Policy & Strategy

Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Angus King (I-Maine) on Thursday introduced legislation that would require the intelligence community to conduct an independent analysis of drone strikes against U.S. citizens.
 
The senators introduced the bill the day after the administration disclosed that drone strikes have killed four American terrorism suspects overseas, and on the same day President Obama is set to deliver a major speech on counterterrorism policy.
 
King said it is vital to give the government the tools it needs to fight terrorism but argued more stringent checks and balances are necessary. 
 
“I also firmly believe that the Executive Branch being the prosecutor, the judge, the jury, and the executioner is very contrary to the traditions and laws upon which this nation was founded,” King said in a statement.

The administration reportedly plans to restart transfers of detainees as part of efforts to close the prison.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) joined a group of House Democrats on the Veterans Affairs Committee on Wednesday to unveil a package of legislation to help fix the disability claims backlog.

The committee Democrats released a package of 10 bills designed to help the Department of Veterans Affairs meet its goal of erasing the nearly 600,000 backlogged claims by 2015.

“This backlog is a challenge to the conscience of our country,” Pelosi said.

For the second time in as many years, congressional lawmakers are blocking the Pentagon from spending any money to shutter military bases. 

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) introduced legislation Wednesday requiring the Obama administration to work with foreign leaders and civil society to rid the Middle East and North Africa of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The Next Generation Cooperative Threat Reduction Act authorizes $30 million a year in new funding for expanded training, professional networking and engagement with civil society, as well as tighter export and border controls. It's modeled after the 1990s-era effort from former Sens. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) that helped deactivate more than 13,000 nuclear warheads and 40,000 metric tons of chemical weapons from countries of the former Soviet Union.

“Nowhere is the proliferation challenge more glaring than in the countries of the Middle East and Africa, where well-connected terrorist groups operate amidst political instability,” Shaheen, a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations panels, said in a statement. “In addition, a growing collection of unsecured conventional and possible WMD-related weapons and materials have created a danger we cannot ignore.”

House Armed Services lawmakers are capping spending for the Pentagon's new clandestine intelligence shop until the Defense Department can prove the new service does not overlap with current intelligence capabilities. 

The president is making a new push after Congress blocked attempts to close Guantánamo during his first term.

A bill to arm the Syrian opposition cleared its first legislative hurdle, easily passing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Topline: The Pentagon's financial future got a bit clearer on Tuesday as House defense lawmakers took their first shots at the Defense Department's fiscal 2014 budget plan. 

Four of the six House Armed Services subcommittees weighed in on the DOD budget plan, crafting legislation on everything from the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan to curbing sexual assaults in the military.

The Armed Services Personnel subpanel included the provision changing the military’s post-trial review process as well as several other measures in order to address the rise of sexual assault in the military.

The legislation was released by Personnel Subcommittee Chairman Joe Wilson (R-S.C) and will be marked up by the panel on Wednesday.

Lawmakers have introduced roughly a dozen legislative proposals to tackle military sexual assault, which are going to be considered in the annual Defense authorization bill.