MATTIS IN KABUL: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has arrived in Kabul, Afghanistan, a stop on his overseas trip that was not announced ahead of time for security reasons. Mattis arrives as U.S. commanders are asking for more troops to help the Afghan security forces counter a resurgent Taliban, and as the two top Afghan defense officials with whom he would normally meet have resigned in the wake of a deadly Taliban attack. As many as 140 Afghan troops were killed in the attack on an Afghan military base near Mazar-e Sharif by Taliban fighters who infiltrated the base dressed as Afghan troops. The attack is the deadliest since the start of U.S. operations there in October of 2001, and resulted in the resignations of the Afghan defense minister and chief of the army.
Mattis will be consulting with his top Afghanistan commander, Gen. John “Mick” Nicholson, and meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Mattis’ visit comes on the heels of national security adviser H.R. McMaster’s inspection tour last week to begin the review about how the U.S. should help Afghanistan break what Nicholson has termed a stalemate. At this point, it should be noted that the mission to enable the Afghan army to fight the Taliban, dubbed Resolute Support, is separate from the U.S. counterterrorism mission that has full authority to go after ISIS and al Qaeda groups, called Freedom’s Sentinel. It was under that existing authority that Nicholson dropped the 21,600 pound MOAB on an ISIS tunnel complex along the border with Pakistan. Nicholson says he needs several thousand more troops, U.S. or NATO or both, to help the Afghan army retake the initiative.
SHOWDOWN LOOMING: Congress has until the end of the workweek to come up with a plan to keep the federal government running. At this point, all signs point to another stopgap measure known as a continuing resolution, or CR, while negotiations continue on a budget for this year, which is already half over. Failure to reach an agreement would result in another government shutdown, which could hardly come at a worse time. The Senate goes back into session tonight, the House returns tomorrow from a two-week recess, leaving just four days to beat the Friday deadline.
“We cannot shut down the government right now,” Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said on CBS yesterday. “We have a potential crisis brewing with North Korea. We’ve seen what’s going on, the ongoing crisis in Syria. The last thing we can afford is to send a message to the world that the United States government, by the way, is only partially functioning. I mean, that would just have catastrophic impact in my view, or certainly very destabilizing, I should say, impact on global affairs.”
WILL THE WALL GET IN THE WAY? One big stumbling block is the current impasse over one of the president’s top priorities, his proposed border wall that he promised Mexico would pay for, eventually. The president wants Congress to front the money so the project can get underway, but Democrats are balking. The question: Will the president sign a funding package if it doesn’t include money for the wall? President Trump was asked point blank by AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace in an Oval Office interview Friday. “I don’t know yet,” Trump said. “People want the border wall.” In that interview, the president also accused his critics of inflating the cost the project in an effort to kill it. “I’m seeing numbers — $24 billion, I think I’ll do it for $10 billion or less,” Trump said. “That’s not a lot of money relative to what we’re talking about.”
BIG DEFENSE BOOST UNLIKELY: Despite the president’s boasting of a historic military buildup and a request for an extra $30 billion for the rest of this year, the Defense Department is unlikely to see any major increase in its funding from Congress in the coming days as lawmakers try to hammer out a budget. Lawmakers will be hard-pressed to strike a deal providing the extra $30 billion boost requested by Mattis on the Hill recently. The increase would bust caps on federal spending and draw opposition from Democrats who want more domestic spending, and from fiscally conservative Republicans in the House. Meanwhile, debate over the Trump administration’s 2018 defense budget and its touted military buildup — including a 350-ship Navy — is not expected to kick off until May, after Congress hopes to wrap up the budget for the rest of this fiscal year.
Good Monday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre), National Security Writer Travis J. Tritten (@travis_tritten) and Senior Editor David Brown (@dave_brown24). 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.
