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WASHINGTON, D.C., 

Mar 19, 2009 — The House Foreign Affairs Committee conducted a hearing March 18, 2009, to discuss the role of the U.S. military in foreign assistance.

There was no testimony from currently serving U.S. government officials, but prepared statements are being posted on the U.S. Africa Command Website to promote public understanding of issues related to U.S. policy in Africa. The hearing touched on U.S. military activities and policy worldwide.

Names below link to their testimonies in PDF format.

Those testifying were:

General Michael W. Hagee, USMC, Retired
(Former Commandant of the Marine Corps)

Ms. Nancy Lindborg
President
Mercy Corps

Reuben Brigety, Ph.D.
Director of the Sustainable Security Program Center for American Progress Action Fund

The Honorable Philip L. Christenson
(Former Assistant Administrator, United States Agency for International Development)

Following is the opening statement by Representative Howard L. Berman of California, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee:


Chairman Berman's opening statement at hearing, "Striking the Appropriate Balance: the Defense Department’s Expanding Role in Foreign Assistance"

I'd like to welcome our distinguished panel of witnesses today for the third in a series of hearings that the Committee will convene on foreign assistance reform. In the last Congress, the Full Committee held two hearings addressing this issue, and our subcommittees held several others.

One observation that repeatedly came up during those hearings was the Defense Department’s increasing role in foreign assistance.

We have heard the same explanation for this over and over again: DoD is filling a vacuum left by the State Department and USAID, which lack the capacity to carry out their diplomatic and development functions.

There is no doubt that these agencies have been weakened by a severe shortage of resources.

For example, USAID has only about 2,500 permanent staff today, compared to 4,300 in 1975. The agency is responsible for overseeing hundreds of infrastructure projects around the world, yet employs only five engineers. They have only 29 education specialists to monitor programs in 87 countries.

Likewise, the State Department lacks resources to fill critical diplomatic posts. Today, the agency has a 12% vacancy rate in overseas Foreign Service positions, and an even higher vacancy rate here in the United States. This hollowing out of the State Department cripples its ability to aggressively pursue and protect American interests abroad.

President Obama's fiscal year 2010 international affairs budget request – which I strongly support, and I hope my colleagues will, too – represents an important step forward in addressing these weaknesses.

And for our part, the Committee plans to tackle these troubling capacity issues when we take up the State Department authorization bill and foreign assistance reform legislation later this year.

But beyond capacity and resources, there are some deeper issues I'd like to examine today.

Is providing military assistance to a foreign country a foreign policy decision that should be the primary responsibility of civilian agencies, with appropriate Defense Department involvement in implementation? Or is it a national security mission that should be planned and carried out by the Pentagon?

Does DoD have such a comparative advantage in performing certain non-traditional defense missions that it should be carrying out activities previously reserved for civilian agencies?

And what are the implications of putting a military face on development and humanitarian activities? How does this affect the way we are viewed in the world, and what is the practical impact on USAID's ability to carry out development projects?

The Department of Defense has always played an important role in carrying out certain security assistance activities, particularly implementing military training and military sales directed by the Department of State.

However, DoD's role significantly expanded in the context of Iraq and Afghanistan, where they took on a direct role in planning, funding and implementing military and police training and other non-military activities.

And beyond those two conflicts, the Pentagon began requesting – and receiving -- authority to conduct similar activities in other parts of the world. DoD's goal was to address irregular security threats on a global scale -- threats they argued did not fit neatly into traditional State or Defense Department missions, and thus required new tools of engagement.

These include global train and equip authority, also known as the Section 1206 program; a world-wide stabilization and reconstruction fund, also know as the Section 1207 program; and numerous new training programs directly managed by the Defense Department.

In addition, some existing authorities were expanded, including the Combatant Commander's Initiative Fund and Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster and Civic Assistance.

DoD's argument that these programs are justified by "military necessity" should be given significant deference. Indeed, I can think of many situations in which it might make sense for military commanders to get involved in activities that – in peacetime – would be considered foreign assistance.

However, many questions remain regarding the utility and implications of such programs. For example, on several occasions this Committee has raised concerns about the use of Section 1206 funds.

In some cases, it appears they’ve been used for programs with only a tenuous link to counterterrorism. In others, it looks more like a traditional diplomatic tool designed to curry influence with potential friends.

In the development context, critics have argued that DoD's role erases the distinction between military personnel and civilians carrying out similar development activities, ignores development best practices such as sustainability and effectiveness, and puts a military face on inherently civilian programs.

It can also result in waste, fraud, and abuse, which has been well documented by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

Interestingly, in a letter attached to a report submitted last week on one of DoD's international programs, the Pentagon stated, "Humanitarian assistance activities continue to provide significant peacetime engagement opportunities for Combatant Commanders and U.S. military personnel while also serving the basic economic and social needs of people in the countries supported."

The question remains: Shouldn't our "peacetime engagement" efforts be carried out by USAID, our nation's premier development agency? And should our military be responsible for performing the mission of civilian agencies? Do we really want to ask the men and women who go to war to do the mission of both Defense and State?

Some have suggested that a National Development Strategy would serve as a useful mechanism to help coordinate and establish appropriate roles for various agencies that provide foreign assistance. One of our witnesses supports such a strategy in her written statement.

I welcome this hearing today as an opportunity to shed light on the many important questions surrounding the military’s growing role in foreign assistance.