Secretary of Defense nominee Carter wants to focus on ISIS, expand counterterrorism operations

FILE – In this Friday Dec. 5, 2014 file photo, Ashton Carter listens as the president announces Carter as his nominee for defense secretary in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

Ashton Carter, President Obama’s nominee to replace Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, will tell Senators at his confirmation hearing Wednesday that counterterror operations may need to be expanded to stem the tide of foreign fighters joining up with the ISIS terror group. 

“I believe foreign fighters pose a threat to the U.S., and that this threat is exacerbated by the ongoing political and security instability in Libya,” Carter says in remarks prepared for testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee and obtained by The Washington Times. “If confirmed, I will focus attention on the foreign fighter flow as the department works with regional partners in North Africa to address the challenge posed by the terrorist safe haven in Libya and broader counterterrorism issues.”

Carter will face the panel one day after the terror group released a grisly video showing a captured Jordanian Air Force pilot being burned alive. In response to written questions from the committee, Carter said that he is aware of reports that ISIS may try to expand into Afghanistan, and that he will work with NATO coalition partners to ensure that does not happen. 

Carter also said he would consider changing plans for withdrawing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016 if security conditions worsen. About 10,600 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan.

Wednesday’s hearing is likely to focus as much on Obama’s foreign policy as on Carter’s own vision for the Defense Department, with the 60-year-old likely to face questions on Russian actions in Ukraine, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and Obama’s push to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, among other issues.

Another thorny issue Carter faces is an uncertain outlook for the defense budget. In his remarks, Carter is expected to acknowledge that the Pentagon must end wasteful practices that undermine public confidence even as he criticizes the automatic spending cuts known as sequestration.
“I cannot suggest support and stability for the defense budget without at the same time frankly noting that not every defense dollar is spent as well as it should be,” Carter says in his remarks. “The taxpayer cannot comprehend, let alone support, the defense budget when they read of cost overruns, lack of accounting and accountability, needless overhead and the like.”

If confirmed, Carter would be the fourth Secretary of Defense to serve under Obama, after Robert Gates, Leon Panetta, and Hagel. The relationship between the White House and the Pentagon has often been strained, with some officials in the department saying Obama views the military skeptically and centralizes decision making in the West Wing. Hagel, in particular, is said to to have grown particularly frustrated with the policymaking process overseen by national security adviser Susan Rice. Gates and Panetta have publicly aired their grievances with what they saw as White House micromanagement.

Carter served twice previously in Obama’s Pentagon, most recently as deputy defense secretary from 2011 to 2013. He was assistant secretary of defense for international security policy during the administration of President Bill Clinton.

Carter would be the first defense secretary who has not served in the military or Congress since Harold Brown, who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter and led the Pentagon from 1977 to 1981.

Click for more from The Washington Times.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Secretary of Defense nominee Carter wants to focus on ISIS, expand counterterrorism operations

CARICOM Secretary General calls for collective solutions to Caribbean challenges

ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, Wednesday July 2, 2014, CMC – Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretary General Irwin La Rocque says regional countries must find collective solutions to the serious challenges being posed by an ever changing global environment.

La Rocque, speaking at the opening of the 35th CARICCOM Summit here on Tuesday night, said that Dickinson Bay where the three-day summit is being held provides an opportunity for Caribbean governments “to do what is required to make our integration arrangements more effective in its response to the challenges of the day”.

In December 1965, the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago signed the Dickenson Bay Agreement, establishing the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA), the forerunner to CARICOM.

But La Rocque told delegates that in order to make the transition, regional countries “must find collective solutions to the serious challenges, particularly with respect to our economic condition, that threaten the hard won gains of our people.

“The structural and institutional characteristics which affect growth in our small, vulnerable economies combine to restrict our ability to compete internationally, expose our vulnerability to external events, and constrain our capacity for adjustment.”

He said that vulnerability is demonstrated by the lingering effects of the global economic and financial crisis in the region resulting among other things in stubbornly low growth rates.

“When added to a heavy debt burden and falling fiscal revenues, it leaves our governments with precious little room to manoeuvre especially as the International Financial Institutions and our development partners use the misleading criterion of per capita income to graduate us out of access to much needed concessionary development financing.”

La Rocque said importantly, neither the economic and financial crises nor the causes of climate change, originated within the Caribbean.

“However, there is analytical evidence to prove that their impact on the economies of most CARICOM States has heightened the debt and fiscal challenges we face.

“Formidable as these challenges are, our Community’s history clearly shows that we have never been daunted in the face of trials. It is now, in this period of acute economic stress faced by our region that the spirit of unity that brings us together in all forms of adversity, is infusing our actions as we seek to build the Community’s resilience to withstand the shocks, whether they are economic, social or climatic.”

He said never before in recent history, have so many of our member states faced such challenges at the same time for such a protracted period.

La Rocque said that it is in recognition of the need to find a regional resolution to the regional problem that regional governments mandated that “we prepare a strategic plan, which seeks to reposition the Community and which will inform the institutional mechanism to carry it forward.

