The US Defense Department is urging Congress to extend a counterterrorism tool that gives the Green Berets and Navy SEALs up to US$25 million a year to pay for information, buy guns for allied forces and hire fighters willing to battle al-Qaeda.
The House and Senate are split, however, over whether to renew that authority because of questions about how productive the tool has been for the special operations military groups.
A decision is expected in the next few weeks as lawmakers craft a military spending bill for fiscal year 2008, which begins on Oct. 1.
The little-noticed authority, approved in 2004, has been popular within the special operations ranks because it relieved them of waiting for the CIA to distribute money.
That was a problem in the early days of the war in Afghanistan when commandos were working with the Northern Alliance to defeat the Taliban. There were times when a CIA officer was not immediately available to close a hastily arranged deal, according to reports following the 2001 invasion.
Admiral Eric Olson, the top officer at US Special Operations Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in June that the authority is an "absolutely essential tool in the war on terrorism."
Details remain classified, however. In a written statement to the committee, Olson did not provide specific examples of how the account has been used or say how much has been spent.
But he did say US commandos had employed local forces to infiltrate hostile areas where US troops cannot openly operate.
In other cases, Olson said money from the account has bought information about terrorist activities that could not be obtained through traditional intelligence-gathering methods, such as wiretaps or spy satellites.
The tool has been effective against the Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines, Olson said, and against "potential terrorist targets" in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and the Horn of Africa.
When the spending authority was first granted, Congress required the Pentagon to keep the defense oversight committees regularly informed about use of the provision. It also said the authority was not approval for the military to conduct covert operations.
The House agreed in May to renew the spending authority through 2010, although it wants a more complete accounting of "cost and performance," according to its draft spending bill.
Senators, however, want to know whether the results have been worth the cost, according to a Senate committee staff member, who was not authorized to speak on the record.
The Senate is considering its version of the military spending bill this week.
Once it has finished, the Senate will meet with the House to resolve differences.
The payout provision is set to expire Sept. 30. It is unlikely the House and Senate will have agreed on a revised version by then, but a measure temporarily funding federal agencies will keep the program from dying.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
RSS