US to continue counter-terror cooperation with Philippines

Post Date September 13, 2009
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Category International politics & law, War and Peace

US to continue counter-terror cooperation with RP – Gates

By Jaime Laude and Jose Katigbak (The Philippine Star) Updated September 12, 2009 12:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines – United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates said his country’s counterterrorism cooperation with the Philippines will continue.

Gates voiced the US position in a meeting with Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr. in Washington.

The security arrangement involves heightened US support for the local military against local and foreign terrorists as well as against rogue elements of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

It was not immediately known what additional contributions or assistance the US would provide the local troops.

Gates’ message highlighted Teodoro’s five-day visit to the US aimed at bringing “to a high gear” the defense and security cooperation between the two countries, the Department of National Defense said.

There are some 600 US troops currently deployed in several hot spots in Mindanao, particularly Basilan, Sulu, Zamboanga Peninsula, the two Lanao provinces and Central Mindanao under the Visiting Forces Agreement.

Their task is limited to providing technical and intelligence assistance to local troops, based on the agreement.

In his meeting with Gates, Teodoro emphasized that the Armed Forces of the Philippines has significantly weakened the terror group Abu Sayyaf although it still poses “clear and present danger” to the country together with the Jemaah Islamiyah and rogue MILF forces.

Aside from addressing terror threats, Teodoro and Gates also agreed to explore further cooperation in dealing with non-traditional security issues such as humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR), climate change, drug trafficking, and maritime security.

Teodoro, in his meeting with Gates, also cited the need for an enhanced Coast Watch South (CWS) by the navy, in partnership with the US and other countries, in order to deny use of the Sulu and Celebes seas by non-traditional maritime threats.

He also underscored the significance of greater US assistance in the government’s infrastructure projects such as construction of school facilities, water system, and farm-to-market roads in strife-torn areas in Mindanao.

Gates, for his part, lauded Teodoro for his efforts to institutionalize reforms in the Defense department and in the AFP through the Philippine Defense Reform Program (PDR).

A DND statement also said Gates praised Teodoro for his department’s successful hosting of the first ASEAN Regional Forum-Voluntary Disaster Response (ARF-VDR) last May in Clark Special Economic Zone in Pampanga.

Defending VFA

Meanwhile, Teodoro, in a speech before the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, dismissed as “shortsighted” calls for the abrogation of the VFA.

He said that while there were some problems between the Philippines and the US over some aspects of the pact, abrogation is not the solution.

He described the VFA as Manila’s “hottest political issue” with Washington but said this was an international pact that must be respected by the two signatories.

Teodoro accused the left of ramping up opposition to the treaty over the Balikatan military exercises but of keeping quiet when US forces swing into action on relief operations to help victims of natural disasters.

The Heritage Foundation described Teodoro as a “quickly up-and-coming political leader.”

Teodoro said he was humbled by expressions of support from local executives for his presidential bid and said if nominated by the ruling party and elected to succeed President Arroyo, he would work even more closely with them for the good of the country.

He was commenting on a statement by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita that “there has been an unexpected groundswell from local executives” unanimously supporting Teodoro as the presidential candidate of Lakas-Kampi.

US analysts see the timing of his visit as a subtle show of support by Washington for his candidacy.

Teodoro said he will accept whoever is chosen by the Lakas-Kampi-CMD convention on Sept. 15 as the ruling party candidate.

Asked if he would accept an offer to run for vice president in case he is not anointed as the presidential candidate, he said he would discuss the matter with his family and supporters. “That (running for vice president) is not automatic,” he said.

Officials Teodoro met included Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, who gave him a commitment to speed up the processing of claims of Filipino WWII veterans under a $198-million lump sum package provided for in the US Stimulus Package.

Sinseki said as of Sept. 1, a total of 31,876 claims from Filipino veterans have been received and 8,900 applications have been processed. More than $77 million has been awarded to eligible Filipino veterans broken down as follows: 3,138 Filipino veterans with US citizenship received $15,000 each, while 3,414 non-US citizen Filipino veterans received $9,000 each.

Teodoro conveyed the Philippine government’s appreciation for continuing US support for the veterans’ war claims and thanked Shinseki for the DVA’s grant-in-aid to the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) amounting to $5.5 since 2003, inclusive of MRI equipment amounting to $1 million, the delivery of which will be completed next year.

At Capitol Hill, Teodoro thanked Sen. Daniel Inouye and Rep. Bob Filner for their crucial role in the passage of the Filipino veterans provision contained in the Stimulus Package.

