With just four days under his belt, the Pentagon's new head of acquisition is sifting through the massive job ahead of him and establishing a to-do list that includes reviews of major procurements.
Ashton Carter, who was sworn in as the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics on Monday, said Thursday that much of what would have been his first order of duty was accomplished during the lead-up to Defense Secretary Robert Gates' release of the department's budget request in early April. Gates recommended major changes in the Pentagon's procurement priorities, including cuts to a number of programs.
Nonetheless, Carter said examining troubled programs and acting on Gates' plan is his first priority. The new acquisition chief plans to review all the department's projects gradually to ensure they are being properly executed.
His second focus will be on logistics, an area he said sometimes is overlooked. With two ongoing wars and a major shift in combat operations, Carter said, attention to logistics will be crucial.
"What's ringing in my ears is the secretary of Defense's often-expressed frustration that the troops are at war but the building as a whole is not," Carter said. "I don't want him to feel that way about his acquisition operation and logistics operation."
Among the greatest challenges will be refocusing resources from Iraq to Afghanistan in President Obama's timeframe.
"We have quite a lot of stuff to move out of Iraq and into Afghanistan ... that's a non-trivial matter both to conceive and to execute, and we can't afford not to meet those timetables," Carter said.
Acquisition reform will be another priority, he noted. Carter already is looking into the appropriate role of contractors "from Blackwater security in theater to pink badges at the Pentagon" and said he wants to improve the government's ability to acquire products quickly.
Presidential and congressional interest in reforms will be an asset, he said.
"If it is going to be different than other efforts at acquisition reform, it's going to be because of that constellation of people who are interested in taking some risk to do things differently if they can see the payoff," Carter said.
Domestic issues have been front and center for the Obama administration thus far, but problems overseas are hardly fading into the background. Special envoy Richard Holbrooke arrived in Afghanistan late Thursday and met with key government officials in Kabul today. The meeting came days after a deadly Taliban attack on government buildings in the capital that underscored the security challenges the U.S. faces in the region.
National Journal this week asked Congressional Insiders and top political bloggers if they supported President Obama's plan to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Among both groups, support was higher on the right. Some 91 percent of the congressional Republicans surveyed supported the move, compared to 57 percent of congressional Democrats. About 65 percent of right-leaning bloggers in the poll favored an Afghanistan "surge," while the percentage was essentially reversed among left-leaners.
Republican Insiders tended to base their support on the judgment and track record of the military: "Gen. [David] Petraeus set the U.S. on a direction to achieve our goals in Iraq. And given the manpower, time, and resources, he should be able to accomplish the same in Afghanistan," one said. Democrats were generally supportive, but most quoted by National Journal had an eye on the big picture. One undecided voter said, "It depends. If they are merely a military 'force,' then no, nothing will change. If they are used to allow for a true shift in approach toward a more pro-Afghan effort, then yes."
The need for more than just a military response was also a common refrain among bloggers. "It's about keeping Afghanistan from becoming a failed state as Pakistan becomes more unstable," wrote left-leaning blogger Taylor Marsh, who voted yes. "Troops alone are not the answer, as everyone knows." But Jon Henke of The Next Right, who voted no, said, "It's hard to see how we could prevent terrorists from operating there except by (a) permanently occupying the country, or (b) building massive, countrywide infrastructure, convincing the Afghanistan people to relocate across the country and moving the Afghans away from their historically tribal approach to society. Both approaches seem impractical."
Insiders and bloggers were also asked if recent events in Washington had changed their minds about the prospect of bipartisanship under Obama. "More encouraged" scored in the single digits among all four groups. "Less encouraged" got majorities from all but left-leaning bloggers, who opted for "no change" by 53 percent.
By AMY HARDER
Nearly 250 people packed a room at the Council on Foreign Relations this afternoon to question former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Rep. Vin Weber, R-Minn., on the forward-looking report [PDF] that they and more than 30 other foreign policy experts produced for the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project last fall.
There was no shortage of timely topics to jump-start the conversation. President Obama has already undertaken a series of actions, such as appointing special envoys to the Middle East and appearing on Arab TV, that suggest he's reaching out to Muslims. While Albright and Weber said they didn't know if the new administration had absorbed the report word for word, Obama seems to be taking the steps the group has put forth, they said.
The media's coverage of the president's early moves, paired with the conflict in Gaza, present the administration with a double-edged sword in its Middle East policy, Weber said. "The good news is that our issues are on the front burner," he said. "The bad news is our issues are really on the front burner." Weber said the administration is in "delicate stages" on various issues throughout the Middle East. Moderator Barbara Slavin, the Washington Times' assistant managing editor for world and national security, brought up two such sensitive topics: the upcoming elections in Israel and Iran. In both cases, Weber and Albright said, the U.S. needs to tread lightly and ensure that it doesn't interject itself into the politics surrounding the elections.
Weber emphasized that he's "most concerned" with the Iranian presidential elections, which take place in June. Iranians hang on America's "every word," he said, adding that the U.S. must be "very, very careful to hold our tongue until after the elections."
In responding to questions from the audience, the two briefly touched upon nearly all the daunting challenges the administration faces in the Middle East: where America's priorities should be regarding Afghanistan and Pakistan, promotion of democracy versus enforcement, and how the media influences both Americans' perception of the Middle East and the Middle East's perception of the U.S.
In recent interviews with with NationalJournal.com, Albright and Weber discussed these topics and more. At the CFR discussion, Albright said that a crucial first step in improving the relationship between the U.S. and the Muslim world is more comprehensive and educational coverage in the media. It should focus on more than just violence in the Middle East, for instance, Albright said. Weber echoed her thoughts. U.S. press coverage in this region "doesn't give a textured view of what the Middle East is really like," he said.
CFR's Melinda Brouwer, who helped coordinate the event, said that about 240 people attended, including many who were involved in the report, as well as foreign news organizations reporting back to Indonesia and Pakistan. Albright and Weber were certainly a big draw, giving CFR what Brouwer called its biggest audience and camera-drawing press corps since its recent relocation from Massachusetts Avenue to 18th and F streets.
