I’ve been following the Obama administration’s attempts to reform the defense procurement process and cut unnecessary military spending, so I was happy to see the Senate side with the President and kill the F-22 fighter program. Fred Kaplan explains why this is so important.
This is a big deal: The Senate today voted to halt production of the F-22 stealth fighter plane, and it did so 58-40, a margin much wider than expected.
Not only is this a major victory for Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who lobbied strenuously (something he rarely does) to kill this program, and for President Barack Obama, who pledged to veto the defense bill if it contained a nickel for more F-22s. The vote might also mark the beginning of a new phase in defense politics, a scaling-back of the influence that defense contractors have over budgets and policies.
Then again, I might be dreaming. Surely things couldn’t be changing quite that much. Could they?
Kaplan explains how rare this is for Congress to kill a weapons program at the request of the White House. Hopefully a new level of seriousness will prevail on Capital Hill.
Of course, many Senators are still committed to old battles, and many Senators lined up behind the F-22 because of jobs in their districts. Defense contractors and their supporters at the Pentagon have known for years that the best way to preserve a program would be to sprinkle as many jobs around the country in as many districts as possible. As a result, many Democrats, including liberal Senators like Barbara Boxer, opposed the administration here and tried to keep the program going. On the other side, many Republicans who didn’t have a dog in this fight were willing to back the White House. Of course it helped that John McCain was a fierce advocate for killing the F-22.
One of the worst examples of putting politics over the national interest is Chris Dodd, who’s fighting for his political life as he faces a tough re-election campaign next year.
The floor debate was more transparently self-interested than usual. Dodd argued with intense passion that killing the F-22 would create a “dangerous gap” in America’s technical know-how. The next advanced fighter jet, the F-35, won’t enter production until 2014. The highly skilled workers who make F-22s can’t be expected to hang around four years; they’ll get different jobs, and they’ll be unavailable when the country needs them.
Levin took the floor to point out that production of F-35s actually starts next year and that the FY 2010 budget contains money to build 30 of them. In other words, Levin said, “There is no gap.” He wondered where Dodd got his information. Dodd replied that it came from the defense contractors. That’s where he probably got the whole speech, too.
We’re also seeing how important it was for Obama to keep Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Gates has slashed or killed a bevy of outmoded, over-designed, or unnecessary weapons systems in this budget. One or both houses of Congress have gone along with almost all of his swipes. Part of the reason for this compliance is Gates himself, who is almost universally respected; he’s known to be a hawk (a centrist hawk, but a hawk all the same), and he’s worked for Republicans as well as Democrats. In fact, he is a Republican.
Maybe it takes a Republican defense secretary to usher in a new era of defense politics. Are we in fact on the verge of such an era? There are many reasons to be skeptical (the annals of history among them), but what happened today might be a harbinger of something genuinely new.
Given the recent turmoil in the region, I was a little shocked to read this article about progress in the West Bank.
The International Monetary Fund is about to issue its first upbeat report in years for the West Bank, forecasting a 7 percent growth rate for 2009. Car sales in 2008 were double those of 2007. Construction on the first new Palestinian town in decades, for 40,000, will begin early next year north of Ramallah. In Jenin, a seven-story store called Herbawi Home Furnishings has opened, containing the latest espresso machines. Two weeks ago, the Israeli military shut its obtrusive nine-year-old checkpoint at the entrance to this city, part of a series of reductions in security measures.
Whether all this can last and lead to the consolidation of political power for the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority based in Ramallah, as the Obama administration hopes, remains unclear. But a recent opinion poll in the West Bank and Gaza by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, a Palestinian news agency, found that Fatah was seen as far more trustworthy than Hamas — 35 percent versus 19 percent — a significant shift from the organization’s poll in January, when Hamas appeared to be at least as trustworthy.
A critical factor has been the strength of the Palestinian security forces.
An important element in making the Palestinian force effective, American and Israeli officials say, was taking young Palestinian men out of the ancestral grips of their villages and tribal clans and training them abroad, turning them into soldiers loyal to units and commanders.
There still remains much to do. Israel has eased some checkpoints and other restrictions, but Palestinians are still angry over the many controls imposed by the Israelis. That said, the improved situation in the West Bank is a very significant development that can increase pressure on Israel to move forward on the peace process.
President Obama placed his political capital on the line Monday and reiterated his threat to veto a military spending bill unless the Senate removed $1.75 billion set aside to buy seven additional F-22 fighter jets.