On Senator Inouye’s concern about Mindanao and the peace process, Teodoro said that the Abu Sayyaf is less of a problem now and that direct conflict with the MILF has been suspended.

Inouye expressed his intention to visit the Philippines in December this year.

Filner also said he would head a San Diego trade mission to the Philippines in November and take the opportunity to meet with Filipino veterans’ groups. Aside from being chairman of the House Committee on Veteran Affairs, Filner is also chair of the Philippines-US Friendship Caucus in the House of Representatives.

Teodoro also met with Sen. Jim Webb (Democrat-Virginia) and expressed his appreciation for US assistance in building schools and infrastructure in conflict areas in Mindanao.

“There is not much outside support for the Abu Sayyaf, especially from al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah,” he told Webb who is chairman of the Senate Subcommittee for East Asia and the Pacific and member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Webb also expressed a desire to visit the Philippines, saying “we do not show up enough in Southeast Asia.”

Source: http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=504541&publicationSubCategoryId=63

"King of Pork"

Post Date May 31, 2009
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Category Military Appropriations, Earmarks, Military-industrial-academic complex, Projects and Campaigns, Social and Economic Impacts, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands)

May 31, 2009

In Battle to Cut Billions, a Spotlight on One Man

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON – Near the end of a two-hour hearing on a special war-spending bill this month, Senator Daniel K. Inouye, in his slow and rumbling voice, finally said the words that defense lobbyists across Washington had been hoping to hear: there was “good reason to be optimistic.”

Mr. Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii, was answering a fellow senator’s question about the future of Boeing’s mammoth C-17 cargo plane. But from Mr. Inouye, the taciturn new chairman of the Appropriations Committee, the comment was also the latest reminder that, as the Obama administration lifts its ax over hundreds of billions of dollars in military contracts that the Pentagon says it no longer needs, he is the industry’s last line of defense.

Mr. Inouye is best positioned to fulfill or frustrate the administration’s hopes of reining in runaway procurement costs. That makes him the object of intense courtship from industry executives, senators and even a certain Hawaiian in the White House.

“In the Senate, the buck stops with Chairman Inouye,” said David Morrison, a lobbyist for Boeing and a former aide to Mr. Inouye, the company with the most at stake in the proposed cuts.

Critics, though, say Mr. Inouye – a self-described “king of pork” responsible for nearly a billion dollars in earmarks each year – is also the most potent remaining champion of the parochialism that for decades has made major military projects hard to kill.

“There is no question a lot of this stuff is going to get put back by Congress,” said Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma. “And the question is, why? Do we need more C-17s, or are we trying to keep people employed on a weapons system that we already have enough of?” Now, Mr. Coburn said, “We’ll see what the priorities are.”

Mr. Inouye is the last of a vanishing breed of powerful old-school appropriators. His predecessor as appropriations chairman, Senator Robert C. Byrd, 91, Democrat of West Virginia, is enfeebled by age. Another former chairman, Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican whom Mr. Inouye called “brother,” lost re-election last year amid ethics charges.

And in the House, Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the defense appropriations subcommittee, is under a cloud because of federal investigations into lobbyists, contractors and other lawmakers with ties to his office.

“Inouye is the last of the old bulls,” said Steve Ellis of the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense, which tracks Congressional spending. “The others have been gored.”

In an interview, Mr. Inouye said he seeks only the country’s security and its soldiers’ safety as he reviews the budget presented by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. “If we agree with the secretary, we go along,” Mr. Inouye said. “And if we don’t, we act accordingly.”

But he also hinted of conflict ahead when he takes up the main defense budget. “You’ll see some interesting activity when the big bill comes up,” he chuckled.

Elected to Congress in 1959, two years before President Obama was born, Mr. Inouye is known as a war hero and civil rights icon. While other Japanese-Americans were in internment camps, he lost his arm leading an Army unit of Japanese-Americans in World War II.

Honoring that legacy is one of many pet causes to which he has doled out federal money, including in one case to a group he helps oversee. In 2000 he inserted into the annual defense bill $20 million for a project dedicated to the sacrifices of soldiers like himself at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, where he was longtime chairman of the board of governors.

He capitalized on his official power to help finance the project in other ways as well. He helped draw donations from military contractors with big interests before his committee. Boeing recently pledged $100,000 a year for five years, a museum spokesman said. (Mr. Inouye, 84, whose first wife died three years ago, also married the museum’s then-president, Irene Hirano, 60, last year.)