1st Q EARNINGS COMING: This is the week that most companies report their earnings for the fiscal quarter ending March 31. Of the major defense contractors Lockheed Martin is up first. CEO Marillyn Hewson will host a live webcast 11 a.m. tomorrow. Then on Wednesday, General Dynamics webcasts its first quarter 2017 financial results conference at 9 am, following by Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg at 10:30 a.m., and Northrop Grumman has a conference call scheduled for noon. Raytheon conducts its conference call 9 a.m. Thursday.
THE NARRATIVE THAT TRUMP WON’T LET DIE: In that interview with the AP, Trump praised Lockheed Martin’s Hewson, and once again repeated the disputed claim that he personally negotiated a big price-cut in the uber-expensive F-35 fighter jet. The record shows the price reduction in the latest lot of F-35s was the result of years of efforts at cost containment and was negotiated by Pentagon officials well before Trump took office. Nevertheless, the president likes his version of the story better.
“I saved $725 million on the 90 planes. Just 90. Now there are 3,000 planes that are going to be ordered. On 90 planes I saved $725 million,” Trump bragged. “Gen. Mattis, who had to sign the deal when it came to his office, said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this in my life.’” And he added that he was thanked by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during his visit to Washington. “The first thing he said to me, because it was right at the time I did it, he said, ‘Could I thank you?’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘You saved us $100 million. Because they got a $100 million savings on the 10 or 12 planes that they [bought]. Nobody wrote that story.”
The president said he now has his eye on trimming the cost of the newest class of aircraft carriers that are years behind schedule and billions over budget. “As an example, the aircraft carriers, billions of dollars, the Gerald Ford, billions and billions over budget.” Trump said. “That won’t happen.
SPEAKING OF CARRIERS: We wrote a lot last week about the SNAFU over the travel plans of the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group, which was supposedly dispatched to the waters off Korea, but didn’t go there right away like everyone thought. As we reported it all began with a misleading press release, followed by ambiguous statements from senior officials from the president on down. Navy Times has done a nice job of reconstructing how the PR debacle unfolded and the many missed opportunities to right the ship, before the narrative took on a life of its own. A former aide to the chief of naval operations told Navy Times it would have been a quick and easy fix if the military had simply sent out a press release detailing Vinson’s plans and clarifying the initial release. “It’s really shocking that they let this go for nearly two weeks without trying to correct the record,” he said.
The Vinson, by the way, is conducting exercises with the Japanese Navy somewhere in the western Pacific.
SPEAKING OF PR BUNGLES: A U.S. military spokesman in Iraq made a chilling accusation against ISIS last month. “ISIS is smuggling civilians into buildings, so we won’t see them, and trying to bait the coalition to attack to take advantage of the public outcry and deter action in the future,” said Army Col. Joseph Scrocca. “We caught this on video yesterday as armed ISIS fighters forced civilians into a building, killing one who resisted, and then used that building as a fighting position against the CTS [Iraq’s elite Counter Terrorism Service],” Scrocca said.
It took three weeks for the U.S. military to declassify the overhead drone video to back up the charge of what was described at the time as a “sinister” new tactic. But when the grainy thermal imagery was shown to Pentagon reporters Friday, it proved to be less than a smoking gun. Col. John Thomas, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, admitted the video alone does not show an execution, or the motive of ISIS fighters. “Right. The video does not, in and of itself, show the ISIS fighters’ intent,” Thomas said in an email response to a follow up query.
But Pentagon officials insist they have other other intelligence that supports Scrocca’s original account. You can judge for yourself what the imagery shows. We have taken the 2:20 drone video, and added the audio description that was given to reporters Friday by Thomas. You can see it here.
RELIEF AFTER FRENCH RUNOFF RESULTS: World markets reacted favorably to the results of Sunday’s first round of elections for French president. Former economy minister and investment banker Emmanuel Macron was top vote-getter with just over 23 percent. He’ll face off with far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who got 21 percent of the vote. The results set up a May 7 run-off between a young candidate (39) with no electoral experience and the woman who has worked to repair the image of a party marred by racism and anti-Semitism.
