President Trump’s veto threat of the National Defense Authorization Act puts at risk a number of hard-fought bipartisan compromises, including one that would help Afghanistan War veterans sickened by toxic chemical exposure.
“The president has said he’s going to veto it,” Rep. Mark Green, a Tennessee Republican, told the Washington Examiner. “He’s such a great negotiator. He throws stuff out there. Who knows what he ultimately does?”
Green said he hoped the bill would pass along with language he helped get into the NDAA that requires the Pentagon to conduct studies related to the toxic exposures and ailments suffered by many Afghanistan War veterans who served at a secret Uzbek air base known as K2.
As a former special operator, Green flew in helicopters with the same veterans he is trying to help by requiring the tests. He hopes the results will prove a correlation between the toxic exposures and cancers and other ailments.
“I think they recognize it is forward progress, but it’s not all the way. I mean, it’s not a touchdown,” he said of the veterans. “We’ll see if all these other sort of temperature adjusters, if you will, turn the heat up on the VA.”
K2 veteran and retired Army Staff Sgt. Mark Jackson told the Washington Examiner that the NDAA provision would amount to significant progress toward their cause.
“This is an important first step towards full recognition and care for K2 veterans,” he said of the estimated 10,000 veterans who were affected. “K2 veterans are sick and dying at a rate far higher than the general population.”
Trump has already promised to veto the bill on two counts: for including language on the renaming of Confederate bases and because it does not have language to disallow social media companies from censoring content.
But there is a litany of additional reasons why the NDAA flies in the face of Trump’s defense policy.
Other provisions would halt Trump from drawing down troops from U.S. bases in Germany and South Korea, impose sanctions on NATO ally Turkey for its purchase of a Russian missile defense system, and, most strikingly, turn back a Trump promise to withdraw most troops from Afghanistan.
Green, however, said he believes Trump will not veto the bill over the Afghanistan provision.
“I doubt that the president is going to drive a stake in the ground on that issue,” he said, noting that he disagreed with Trump’s recent call to reduce forces to 2,500 by Jan. 15.
“I’m more prone to listen to the military guys who are saying right now, ‘We need a little bit more than 2,500,’” he said. “In addition to the anti-terrorist portion of our presence there, I think there are lots of reasons to have an American footprint in Afghanistan.”
Green cited Afghanistan’s strategic proximity to adversary China and the existence of rare earth metals.
Parrying talk of a veto override, the congressman stated that he did not believe the GOP had the appetite.
Instead, he said there is still time to hammer out a new NDAA before the end of the year when the current bill would expire.
“I think there’s plenty of time,” he said. “The Congress can move very fast if they are motivated to.”