Mr. Inouye has other close ties to lobbyists. His son, Daniel K. Inouye Jr., once the leader of a punk rock band, is a lobbyist for several entertainment and communications companies that lobby the senator intensely because he sits on the commerce committee. (Mr. Inouye’s son says he lobbies only the House.)

Mr. Inouye has rescued military contractors before, most notably when the Clinton administration tried to cut procurement. When the Pentagon balked at buying early C-17s – the plane it again wants to stop buying – Boeing hired a lobbyist close to Mr. Inouye: Henry Giugni, a former Honolulu police officer who had become Mr. Inouye’s closest aide and then, with his help, the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms.

A month later, Mr. Inouye, then chairman of the military spending panel, wrote to the defense secretary urging the acquisition of more C-17s, and production continued for 15 more years. Now, the pressure from all sides is far more intense. The president has repeatedly called the senator, aides say, to talk about priorities like passing the war-spending bill quickly – meaning without adding any big equipment programs.

“He calls me Dan,’ ” Mr. Inouye said. “I call him Mr. President.’ ”

Scores of defense industry lobbyists, meanwhile, are reminding Mr. Inouye of his past support for threatened programs, including the missile defense system, partly based in Hawaii, or the Army’s “future combat systems,” a pet project of his friend and fellow Japanese-American from Hawaii, Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, now the veterans affairs secretary.

As Mr. Inouye prepared for the Senate defense budget and a House-Senate conference on the war-spending bill, some of those lobbyists had a chance to speak to him at a fund-raiser this month for his political action committee at the home of the Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta, whose firm’s clients include Boeing, Lockheed Martin and United Technologies. (All three are among Mr. Inouye’s biggest sources of campaign money.)

Dozens of senators are also beseeching Mr. Inouye to save defense jobs in their states, including 19 who have signed a letter asking him to save Boeing’s C-17.

Many lobbyists took Mr. Inouye’s cryptic “reason to be optimistic” comment as a signal that he intended to include the eight C-17s from the House’s version of the war-spending bill when it goes to conference and may add the other eight sought by Boeing in the main defense bill. Supporters of Lockheed Martin’s F-22, a plane the Pentagon has tried for years to stop buying, took heart from Mr. Inouye’s omission of $147 million requested to shut down the production line, leaving it open while the company seeks new sales either to the United States or its allies, as Taxpayers for Common Sense reported.

Mr. Inouye has kept mum about what he may seek to insert in the 2010 military spending bill. But he acknowledged feeling the pressure. “People, whenever a lot of them see me, say, ‘Congratulations, you have got a great job, chairman of the biggest committee,’ ” he said. “I don’t have the time to explain to them that I spend less time sleeping.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/us/politics/31inouye.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Sen. Inouye: "Stryker brigade should not be a referendum on the Iraq war"

Post Date December 17, 2006
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Category 'A'ole Stryker, Military Appropriations, Earmarks, The Military in Hawai'i (All Islands), War and Peace

This was a very interesting op ed from Senator Inouye. It came after the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the Federal District Court and found that the Army decision to station the Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Hawai’i without considering alternatives violated NEPA.  Inouye makes several arguments: (1) He tries to explain why the Army’s predecision to station the SBCT in Hawai’i was justified and proper; (2) He defends his own dealings with Gen. Shinseki asproper; (3) He defends the Stryker’s performance; (4) He tries to guilt trip opponents of the project for not backing a program that protects troops; (5) He evokes the spectre of bloodthirsty terrorists at our doorstep to alarm the reader; (6) He tries to guilt trip opponents for disrupting billion dollar construction projects and forcing Strykers to sit idle; (7) He goes so far to say that supporting the Strykers is downright patriotic; and the most interesting of all, (8) He tries to distance the Strykers from the war.

HonoluluAdvertiser.com

Posted on: Sunday, December 17, 2006
COMMENTARY

Don’t fence them in
By U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye

In 1999, the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, informed me that he intended to transform our Army by making it lighter and more lethal, thereby allowing it to deploy more quickly and fight longer. He requested and received Congress’ support for a new advanced vehicle, the Stryker, which would become the backbone of the redesigned infantry brigade.

