MORE TROOPS BUT NOT ‘ARMED SOLDIERS’: Three days after President Trump tweeted “We are now sending ARMED SOLDIERS to the Border” in response to an incident in which U.S. troops were briefly disarmed by Mexican troops on American soil, the Pentagon confirmed it will relax some rules so it can send about 300 more troops to the border.
But the troops will include roughly 20 lawyers, 100 cooks, and 160 drivers, all in support roles. As acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said a week ago, “We don’t do law enforcement.” The additional active-duty troops will be given waivers so they will be allowed to come in contact with migrants.
“The Department has been transparent and vocal in its request for assistance dealing with the humanitarian and security crisis at our southern border. We appreciate DoD’s long history of assistance on all our border security missions,” Department of Homeland Security press secretary Tyler Q. Houlton told the Washington Examiner.
The plan would allow military attorneys to assist with deportation hearings in immigration courts across the country, according to the Washington Post, which was first to report the story. The Post says internal Pentagon documents put the cost of the requested expansion of the military mission at about $21.9 million through the end of the fiscal year in September.
TRUMP SAYS FAMILY SEPARATION WORKS: In an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” President Trump complained to host Maria Bartiromo that the end of the family separation policy on the border had just opened the floodgates.
“We go out and we stop the separation. The problem is you have 10 times more people coming up with their families. It’s like Disneyland now. You know, before, you’d get separated, so people would say, ‘Let’s not go up.’”
Trump disputed claims by Democrats in Congress that what is needed is more administrative judges to process asylum requests more quickly. “We don’t need a court system. We have a court system that has 900,000 cases behind it. In other words, they have a court which needs to hear 900,000 cases. How ridiculous is this?” Trump said. “What we need is new laws that don’t allow this, so when somebody comes in we say, ‘Sorry, you got to go out.’”
Later on the show, Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, whose district covers more of the border than that of any other member of Congress, told Bartiromo the situation at the border was indeed a crisis. “We all know last month, 103,000 people came here illegally. To give your viewers some context for that number, all of last year, it was 400,000 people that came in.”
ON THE WALL FRONT: The Department of Homeland Security issued two more waivers last week allowing the Army Corps of Engineers to bypass environmental laws and start a nearly $1 billion project to replace roughly 50 miles of border fence in parts of Arizona and Texas that are seeing high levels of illegal activity.
The department announced Friday the new construction projects will go up near El Paso, Texas, and Yuma, Ariz., both to be funded by the Pentagon.
While President Trump campaigned in 2016 to build what he called a “beautiful” wall between the United States and Mexico, in the two years and three months that he has been in office, not quite 40 miles of barriers have been erected, most of that replacement fencing.
Good Monday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Kelly Jane Torrance (@kjtorrance). Email us here for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter: @dailyondefense.
HAPPENING TODAY: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo participates in a conversation on the Trump administration’s foreign policy priorities this morning with The Hill’s editor in chief Bob Cusack as part of the Hill’s Newsmaker Series. The 8:30 a.m. event at the Council on Foreign Relations will be streamed live at thehill.com/event.
NO RANSOM FOR WARMBIER: National security adviser John Bolton has confirmed a Washington Post story that President Trump labeled “fake news” Friday. On “Fox News Sunday,” Bolton admitted State Department envoy Joseph Yun signed an agreement to pay North Korea $2 million for medical fees at the time of Otto Warmbier’s release. But he said the “key point” is that America never paid up.
“Absolutely not,” he told anchor Chris Wallace. “So basically we signed the document fully intending not to honor it?” asked Wallace. “Well, I don’t know the circumstances,” Bolton replied.
Friday, Trump tweeted a third-person quotation referring to himself as “the greatest hostage negotiator that I know of in the history of the United States.” The tweet, which said that “20 hostages, many in impossible circumstances, have been released in last two years,” was signed “Chief Hostage Negotiator, USA!”
Speaking to reporters on the White House lawn Friday, Trump misrepresented the Post report, saying, “That was a fake news report that money was paid.” The Post specifically said it could not determine if the money was paid, only that the agreement to pay the medical bill was signed on Trump’s orders.
