House-passed bill seeks better coordination between State and Defense
Amendment would establish a 12-member panel to review how the two departments, as well as the U.S. Agency for International Development, collaborate on overseas national security issues.
House Armed Services Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., secured House approval Thursday for an amendment to the fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill that he hopes will serve as a critical first step toward improving interagency coordination in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The House passed the annual Pentagon policy bill by a 384-23 vote after clearing dozens of amendments.
Skelton's amendment, which he offered with House Foreign Affairs Chairman Howard Berman, D-Calif., and House State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., would establish a 12-member panel to review how the Defense and State departments, as well as the U.S. Agency for International Development, collaborate on overseas national security issues.
The panel members would be appointed by the heads of the three agencies and would report to Congress with recommendations for improvements. "This is an amendment that deals with a very difficult situation that has arisen in recent years: the cooperation, or I should say, the lack of cooperation between various departments of our government that relate to national security," Skelton said during floor debate.
Skelton recently held a hearing on the issue with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He said Thursday that the language is a "major step in the right direction." The amendment drew praise from Republicans and passed easily by voice vote, underscoring the widespread concern on Capitol Hill about interagency coordination.
Like Skelton, who has said problems will take years to resolve, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle acknowledged the language is only the first step of many needed to improve the interagency process.
"If we're going to be successful against the terrorists or any other number of challenges we face, we have to have all the instruments of national power and influence working together -- not only coordinated, but integrated so that it is a seamless unit," House Armed Services Terrorism Subcommittee ranking member Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, said. "I hope, as others have said, this is a first step. But it is clearly only one step toward greater reforms that need to take place."
During his hearing with Gates and Rice last month, Skelton raised concerns that the Bush administration has failed to create long-term policies to improve collaboration in areas involving national security. Where policies do exist, Skelton said, they are merely the "ad hoc efforts of those directly engaged in the challenge of the moment, and not the result of a deliberative process designed to achieve a unity of effort," Skelton said then.
Gates, who has repeatedly emphasized the importance of his close working relationship with Rice, said the Defense and State departments have forged a strong partnership. But he acknowledged there needs to be a "fundamental change in how business gets done." Rice emphasized that many interagency policies created in response to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have long-term potential. "I think history will look back on this time as a time in which necessity was, indeed, the mother of invention," she said.