Many months later, the chief called to tell me that, after looking at all the Army bases in the United States, he would recommend basing one of the Stryker brigades at Schofield Barracks, if an assessment from a full environmental impact study showed it was safe. The two-year study noted that there would be some risk; however, it concluded that the Army could sufficiently mitigate the primary environmental concerns. Plans were then formulated to begin this powerful transformation.

Not everyone agreed. A few antimilitary and environmental groups opposed Gen. Shinseki’s plan. They sued, contending that Strykers did not belong in Hawai’i. The U.S. District Court reviewed this matter in great detail and concluded in 2005 that the Stryker basing could go forward as planned. However, in October of this year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the District Court’s recommendation, not because of any pressing environmental concerns, but because Gen. Shinseki had not formally examined all other basing options before choosing Hawai’i.

As a result of this ruling, 167 Stryker vehicles are sitting idle at Schofield Barracks. Hundreds more sit in warehouses on the Mainland waiting to be shipped. Approximately 4,000 soldiers at Schofield Barracks have had to stop training but are still slated for deployment in 2007. Our country is at war. With the pace of operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan, our Army is stretched thin. We simply cannot afford to stand down any of our forces right now. This is particularly true of the Stryker brigades.

Today, Stryker brigades are the most effective and highly sought-after units for service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? Because Strykers protect and save the lives of our soldiers. Gen. Shinseki was right once again. The Army is desperately seeking approval to train our Stryker brigade because it is scheduled to deploy next year. For the safety of our soldiers we must allow the training to resume while the Army completes the supplemental environmental study that examines other locations, as required by the court.

There have been some who question why Strykers should be in Hawai’i, instead of Washington or Alaska. First and foremost, national security demands it. Gen. Shinseki selected Hawai’i because of its strategic location. Today, Southwest Asia is the frontline on the global war on terror; tomorrow it could be Southeast Asia. Terrorists are fighting in the Philippines. They are active in Indonesia and are attempting to gain footholds in other countries in our region. In addition to terrorism, there are other threats to the region. We face an unstable, dangerous and well-armed dictator in North Korea. We also know from the past that new threats emerge that we are unable to forecast today. It is essential to our security, our economy and our way of life today and tomorrow that we are prepared to defend and protect the Asia-Pacific region.

At the same time, we are cutting back our overseas forces. In fact, we are finalizing plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces in South Korea and Japan. To remain engaged and credible, we must maintain forces on U.S. soil in the region. Basing a rapidly deployable and lethal Stryker brigade in Hawai’i will signal to those who may wish to do us harm that we are prepared to meet our security objectives in the region.

The nation has made a significant investment to base Strykers in Hawai’i. More than $63 million has been spent in Hawai’i, $230 million is on hold, and a total of $1.9 billion is planned for military construction projects in Hawai’i. It is costing the government nearly $1 million every month for the delays caused by the work stoppage. And it is costing jobs as layoffs of Hawai’i residents are beginning to occur.

Some contend that we could train the Stryker brigade elsewhere. While it is possible to relocate the Stryker brigade, that also may require lengthy environmental analyses to be conducted and the expenditure of millions of dollars. Additional delays in relocating the brigade will only increase the pressure on our overworked military. Furthermore, base and training space are limited. If we have to devote facilities and ranges outside of Hawai’i which are currently being used by other units, we will not be able to efficiently and effectively train our military forces.

In 2002, I voted against providing President Bush with the authority to attack Iraq. I continue to believe it was an error. However, I have and will continue to do everything I can to support our troops. This issue on the Stryker brigade should not be a referendum on the Iraq war.

Today, less than 1 percent of Americans are willing to make the sacrifice to wear our nation’s uniform. They deserve our support.
They deserve the best equipment and the best training we can provide to prepare them for battle. They serve to preserve our democracy. But for our democracy to continue to flourish, all Americans must do their part.

Hawai’i’s strategic location makes it critical that we base a large number of forces here to ensure our nation’s security. We do our part to serve our country by welcoming our Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard and Air Force personnel into our home.

The Army must complete the supplemental environmental work as requested by the appeals court. However, as these studies are ongoing, our soldiers should not be penalized and placed in harm’s way in faraway, dangerous lands without receiving the training they need to protect themselves, and get the job done. We also should not extend their deployment and time away from their families because they are forced to receive their training and equipment in another state. They should not have to make this further sacrifice.

We have asked enough from these warriors. It’s our turn to support them and their need to adequately train in Hawai’i. It should be our duty.

Daniel K. Inouye is Hawai’i’s senior U.S. senator. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.

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