GITMO CMDR FIRED: The commander of the U.S. prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has been fired following an investigation.
“Commander, U.S. Southern Command, U.S. Navy Adm. Craig Faller, relieved U.S. Navy Rear Adm. John Ring, commander, Joint Task Force – Guantanamo, April 27, due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command,” said a short statement from SOUTHCOM yesterday.
Ring has been replaced on an acting basis by his deputy, Army Brig. Gen. John Hussey. “This change in leadership will not interrupt the safe, humane, legal care and custody provided to the detainee population at GTMO,” the statement said.
SEAL TOO OLD AT 37: A 37-year-old Navy SEAL who served four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan was told he is too old to become a New York firefighter. Special Operations Chief Shaun Donovan took a written exam in October and scored in the top 1 percent of the nearly 44,000 applicants. He returned to New York in January for the physical exam and passed that as well. The two trips from San Diego, Calif., cost him $1,331 and military leave time.
But in February, the department’s background checker informed him he was ineligible because he was too old. Candidates must be 29 years old when the application process starts, and military veterans receive an extra six years with a cut-off age of 35. Donovan was 6 months and 25 days over the limit because of the delay in taking the test.
“It was a letdown,” he told the New York Post. “I was allowed to apply and take the test. At no point was I made aware I was outside any age limit. It just seemed everything was lined up and ready to go.” Donovan is appealing the decision to the city’s Civil Service Commission.
NONCOMBAT DEATH IN SYRIA: The U.S.-led coalition against ISIS, Operation Inherent Resolve, released a short statement this morning announcing that an American service member died today in northern Syria in a “non-combat incident.” No other details were released.
Under standard Pentagon procedure, the name of the U.S. casualty is not released until 24 hours after the notification of the next of kin.
BOOT CAMP DEATH: An 18-year-old woman collapsed and died Tuesday at a Navy boot camp in Illinois, after a similar death in February that also followed physical exertion. Kelsey Nobles, of Mobile, Ala., died of cardiac arrest after a physical fitness test, her father Harold Nobles told WKRG-TV.
Another young woman, 20-year-old Kierra Evans, died Feb. 22 after collapsing following the running portion of the Navy’s Physical Fitness Assessment. A spokesman said the Navy is investigating events leading to Nobles’ death.
REMEMBERING RICHARD LUGAR: Former Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, a towering figure in U.S. foreign policy, died Sunday at the age of 87.
Lugar, a centrist Republican best known for his foreign policy expertise, represented Indiana in the Senate for 36 years, losing his seat in 2012. He was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2003 to 2007. He died from complications arising from chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, the Lugar Center announced.
Lugar was perhaps best known for his alliance with Democratic senator Sam Nunn to create a program to secure the nuclear arsenals of Russia and other former Soviet states after the breakup of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. The Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, better known as “Nunn-Lugar,” led to the destruction of thousands of nuclear weapons.
On a snowy day in January 1996, I watched with then-defense secretary William Perry as Ukrainian officials blew up an empty SS-19 missile silo outside Pervomaysk that two years earlier would have been armed to launch nuclear missiles towards the United States. That was facilitated by the Nunn-Lugar program.