Mr. Obama stepped up his campaign after liberal Democrats like Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John Kerry of Massachusetts said they supported the purchases, arguing that the program would retain high-paying jobs in many districts nationwide.
The F-22, the world’s costliest fighter jet, is the most prominent weapons system that Mr. Obama wants to cancel or cut in his plan to rein in military spending. A vote by the Senate to keep producing the plane would be an embarrassing setback for him.
Obama’s argument is simple – the military doesn’t need or want more of these planes. Ironically, one of his allies here is John McCain, who deserves credit for his never-ending battle against wasteful military spending.
From a purely political point of view, Obama might welcome this fight, even if an initial loss in the Senate occurs. Obama needs to show he’s willing to get tough on spending, and a veto here would send a strong message.
Violent clashes erupted today in downtown Tehran between more than a thousand determined young men and women chanting, “Death to the dictator” and “God is great” and security forces wielding truncheons.
The screams of a woman being beaten could be heard from nearby buildings, a witness said. Business owners could be seen hustling protesters into their buildings to shield them from plainclothes officers and anti-riot police who fired tear gas canisters.
Passing drivers and motorcyclists honked their horns and flashed the “V” sign in support of the clumps of demonstrators. At least one trash bin was set afire, a witness said, sending a plume of black smoke rising as dusk approached.
Many of the demonstrators wore surgical masks to protect their identities from cameras stationed at adjacent buildings. They could be seen escaping into side streets and regrouping as shops quickly were shuttered.
Some witnesses said pro-government Basiji militiamen also could be seen wearing masks to hide their faces from digital cameras.
Protesters chanted in support of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who was defeated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in disputed elections last month, and urged the security forces to join them.
The news from Iran has been depressing since the thugs who run the government cracked down on the Iranian protesters, but more and more evidence surfaces that the Iranian government has lost legitimacy with much pf the public.
The most important group of religious leaders in Iran has called the disputed presidential election and the new government illegitimate, an act of defiance against the country’s supreme leader and the most public sign of a major split in the country’s clerical establishment.
The statement by the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final. The government has tried to paint the opposition and its top presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, as criminals and traitors, a strategy that now becomes more difficult — if not impossible.
“This crack in the clerical establishment and the fact they are siding with the people and Moussavi in my view is the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic republic,” said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University. “Remember they are going against an election verified and sanctified by Khamenei.”
Despite the brutal crackdown by Khamenei, Ahmadinejad and their fascist thugs, the reform movement is united in opposition to the Iranian government.
Iran’s reformist opposition on Wednesday delivered a co-ordinated message to Iranians, declaring the government of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad illegitimate and encouraging supporters to challenge it.
A statement by Mir Hossein Moussavi, the opposition leader who says the June 12 election was rigged in favour of the hardline Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, followed similarly defiant calls by Mosharekat, Iran’s largest reformist party, and Mehdi Karroubi, the second reformist candidate.
Mohammad Khatami, the former reformist president and a strong supporter of Mr Moussavi, also joined the chorus warning that the regime, with its “poisonous propaganda” against protesters and its security crackdown, was waging a “velvet revolution” against the “people and the system’s republicanism”.
The concerted effort came two days after the Guardian Council, the constitutional watchdog dominated by hardliners, confirmed the election result. It underlines the determination of the opposition to undermine Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s presidency.
A huge security crackdown has restricted the opposition’s ability to organise protests, but the refusal of reformist leaders to accept the election result could discourage western governments from dealing with Mr Ahmadi-Nejad.
“From now on we have a government which will be in the worst conditions in terms of its relations with people because the majority of society – and I am one of them – will not accept its political legitimacy,” Mr Moussavi said.
Hopefully their courage and determination will be rewarded.
Roger Cohen has a stunning piece about the fighting in Iran, and the bravery or ordinary Iranians fighting their brutal regime.
The Iranian police commander, in green uniform, walked up Komak Hospital Alley with arms raised and his small unit at his side. “I swear to God,” he shouted at the protesters facing him, “I have children, I have a wife, I don’t want to beat people. Please go home.”
A man at my side threw a rock at him. The commander, unflinching, continued to plead. There were chants of “Join us! Join us!” The unit retreated toward Revolution Street, where vast crowds eddied back and forth confronted by baton-wielding Basij militia and black-clad riot police officers on motorbikes.
Dark smoke billowed over this vast city in the late afternoon. Motorbikes were set on fire, sending bursts of bright flame skyward. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, had used his Friday sermon to declare high noon in Tehran, warning of “bloodshed and chaos” if protests over a disputed election persisted.
