YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST: As we reported yesterday, no one will will face court-martial in the deadly mistaken attack on a Doctors without Borders hospital that killed 42 people including medical staff and patients last year. The final report will be briefed this morning at the Pentagon by new U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Joseph Votel. Sixteen military members have been punished, including a two-star general who was relieved of command, and whose career is effectively over. The bottom line: The Pentagon says this was a tragic mistake, not a war crime.
The White House, meanwhile, condemned the bombing of another Doctors Without Borders hospital, this one in Syria this week, Susan Crabtree reports.
“Presidential press secretary Josh Earnest said the attack killed at least 14 patients and three doctors, including the last pediatrician in the city, and said it appears to follow an ‘abhorrent pattern of [Assad] striking first responders.’ Secretary of State John Kerry said the United Nations Thursday assessed the situation in Aleppo to be ‘catastrophic,’ and said while the U.S. is still gathering facts about the attack, it appears to be a deliberate attack on a medical facility by the Assad regime.”
And as Syria disintegrates, the State Department was silent yesterday on a plea from the U.N. urging Washington and Moscow to rescue peace talks, Curt Mills reported. U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura called for a “U.S.-Russian initiative at the highest level” to help enforce a March truce. “Syrian opposition groups have said they can’t enter into a political dialogue while still under attack from Syrian and Russian forces. Despite that plea, however, State Department spokesman John Kirby said there were no immediate plans to act on de Mistura’s call.”
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TOO TIMID? What’s the point of making a point, if you don’t get the point? Sen. John McCain was on a tear again yesterday about why the U.S. is being so secretive about asserting its right to sail and fly in international waters and airspace. Is the Pentagon intimidated by Chinese threats? Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s answer didn’t satisfy.
GITMOJITOS IN PARADISE: South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said Thursday that sending Gitmo detainees to the naval brig in Charleston will kill the city’s booming tourism industry after it was ranked the top city to visit by travel magazines.
“Who’s going to come vacation in a state that’s known to house terrorists?” the Republican governor told the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency. “You just, as a mom, you don’t take your children anywhere near [where] there could be a threat.”
In addition, she said bringing detainees to Charleston will drive out corporations, like Boeing, and TV shows, like “Top Chef,” which films there, since they don’t want to be affiliated with anything bad.
The Gitmo issue is holding up the nomination of Eric Fanning to be Army secretary, thanks to Sen. Pat Roberts. The Kansas Republican and McCain got into it Thursday over Roberts’ hold over Fanning, but Roberts isn’t budging. Susan Crabtree has the story, which includes video of the Roberts-McCain exchange.
BACK TO THE DRAFT: Following Wednesday night’s surprise House Armed Services Committee vote requiring 18- to 26-year-old women to sign up with the Selective Service, House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday called on Congress to conduct a comprehensive review of the draft, Susan Ferrechio reports. “We need to take a comprehensive look at the entire Selective Service process,” Ryan said. “And we shouldn’t just deal with one issue at a time.”
Meanwhile, the White House dodged the draft issue, Nicole Duran reports. “Although the House Armed Services Committee voted Wednesday to change that policy … Earnest said he could not comment because of a pending class-action lawsuit on the issue. Earnest said the committee’s move would ‘attract a lot of attention, and that the litigation limits what he can say.”
The defense authorization bill still has a long way to go before it reaches the president’s desk, but McCain said Thursday that he is leaning toward supporting Hunter’s amendment. The bipartisan support on both sides of the Capitol suggests the proposal may survive the conference committee.
AT A LOSS FOR WORDS: McCain is always armed with a witty reply when approached by press, but the chatty Arizona Republican was left speechless after being asked about his response to former Ted Cruz campaigner and Virginia Sen. Richard Black’s recent trip to Syria where he praised Assad.
“Actually I’m stuck for an answer, it’s very rare that I can’t think of a rapid response, but on that one I don’t understand it,” McCain said.
On Trump, however, McCain didn’t mince words critiquing the GOP front-runner’s foreign policy speech in D.C. this week, even though he didn’t watch it: “I’ve already formed an opinion. I just don’t believe we should abandon NATO, I don’t think we should do away with nuclear umbrella over Korea and Japan, so obviously I have some significant differences. So I didn’t have to listen to his speech.” (More on reaction to Trump’s speech below.)
RETURNING FIRE: Sen. Tom Cotton saw zero humor in the White House’s comment that the Arkansas Republican doesn’t know the difference between heavy water (2H2O) and sparkling water, Kelly Cohen reports. Earnest was responding to a push by Cotton to bar Iran from selling heavy water to the U.S. But on “Morning Joe” yesterday, Cotton said “The White House may think it’s a laughing matter to subsidize Iran’s nuclear program, but I don’t. Heavy water is not radioactive, not dangerous in normal quantities, but it is an essential part of any nuclear program like Iran’s.”
Later, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell blasted Democrats for blocking an energy and water funding bill over Cotton’s amendment, Susan Ferrechio reports. “They could hardly wait a single week before throwing an obstructionist wrench into the appropriations process they claimed to want,” McConnell said. “I certainly hope Democrats are not dusting off the old Filibuster Summer playbook, especially in light of the letter they just sent me about ‘win-win’ opportunities and restoring regular order.” And Cotton said later in the day he won’t be backing down from his amendment, Kyle Feldscher reports.