The Rundown
Washington Examiner: Pentagon official: Threats to US space systems ‘at an all-time high’
Reuters: Two U.S. Navy Warships Sail Through Strategic Taiwan Strait
AP: Bolton: Trump Wants Solo, Not Multi-Party Talks With North Korea
Stars and Stripes: South Koreans Celebrate Summit Anniversary, But N. Korea’s A No-Show
CBS News: How NATO And The U.S. Are Preparing For Any Russian Aggression Off The Coast Of Norway
Navy Times: NAVSEA: Up To $1.9 Billion Deal For Coast Guard’s New Icebreaker Fleet
USNI News: New Pentagon Initiatives Address Cybersecurity Challenges, Industrial Base Fragility
HistoryNet.com: The Final Secret of the USS Scorpion
USNI News: Navy Black Box Detector Joins in Deep Water Hunt for Missing Japanese F-35A
New York Times: A Former Marine Looks Back on Her Life in a Male-Dominated Military
Washington Examiner: LBJ’s daughters christen ‘most ironic ship’ criticized as wasteful spending
AP: Daimler says it has no idea how Kim Jong Un got his limos
Washington Post: Opinion: Metro, please don’t fall for China’s trap and buy their rail cars
Calendar
MONDAY | APRIL 29
8 a.m. 1777 F Street N.W. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discusses major foreign policy priorities of the State Department with Bob Cusack, editor in chief of The Hill as part of The Hill’s Newsmaker Series. thehill.com/event
8:30 a.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. New America and Arizona State University’s annual Future Security Forum. Featured speakers: Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass.; Gen. Robert Neller, Marine Corps commandant; Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations; Kiron Skinner, director of policy planning, State Department; Lt. Gen. David Thompson, Air Force space vice commander; Heather Wilson, Air Force secretary. Register here: newamerica.cvent.com. Agenda here: www.newamerica.org.
10:30 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. Brookings Institution book discussion on The Senkaku Paradox, focusing on the U.S.-Japan alliance in relation to China, with author Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at Brookings, and Rachel Martin, host of NPR’s “Morning Edition.” https://www.brookings.edu/events.
11:45 a.m. 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. The Hudson Institute discussion on “Withdrawal or Realignment? The Future of U.S. Middle East Policy After 2020.” Speakers: Nadia Bilbassy-Charters, Washington, D.C., bureau chief at Al Arabiya; Gordon Chang, columnist at the Daily Beast; Blaise Misztal, fellow at Hudson; and Mike Pregent, senior fellow at Hudson. www.hudson.org
12 p.m. 1779 Massachusetts Avenue N.W. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace discussion on “Trump’s Iran Escalation.” Speakers: Former CIA director Gen. David Petraeus; Suzanne Maloney, senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy; former Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, president of CEIP; and Karim Sadjadpour, senior fellow at CEIP. carnegieendowment.org
12:45 p.m. 1619 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies discussion on “Maximum Pressure: Iran in the Age of Trump.” Speakers: Dina Esfandiary, research fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center; and Ali Vaez, director of the International Crisis Group’s Iran Program. www.eventbrite.com
1 p.m. 1152 15th St. N.W. Center for a New American Security discussion “Beyond ISIS: What’s Next for the U.S. in Syria and the Middle East?” Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Mick Mulroy provides the keynote address. www.cnas.org/events
4:30 p.m. H-405, U.S. Capitol. House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee closed hearing on Central Intelligence Agency Budget. Director Gina Haspel testifies.
5 p.m. House Triangle, U.S. Capitol House Veterans’ Affairs chairman Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., and House Veterans’ Affairs ranking member Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., hold a news conference with committee members ahead of a 7 p.m. hearing on “Tragic Trends: Suicide Prevention Among Veterans.” veterans.house.gov
7 p.m. 1334 Longworth. House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing on “Tragic Trends: Suicide Prevention Among Veterans.” Witnesses: Shelli Avenevoli, deputy director of the National Institutes of Mental Health; Richard McKeon, chief of the Suicide Prevention Branch in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; Richard Stone, executive in charge of the Veterans Health Administration; and Keita Franklin, VA national director of suicide prevention. veterans.house.gov
TUESDAY | APRIL 30
9:30 a.m SD-G50 Dirksen. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing to consider the nominations of Adm. William Moran to be chief of naval operations, and Marine Lt. Gen. David Berger to be promoted be general and Marine Corps commandant. www.armed-services.senate.gov
11 a.m. H-140 Capitol. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearing on Navy Marine Corps Budget. Witnesses: Richard V. Spencer, secretary of the Navy; Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations; and Gen. Robert Neller, commandant of the Marine Corps. appropriations.house.gov
