirmation from Secretary Clinton’s office that the secretary of state will appear before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs to discuss, in an open hearing, the findings and the recommendations in the report," Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said in a statement.
ON THE FIGHT
The State Department has a new directorate within Diplomatic Security (DSS) that focuses on seventeen high threat diplomatic posts overseas. Those posts now fall under a High Threat Unit that reports to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Bill Miller. He was described as "an experienced Diplomatic Security Official" by a senior State Department official. The posts previously fell under the portfolio of Charlene Lamb, another Deputy Assistant Secretary of State. The scope of the expanded High Threat Unit has widened to include Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Mauritania, Niger, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia and Yemen. Previously the only posts that fell under the High Threat designation were in Iraq and Afghanistan. A senior State Department official described the move as part of an "ongoing effort to deal with a world that is constantly changing" and denied that it was a direct reaction to recent events in Benghazi, Libya.
As the United States and France ready a force to recapture Mali’s north from extremists linked to al-Qaeda and prevent another haven for jihadists from taking root on the continent, doubts remain as to whether a military intervention can defuse such a complex crisis. Mali’s transitional government, installed after a military coup earlier this year, is weak and lacks legitimacy. Its poorly equipped army is in disarray. African and Western powers are already in disagreement over the timing and goals of a military strike. Also unclear is whether regional African forces are strong enough to defeat well-armed militants in desert terrain the size of Texas without help on the ground from Western armies. Initially, there were two main groups of extremists — AQIM and Ansar Dine, or “defenders of the faith,” which is led mostly by Malian hard-liners and linked to AQIM. But by September, MUJWA — which splintered from AQIM late last year — seized significant territory. Despite their differences, all three groups remain loosely linked. They have been joined by some fighters from Boko Haram, an Islamist force in Nigeria, according to the United Nations, Malian and regional African military officials. French President Francois Hollande recently cited intelligence that some French Muslims had joined the jihadists and could perpetrate terrorist acts upon their return to France. Mali’s neighbors are also worried about radical Islamists spilling across their borders. Following recent visits to Algiers by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and top French officials, Algeria has shown more willingness for a military intervention, but only under certain conditions. Like the United States and European countries, Algeria wants any military action to focus on destroying the militants and their capabilities. Malian military commanders said they were confident they could take the lead — as long as they received assistance, especially from the United States and its armed drones.
Unilateral, covert action in Syria has grown increasingly difficult for the United States Government to execute.
ON INFASTRUCTURE
Just six blocks from the White House, the FBI’s hulking headquarters overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue has long been the government building everyone loves to hate. The verdict: It’s an ugly, crumbling concrete behemoth, an architectural mishap — all 2.4 million square feet of it. But in this time of tight budgets, massive deficits and the "fiscal cliff," the 38-year-old FBI headquarters building has one big thing in its favor. It sits atop very valuable real estate, an entire city block on America’s Main Street, midway between the U.S. Capitol and the White House. Just how valuable? The General Services Administration intends to find out. This past week, the agency that oversees all federal buildings issued an invitation to developers: How would you like to build a new headquarters for the FBI in a different location? In exchange, we’ll consider throwing in the J. Edgar Hoover building and the underlying land as part of the transaction.
With the country inching closer every day to the edge of the fiscal cliff, the precise calendar for the rest of the legislative year, and the beginning of the next one, is becoming increasingly important. The cliff’s scheduled spending cuts and tax increases—due to go into effect in the New Year if Congress can’t agree on a deficit-reduction package—represent the beginning of a steady tumble rather than a sharp free fall, since policy makers face a number of other fiscal challenges with different deadlines in 2013.
ON SECRECY – OR LACK THEREOF
A measure granting the government expansive power to intercept electronic communications in the United States without a warrant is set to expire this month, setting up a sharp debate in the Senate over how to balance privacy against national security. The government uses the measure, contained in a law known as the FISA Amendments Act, to intercept e-mails and telephone calls of foreigners located overseas under a blanket approval issued once a year by a special court. But communications of U.S. citizens talking with the foreigners also are being scooped up. The intelligence community argues that the measure is essential to protect against foreign threats and has made renewing the law its top legislative priority. The House approved a five-year extension in September by a vote of 301 to 118. The Senate must vote by the end of the year or the authority expires. Opposition has surfaced among a small, bipartisan group of senators worried that Americans engaged in harmless communications with foreigners could be monitored without a warrant or other privacy protections.
The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday. The training, which is taking place in Jordan and Turkey, involves how to monitor and secure stockpiles and handle weapons sites and materials, according to the sources. Some of the contractors are on the ground in Syria working with the rebels to monitor some of the sites, according to one of the officials.
The official biography of Charlene Lamb, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Programs, is missing.
The unfolding revolution wrought by unmanned aerial vehicles has freed a number of military missions from the tyranny of human endurance. Plinking terrorists no longer requires an aircraft with oxygen flowing into the cockpit, parachutes or other gear necessary to ensure a pilot’s survival. But another limit still exists. When MQ-1 Predators are armed, they head off into the wild blue yonder with a lone pair of Hellfire missiles under their wings. It’s a double-barreled shotgun you can’t reload. But folks at General Atomics are getting increasingly excited by the HELLADS — the High Energy Liquid Laser Defense System. It is designed to shrink a flying laser into a package small enough to cram onto an aircraft.
The Senate moved last week to restrain the rapid growth of the Defense Clandestine Service, the Pentagon’s human intelligence operation. “DoD needs to demonstrate that it can improve the management of clandestine HUMINT before undertaking any further expansion,” the Senate Armed Services Committee wrote in a report on the new legislation.
CONTRACT WATCH
The Department of State is looking to contractors to help them administer and grow the criminal justice system in Iraq.
Robert Caruso is a veteran of the United States Navy, and has worked for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Business Transformation Agency and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
