Policy & Strategy

America's over decade-long fight to dismantle al Qaeda and other Islamic militant offshoots will continue to be a fact of life of U.S. national security for decades to come, a top Pentagon official told Congress. 

Lawmakers claim the Obama administration's wide-ranging authority to target terror groups worldwide gives the White House a legal loophole to wage war without congressional consent. 

President Obama on Thursday expressed measured optimism about the joint U.S.-Russian call for Syrian peace talks, saying it “may yield results.”

“I do think the prospect of talks in Geneva involving the Russians and [Syrian] representatives about a serious political transition that all the parties buy into may yield results,” Obama said at a joint press conference in the Rose Garden with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“In the mean time, we’re going to continue helping the opposition and the humanitarian situation,” he added.

The New York senator's legislation would shake up the centuries-old military judicial code amid a spike in sex assaults.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) on Thursday called allegations involving a Fort Hood military sexual abuse prevention officer suspected of running a prostitution ring and abusing other service members “disgraceful and outrageous.”

Gillibrand, who is leading the push to change the Pentagon’s sexual assault policies, said the latest incident highlighted the need to remove such cases from the military’s chain of command.

Lawmakers say it's time to revamp or scrap the law that's guided the war on terror since the 2001 attacks.

The Topline: The White House on Wednesday released more than 100 pages of inter-agency emails on last year’s attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

The document dump by the Obama administration was intended to bolster its argument it did not try to hide the fact the attack was the work of Islamic militants in the country. 

The emails discuss the talking points used by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice in television interviews that aired five days after the attack. In the interviews, Rice said the attack stemmed from a protest over an anti-Islam film, and not terrorism.

Officials contend the emails prove that the talking points were originally generated by the CIA, and that the White House along with the CIA and other agencies believed at the time that the attack stemmed from demonstrations.

Read more...

Republican senators briefly hijacked a hearing on Iran Wednesday to lambaste the Obama administration on the largely unrelated issue of CIA cash payments to Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The angry lawmakers took advantage of a rare appearance by the State Department's third-ranking diplomat to demand answers on the decade of cash payments that The New York Times brought to light last month. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman refused to answer in public.

“Delivering cash to an elected leader – does that help us root out corruption in that country?” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) rhetorically asked Sherman. 

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) followed-up by questioning the example that the United States is setting. 

“Would we object if other nations delivered bundles of cash to President Karzai?” he asked.

Top Defense Department officials are getting increasingly frustrated with the services' ability to curb cases of sexual abuse within their ranks, particularly among service members tasked to prevent such cases. 

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel conveyed his concerns over the issue to President Obama during their weekly meeting at the White House on Tuesday, according to Pentagon press secretary George Little. 

A Senate panel is expected to vote next week on arming vetted Syrian rebel groups.