2 p.m. 2218 Rayburn. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel hearing on “Feres Doctrine – A Policy in Need of Reform?” Witnesses: Sgt. 1st Class Richard Stayskal, U.S. Army; Alexis Witt, widow of Staff Sgt. Dean Witt and advocate for Feres Reform; Rebecca Lipe, former Air Force judge advocate; Dwight Stirling, CEO of the Center for Law and Military Policy; and Paul Figley, American University Washington College of Law. armedservices.house.gov
WEDNESDAY | MAY 1
10 a.m. 2359 Rayburn. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearing on Pentagon’s proposed FY 2020 budget. Witnesses: Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan; Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and David Norquist, performing the duties of deputy secretary of defense. appropriations.house.gov
10 a.m. 2118 Rayburn. House Armed Services Committee hearing on “National Security Challenges and U.S. Military Activity in North and South America.” Witnesses: Adm. Craig Faller, commander, U.S. Southern Command, Gen. Terrance O’Shaughnessy, commander, U.S. Northern Command, and Kenneth Rapuano, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global security. armedservices.house.gov
2 p.m. 2118 Rayburn. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces hearing on “Army Modernization Programs.” Witnesses: Bruce Jette, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics, and technology; Gen. John Murray, Army Futures Commander; Lt. Gen. James Pasquarette, deputy chief of staff, Army programs; Jon Ludwigson, acting director, contracting and national security acquisitions, GAO. armedservices.house.gov
2:30 p.m. 2212 Rayburn. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness hearing on “Fiscal Year 2020 Budget Request for Military Construction, Energy, and Environmental Programs.” Witnesses: Robert McMahon, assistant secretary of defense for sustainment; John Henderson, assistant secretary of the Air Force for installations, environment, and energy; Alex Beehler, assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy, and environment; Todd Mellon, performing the duties of principal deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for energy, installations, and environment. armedservices.house.gov
2:30 p.m. SR-222, Russell. Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing on U.S. nuclear weapons policy. Witnesses: Ellen Lord, under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment; David Trachtenberg, deputy under secretary of defense for policy; Gen. Timothy Ray, Air Force global strike commander; and Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe, director, strategic systems programs. www.armed-services.senate.gov
THURSDAY | MAY 2
9 a.m. Rayburn. House Armed Services Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces hearing on “Department of the Air Force Acquisition and Modernization Programs.” Witnesses: Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition; Gen. James Holmes, air combat commander; Maj. Gen. David Nahom, Air Force director of programs; Lt. Gen. Anthony Ierardi, joint staff director; Vice Adm. Mathias Winter, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program office; Robert Daigle, director, Pentagon’s cost analysis and program evaluation office; Robert Behler, director, operational test and evaluation office; and Michael Sullivan, director, defense weapon system acquisitions, GAO. armedservices.house.gov
9:30 a.m SD-G50. Dirksen. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing to consider the nomination of Gen. James McConville to be chief of staff of the Army. www.armed-services.senate.gov
FRIDAY | MAY 3
8:30 a.m. 300 First Street S.E. Mitchell Space Breakfast Series discussion “The Importance of Data in the Space Domain.” Speaker Maj. Gen. Kimberly Crider, mobilization assistant to the commander, Air Force Space Command. Register: events.r20.constantcontact.com
WEDNESDAY | MAY 8
9 a.m. 801 Wharf St. S.W. Foundation for Defense of Democracies event “Rising to the Threat: Revitalizing America’s Military and Political Power.” Speakers include retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, former national security adviser; Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, U.S. Central Command head; Rep. Mac Thornberry, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee; and retired Lt. Gen. Ed Cardon, former U.S. Army Cyber Command head. Invitation only.
12 p.m. 800 M Street N.W. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Brookings Institution sponsor an invitation-only discussion on Operation Tidal Wave II and its role in the destruction of the Islamic State’s finances. Speakers: Retired Gen. John Allen, president of the Brookings Institution; David Asher, former State Department official and FDD senior fellow; and retired Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, former commander of the coalition against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Moderated by Nancy Youssef, national security correspondent at the Wall Street Journal.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The thing that worries me most is the sustained assault on truth. What is happening today is … a relentless campaign against the very credibility of the news media.”
Ron Chernow, historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, speaking in place of the traditional comedian at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