He got both on Saturday — and saw the hitherto sacrosanct authority of his office challenged as never before since the 1979 revolution birthed the Islamic Republic and conceived for it a leadership post standing at the very flank of the Prophet. A multitude of Iranians took their fight through a holy breach on Saturday from which there appears to be scant turning back.
Cohen believes that the momentum is with the protesters.
The war for the future of Iran has begun, and the Iranian dictatorship and the Basiji thugs have tried to stop the protesters. The Iranian people are fighting back, and many are chanting, “Death to the Dictator!”
If you want to follow the minute-by-minute updates, the best sources are Andrew Sullivan at his blog and Nico Pitney at The Huffington Post. Both have been live-blogging updates, and both have been passing along Twitter messages as well.
Here’s Barack Obama’s statement about today’s violent attacks on the Iranian people:
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.
Martin Luther King once said – “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.
The thought of this brings a smile to my face. The Basiji are the thugs who have been attacking defenseless protesters, including women and children. Their actions have help to rally even conservative Iranians to the cause of the protesters.
The Basij (literally “Mobilization”) — also Bassij or Baseej, or Persian: بسيج; also Baseej-e Mostaz’afin, (literally “Mobilization of the Oppressed);” and officially Nirouye Moqavemate Basij (”Basij Resistance Force”)[1] Persian: نیروی مقاومت بسیج — is a volunteer-based Iranian paramilitary force founded by the order of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on November 1979. The Basij are subordinate to, and receive their orders from, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Originally consisting of those males “either too young or old for regular military service,” the Basij are perhaps most famous for providing the volunteers that made up the human wave attacks against the Iraqis during the Iran–Iraq War, particularly around Basra. Currently Basij serve as an auxiliary force engaged in activities such as law enforcement, emergency management, the providing of social service, organizing of public religious ceremonies, and more controversially morals policing and the suppression of dissident gatherings. They have a local organization in almost every city in Iran.
I commend the protesters and the opposition leaders for stressing nonviolence in the demonstrations. That strategy is critical. But, at some point, fire must be met with fire, and many young Iranians are now going after the Basij thugs, in what is now being referred to as Basiji hunting.
By the way, two nights ago I went out to see a few things … as the general crowds spread into their homes militia style Mousavi supporters were out on the streets ‘Basiji hunting’.
Their resolve is no less than these thugs — they after hunting them down. They use their phones, their childhood friends, their intimate knowledge of their districts and neighbours to plan their attacks — they’re organised and they’re supported by their community so they have little fear. They create the havoc they’re after, ambush the thugs, use their Cocktail Molotovs, disperse and re-assemble elsewhere and then start again – and the door of every house is open to them as safe harbour — they’re community-connected.
The Basiji’s are not.
These are not the students in the dorms, they’re the street young — they know the ways better than most thugs – and these young, a surprising number of them girls, are becoming more agile in their ways as each night passes on.
Also, with $10K every local police station lock can be broken and guns taken out…the police too are crowd friendly…for sure put a gun in their hands and these young become a serious counter-balance to the Basij…call them 10% of 18-22 year olds – that makes circa 10 million around the country versus max 4 million Basijis.
I think Khamenei has miscalculated, and that any attempt to end this through the use of force may very well topple this despicable regime.
Khamenei will not back down, and he basically told the protesters in Iran that they will be dealt with harshly if they do not put a stop to the movement.
This is the moment of truth for the opposition, and I suspect that they will not back down. There will be bloodshed, unfortunately, but tyrants like Khamenei will not go without a fight.
Hopefully, many in the army and in the leadership will break from Khamenei and Ahmadinejad if they try to crush the rebellion with violence.
The Boston Globe has compiled a host of compelling photos from Iran.
This may be wishful thinking, but I’m starting to believe that there’s no way that the thugs in power can stop this movement in Iran. The numbers are too great.
Rumours are still swirling about the shooting in Azadi Square. Some claim four demonstrators were killed with “many more” wounded; others claim that the assailant, a Basiji (unofficial “religious” police), was then beaten to death by the crowd. There is also an unconfirmed report of gunfire in three districts in north Tehran. French media put the number at the rally at up to 2 million.
Reports are sketchy as the Iranian dictators have tried to block Twitter and email, but it seems clear that the protesters are becoming bolder and more determined. The leadership is panicking as the chief Mullah has ordered an “investigation” in an effort to appease the Iranian people, but that doesn’t seem to be working.
Hopefully we’ve reached a tipping point in Iran. The protests are intensifying, and it’s clear many Iranians will never see their “government” as legitimate in the future.