SURPRISE!: Vice President Joe Biden swung by Iraq yesterday to conduct what an administration official termed a call for “national unity,” Susan Crabtree and Nicole Duran reported. “The vice president is ‘arriving at a moment of a lot of turbulence,’ the official said, as protests and demands for political reforms are rocking an already fractured government struggling to deal with a bad economy and the havoc wreaked by the Islamic State and its supporters.”
DIVIDE AND CONQUER? The New York Times’ Tim Arango writing from Baghdad posits that Iraq may be better off partitioned. Not a new idea, but a fresh take on how badly Iraq’s political system is malfunctioning as Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis fight for control.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? It’s all about the optics. Madeleine Morgenstern notes Biden’s unannounced visit to Iraq set off the twitterverse when people saw his arrival photo. Check it out here.
HASTA LA VISTA, BOMBY: “Arnold Schwarzenegger spent some time exploding land mines with U.S. troops in Kuwait while promoting his charity for underprivileged children,” Joshua Axelrod reports. “The website Heat Street compiled the former California governor’s Snapchats from his military escapades into a video, which shows Schwarzenegger blowing up a land mine from a tank, promoting troops and generally being in awe of the men and women serving overseas.”
NUKING ISIS: Donald Trump wouldn’t rule out that option while appearing on NBC yesterday, Ryan Lovelace reports. “I don’t want to rule out anything,” he said. “I will be the last to use nuclear weapons; it’s a horror to use nuclear weapons. But I would never, ever rule it out.”
So what did the White House have to say about Trump’s big speech? Not much, Susan Crabtree reports. They also don’t think foreign leaders are as worried about Trump as we think they are.
Jeb Bush said he doesn’t know which Trump he should believe, Gabby Morrongiello reports. “The one that read from a teleprompter a speech that was inside the lines or the one that wants to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it, or [impose] a 45 percent tariff on China, or abandoning NATO, or saying it would be a smart thing to have Japan and Korea kind of go it alone and build their nuclear capability to deal with China,” Bush said, citing a handful of Trump’s most controversial statements about foreign affairs.
We also heard from Trump’s chairman (get it? chair?) on what kind of commander in chief Trump will be. Former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight said Trump would have the “guts to drop the bomb” like Harry Truman did in 1945, Al Weaver reports.
“Knight made the remark when he interrupted Trump during his event in Evansville after the GOP front-runner started to talk about people wanting him to act ‘more presidential,’ which Trump has railed against over the past week.”
“We gotta talk about this presidential crap just for a moment here,” Knight said. “I’ll tell you who they said wasn’t presidential. I don’t even know what the hell presidential means, but they told him that he wasn’t presidential. And that guy they told all these people that wanted to say ‘you’re not presidential,’ that guy was Harry Truman.”
BOOMING BUSINESS: Raytheon announced yesterday that net sales for its first quarter are up almost 10 over the same period last year, Rudy Takala reports. Domestic missile sales were driven by the U.S. Air Force and Navy, both of which use Raytheon missiles in operations against the Islamic State. The company’s Paveway missiles, another driver of growth, are used for destroying fortified facilities, while the SM-6 is used by the Navy for ballistic missile defense.
IT’S PROM WEEKEND: The premier “Hollywood on the Potomac” soiree is tomorrow night, the annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner. It’s a showcase for President Obama’s comedy writers, and the commander in chief traditionally delivers a series of zingers at aimed, sometimes not so-good-naturedly, at his detractors. Some of Obama’s past jokes are here. The professional entertainer is Larry Wilmore, host of “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore” on Comedy Central, but it’s a tough act following the president. By then the booze has been flowing for hours, and the cavernous ballroom is filled with a cacophonous roar of chatter. You can enjoy it all from the comfort of your home on C-SPAN.
But stow those selfie sticks. New this year at the WHCA dinner, the no-selfie rule. Good luck with that.
THE RUNDOWN:
Aviation Week: Will the F-35 learn from its missteps?
RealClearDefense: Fixing defense acquisition requires fixing the requirements process
New York Times: Obama-Netanyahu Rift Impedes U.S. Offer of Record Aid Deal for Israel
AP: North Korea sends another us citizen to prison
Military Times: U.S. beefs up surveillance over Islamic State in Libya
Daily Beast: The Surest Way to Lose the War on Terror: The first Western journalist to embed with ISIS on why Western bombs won’t defeat it.
Reuters: China, Russia urge U.S. to drop Korea missile defense proposal
Inside Defense: Oshkosh reports defense sales boost
Defense.gov: Waldhauser tapped as next AFRICOM commander
Fox News: Army retains decorated Green Beret it planned to kick out over confronting Afghan child rapist
Calendar
WEEK AHEAD
With the House and Senate out next week, it’s shaping up to be a pretty slow week both on Capitol Hill and around D.C.
FRIDAY | APRIL 29
9 a.m. 2301 Constitution Ave. NW. The Atlantic Council hosts an event on security in the European Union and its partnership with the U.S. atlanticcouncil.org
MONDAY | MAY 2
8:30 a.m. 1030 15th St. NW. The Atlantic Council hosts its inaugural Global Strategy Forum, including reports from Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work and Arati Prabhakar, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. atlanticcouncil.org
THURSDAY | MAY 5
3:30 p.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. The Brookings Institution hosts an event where analysts will look at America’s role in the world’s foreign policy. brookings.edu
