By Rafael Enrique Valero
Lawmakers told State and Defense department leaders at a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday that their lack of farsighted interagency coordination is blurring jurisdictions in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Joints Chiefs Staff Chairman Adm. Michael G. Mullen defended their approach of letting Defense take the lead on foreign military training programs that have traditionally been funded by State.
In 2005, the Army made stability operations a core military objective to keep weak nations from collapsing. The unprecedented shift in military policy has since eclipsed State's traditional budgetary control of some key nation-building programs. In 2006, the Armed Services Committee asked the White House to reconsider whether Defense should be in budgetary control of training and equipping foreign forces and providing stabilization aid instead of State's Foreign Military Financing program.
"That you're both back here today in support of greater authority for the Defense Department would indicate that the administration has not taken the hint," said committee chairman Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo. He said that State should lead foreign assistance projects and that changing missions on the battlefield should not drive long-term solutions.
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