It is difficult to get any reliable picture of the scale of the protests in Tehran, let alone the whole country.
But they spread rapidly during the evening. The cheers and chanting echoed even in customarily quiet middle-class neighbourhoods.
Many Iranians came out on to their roofs to shout “down with the dictator”.
It has become a challenge not just of an election result, not just to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei himself.
That means it is, in effect, a challenge to the whole basis of the Islamic Republic.
For two years I have watched as young, ambitious Iranians go about their lives with growing frustration.
They feel the system stifles their aspirations. Now they feel that their intelligence and their pride has been insulted by an election result many Iranians believe is blatantly fraudulent.
And President Ahmadinejad’s almost casual dismissal of their complaints just adds to the anger.
The thugs who stole this election didn’t count on the Iranian people rising up against this farce.
It’s stunning to see young and old people in Iran saying “Enough!” Many people there realize that Ahmadinejad is a disgrace to their country, and his bigoted, divisive and incompetent leadership must come to an end.
Whatever happens with the green revolution, nothing will ever be the same in Iran.
Andrew Sullivan has some of the best coverage of this unfolding story. He’s also reporting how most of the mainstream media has been AWOL for most of the weekend as this story developed. No wonder more people are turning to blogs and the Internet for their news.
President Obama shows he’s serious about diplomacy with a stunning video message to the Iranian people seeking a new beginning to the relationship between our two countries.
News about the Obama administrations plans for cuts in weapons systems is starting to leak out.
Two defense officials who were not authorized to speak publicly said Gates will announce up to a half-dozen major weapons cancellations later this month. Candidates include a new Navy destroyer, the Air Force’s F-22 fighter jet, and Army ground-combat vehicles, the officials said.
More cuts are planned for later this year after a review that could lead to reductions in programs such as aircraft carriers and nuclear arms, the officials said.
As a former CIA director with strong Republican credentials, Gates is prepared to use his credibility to help Obama overcome the expected outcry from conservatives. And after a lifetime in the national security arena, working in eight administrations, the 65-year-old Gates is also ready to counter the defense companies and throngs of retired generals and other lobbyists who are gearing up to protect their pet projects.
“He has earned a great deal of credibility over the past two years, both inside and outside the Pentagon, and now he is prepared to use it to lead the department in a new direction and bring about the changes he believes are necessary to protect the nation’s security,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary.
Gates is not the first secretary to try to change military priorities. His predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, sought to retool the military but succeeded in cancelling only one major project, an Army artillery system.
Former vice president Dick Cheney’s efforts as defense chief under the first President Bush, meanwhile, are cited as a case study in the resistance of the military, defense industry, and Capitol Hill. Cheney canceled the Marine Corps’ troubled V-22 Osprey aircraft not once, but four times, only to see Congress reverse the decision.
The article highlights the difficulties Gates and Obama will face as they try to cancel these unnecessary and ridiculously expensive programs. This time we’re in the middle of a financial crisis, and Republicans have been howling about spending, so now Obama will be able to turn the tables on them.
Gates’ first showdown looms with a $350 million–a–pop fighter jet. He has to decide by March 1 whether to add more F-22 Raptor fighters to the 183 purchased by the Bush Administration. For years, the Air Force has wanted to double the fleet, while Gates has made clear that he thinks 183 is sufficient. A month ago, some Air Force officials were saying privately that maybe 60 more F-22s would suffice. The Pentagon’s acquisition boss, John Young, recently detailed why more F-22s might be a poor investment. The F-22s that exist are ready to fly only 62% of the time and haven’t met most of their performance goals. “The airplane is proving very expensive to operate, not seeing the mission-capable rates we expected, and it’s complex to maintain,” Young said. Besides, he added, the Air Force plans on spending $8 billion to upgrade most of the F-22s it already has.
This story should make every American furious. We have been outsourcing military functions for years under programs initiated years ago when Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense. This process was accelerated under the last Bush administration.
The result is the story we have below.
Basically, according to whistle blowers who just testified before Congress, soldiers in Iraq were getting electrocuted due to shoddy work done in Iraq by KBR. KBR was a subsidiary of Haliburton, and it’s not even a U.S. company – they transferred their headquarters to the Cayman Islands in order to avoid paying U.S. taxes. How patriotic.
I’m getting tired of Republicans talking about wasteful spending now that Obama is president after living through the Bush years. So much money was wasted by that administration, it’s a disgrace. At least Obama wants to invest in health care for people who can’t afford it.