Macron is seen as a centrist who has pledged to stay in the European Union and favors pro-immigration policies, while Le Pen has talked about pulling out of the EU, returning to the franc, and instituting restrictions on immigration. It is also the first time in modern French history that no major-party candidate has advanced, the Associated Press notes. Most political analysts in France expect the center left and center right to coalesce around Macron.
ANOTHER AMERICAN DETAINED BY NORTH KOREA: A U.S. citizen was detained in North Korea this weekend when he attempted to leave the country, according to multiple reports Sunday. Tony Kim, a Korean-American who had spent a month teaching an accounting course at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, was arrested Saturday morning at Pyongyang International Airport, the university’s chancellor, Chan-Mo Park, told the Associated Press. While it wasn’t immediately clear why Kim was detained, a statement from the university said the arrest was “related to an investigation into matters that are not connected in any way to PUST,” Reuters reported.
IT’S ALL ABOUT MAKING A DEAL: In his AP interview, Trump explained why he has dropped his claim that China is a major currency manipulator. First of all, the president says China has not been manipulating its currency since he took office in January, and second of all he now has a new relationship with China’s President Xi Jinping, who he is counting on to solve the North Korea crisis. “If he’s helping us with North Korea, with nuclear and all of the things that go along with it, who would call, what am I going to do, say, ‘By the way, would you help us with North Korea? And also, you’re a currency manipulator.’ It doesn’t work that way,” Trump said.
BETTER RELATIONS THROUGH CHEMISTRY: Trump has talked about his great chemistry with Xi, but he also said he has “one of the best chemistries” with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and insists the media read way too much in his failure to shake her hand a White House Photo op. “I guess somebody shouted out, ‘Shake her hand, shake her hand,’ you know. But I never heard it. But I had already shaken her hand four times. You know, because we were together for a long time,” Trump told the AP.
The entire transcript of the AP interview is here.
KELLY AIRPLANE ATTACK THREAT: The chief of U.S. homeland security said on Sunday he loses sleep over the idea of another Sept. 11th-style plane attack in the U.S. “The other thing, John, that has me — keeps me literally awake at night is the threat against aviation. You know, we know that would be the Super Bowl for the terrorists, to knock down an airplane in flight, particularly if it was full of Americans,” Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told CBS “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson.
“I focus on this aviation threat as something that is very real. And if they’re successful, they’re going to kill hundreds and hundreds of people in one fell swoop.” DHS is watching a “number of plots” regarding this type of threat. Kelly said he checks in on these aviation threats “four or five times a day.”
TRUMP GIVES PURPLE HEART: Trump awarded a Purple Heart to a wounded service member during a ceremony at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Saturday. During the short ceremony, the president placed the Purple Heart on the lapel of Sgt. First Class Alvaro Barrientos, according to a pool report.
“When I heard about this I wanted to do this, myself,” Trump said, thanking the service member. Trump’s wife Melania was also in attendance. Barrientos was recently wounded while deployed in Afghanistan.
THE RUNDOWN:
Reuters: North Korea says it is ready to strike U.S. aircraft carrier
CNN: Kelly: If North Korea gets missile, US at risk
Defense News: Japanese warships join with carrier Vinson on exercises
New York Times: Security council diplomats to have lunch with Trump
Washington Post: Piracy back on the rise off Somalia, U.S. military says
The Daily Beast: Senate Trump-Russia probe has no full-time staff, no key witnesses
Task and Purpose: Trump needs to stop treating the Purple Heart like a game show prize
Reuters: Afghan Taliban’s brazen attack eclipses Trump’s ‘mother of all bombs’
New York Times: Abu Sayyaf militants are killed in gunfight with police
USA Today: International mission member killed in Ukraine blast
Air Force Times: US, German air forces conduct close-air support joint-exercise in Michigan
Calendar
MONDAY | APRIL 24
9 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Reflecting on President Trump’s first 100 days. brookings.edu
10:30 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. China’s growing interests in the Middle East, and the United States’ enduring interests in the Middle East. csis.org
12:30 p.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Afghanistan Ambassador H.E. Hamdullah Mohib discusses the long war in Afghanistan and the Trump administration. brookings.edu
1 p.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Ending the war on civilians: A discussion with Syria’s White Helmets. atlanticcouncil.org
4 p.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Gen. George C. Marshall and the atomic bomb. wilsoncenter.org
TUESDAY | APRIL 25
9:30 a.m. Dirksen G50. Policy and strategy in the Asia-Pacific. armed-services.senate.gov
9:45 a.m. Dirksen 419. The next steps for the crisis in Libya and U.S. policy options. foreign.senate.gov
12 p.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. South Caucasus: The threats and challenges for the Trump administration. heritage.org
2:15 p.m. Dirksen 124. Hearing to review United States assistance for Egypt. appropriations.senate.gov
2:15 p.m. Hart 219. Closed intelligence hearing. intelligence.senate.gov
5 p.m. 12900 Federal Systems Park Dr. Evening reception to open the following two-day meeting of the Integrated Program Management Division. ndia.org
WEDNESDAY | APRIL 26
10 a.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. 100 down, 265 days to go on Trump’s first year. heritage.org
10 a.m. Rayburn 2118. Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, gives his military assessment of the security challenges in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. armedservices.house.gov
10 a.m. Dirksen 106. Nomination of Courtney Simmons Elwood to be general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency. intelligence.senate.gov
10:30 a.m. Dirksen 192. Gen. Joseph Lengyel, chief of the National Guard Bureau; Lt. Gen. Charles Luckey, chief of the Army Reserve; and Lt. Gen. Maryanne Miller, chief of the Air Force Reserve, testify on the readiness of their forces. appropriations.senate.gov
1:30 p.m. House 140. Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, testifies in a closed session. appropriations.house.gov
2 p.m. Rayburn 2118. Former defense officials testify on information technology management and acquisition in a rapidly changing landscape. armedservices.house.gov
2:30 p.m. 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Ready or not: A strategy for an effective U.S. military with Sen. John Cornyn. wilsoncenter.org
3 p.m. 1800 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Rebalance, reassurance, and resolve in the U.S.-China strategic relationship. brookings.edu
THURSDAY | APRIL 27
8 a.m. 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. A discussion with Adm. John Richardson, chief of naval operations, on how to maintain a ready fleet. brookings.edu
9 a.m. Capitol Visitor Center 217. All-day conference on a fundamental change in nuclear weapons policy. sgi-usa-washingtondc.org
9:30 a.m. Dirksen G50. Adm. Harry Harris, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, testifies on the Pacific region and U.S. Forces Korea. armed-services.senate.gov
10 a.m. Rayburn 2172. Policy options in Syria after the missile strikes. foreignaffairs.house.gov
10 a.m. Rayburn 2154. Strengthening national security with a border wall. oversight.house.gov
10 a.m. Rayburn 2118. Lawmakers speak on various defense issues for member day. armedservices.house.gov
10:30 a.m. Dirksen 124. Veterans Health Administration officials testify about preventing suicide. appropriations.senate.gov
12:30 p.m. 1777 F St. NW. U.S. entry into World War I and the lessons 100 years later. cfr.org
2 p.m. Rayburn 2118. Defense health officials testify on post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury treatments. armedservices.house.gov
2 p.m. Rayburn 2172. Afghanistan’s terrorist resurgence: Al-Qaeda, ISIS and beyond. foreignaffairs.house.gov
2 p.m. Hart 219. Closed intelligence hearing. intelligence.senate.gov
2:30 p.m. Russell 222. Experts discuss cyber-enabled information operations. armed-services.senate.gov
FRIDAY | APRIL 28
10 a.m. 214 Massachusetts Ave. NE. Key congressional staff members examine the big questions in U.S.-Asia policy. heritage.org
MONDAY | MAY 1
10 a.m. 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW. Three former Japan defense ministers discuss the country’s strategy toward the Trump administration. csis.org
12 p.m. 1030 15th St. NW. Trump’s first 100 days and what is next. atlanticcouncil.org