“Having consulted extensively throughout the Community over the past year, the first ever Community Strategic Plan has been prepared. That plan, geared towards refocusing, redirecting, and reorganising the Community, is before this meeting and will set our course for the immediate future and beyond.”

He said the plan has identified eight strategic priorities to address the challenges over the five year period.

“Broadly, this will involve building resilience in the economic, social, environmental and technological areas, as well as strengthening governance and our spirit of Community. Co-ordinating our foreign and external economic relations, and research, development and innovation are also essential elements of the strategy.”

But the region’s top public servant warned that the key to the success of the plan is agreement on the priority activities and the steps to implement them.

“That in itself will be a sign that we are truly on the way to achieving that mature regionalism which is required to guide the future of our Community. We must now harness and channel our resources optimally, to get the results that will benefit the people of the Community.

“A critical factor in delivering those benefits is how we organise ourselves to make it possible in an effective and efficient manner. This is a plan for the Community and all of the Community must be involved.

“To succeed would entail a level of co-operation and co-ordination involving our Member States, all the Institutions of the Community and the Secretariat operating, within a responsive governance structure with clear lines of accountability under the direction of our Heads of Government,” La Roque added.

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CARICOM Secretary General calls for collective solutions to Caribbean challenges

Former permanent secretary Garnet Woodham dies

FORMER permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education and Inter-American Bank (IDB) executive Garnet Woodham died on January 1. He was 81.

Woodham, who was ailing for some time, passed away in Potomac, Maryland, USA.

Woodham, who was born in Oracabessa, St Mary, to Cyril and Sarah Beatrice Woodham, gained his early education at Time and Patience Primary School in St Catherine, where his mother was principal.

In 1944, he won one of four scholarships from the parish, which enabled him to enter Beckford and Smith for Boys (now St Jago High School), where he completed his Jamaica School Certificate exams.

In 1952, Woodham left Jamaica for London to work and further his studies. Three years later, he entered Ruskin Trade Union College where he pursued and earned a diploma before moving to Worcester College, Oxford University where he received a BA degree in politics, philosophy and economics.

He returned to Jamaica in 1959 and joined the civil service as an administrative cadet in the finance ministry.

Woodham rose up the ranks before accepting a Ford Foundation Fellowship that took him to John F Kennedy School, Harvard University, where he obtained a master’s degree in public administration in 1970.

Upon returning to Jamaica, Woodham continued working in the public service and was eventually appointed permanent secretary in the education ministry.

In 1978, he took up a fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the special programme for Urban and Regional Studies of Development Areas.

On completion in 1979, he joined the IDB as a development economist, guiding infrastructure and social sector investment projects across the Caribbean, Central and South America.

In 1986, Woodham was appointed IDB representative to Trinidad and Tobago, after which he served in the same capacity in The Bahamas.

He returned to the IDB head office in Washington, DC in 1994 before retiring from the bank later that year.

Woodham is survived by his wife Anne, daughter Sara-Anne, sons Garnet, Robert, and Philip, and nine grandchildren.

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Former permanent secretary Garnet Woodham dies

Caricom secretary general optimistic about region"s future

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — Caribbean Community (Caricom) Secretary General Irwin La Rocque says 2014 promises new directions for the 15-member regional integration movement as it seeks to deliver more immediate and tangible benefits to the people of the Caribbean.

In his end-of-year message, the Dominican-born LaRocque said 2013, which marked the 40th anniversary of Caricom, underscored the determination and commitment of the region to forge a common destiny as small unified states in this unique corner of the world called the Caribbean.He said the anniversary theme of “Celebration and Renewal” remained relevant “as we bask in our Caribbean-ness, rekindle the spirit of community and continue our integration quest with an outlook that is shaped by new thinking and different approaches”.He said that outlook would be influenced by the necessity for appropriate responses to the current global environment which has placed member states in dire straits, stymieing growth and development and denying the Caribbean the wherewithal to create a better standard of living for the people of the region.“Indeed, the vulnerability of our member states and their capacity for resilience came into stark relief last week in St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Lucia and Dominica, when severe weather visited death and destruction and caused a setback to development efforts there,” said the secretary general.The weather system has also been blamed for the deaths of 15 people so far and governments of these three Caribbean countries say they would require hundreds of millions of dollars in the rehabilitation exercise.La Rocque said that the new outlook would also be shaped by the review and reform of the integration movement being undertaken at the request of regional governments, adding “we are on schedule to achieve early in the new year one of our key milestones — the completion of the draft Five-Year Strategic Plan”.The plan was crafted following consultations with stakeholders across the region and sets out a common vision, identities priority areas of focus over the period and also addresses issues of implementability including the roles and responsibilities of all participants in the community’s architecture.“Unsurprisingly, sustainable economic growth and development emerged as one of the primary areas of concern for stakeholders across the spectrum with whom the Change Team interacted over the past year, and it is our intention, through the efforts of the recently established Caricom Commission on the Economy, to explore possible avenues to put us on a sustainable path,” La Rocque said.He said the commission would provide advice on implementable solutions based particularly on the priority areas set out in the Caricom growth agenda.“For the Caribbean Community, therefore, 2014 dawns with the promise of new directions, prioritisation on the critical areas that will deliver more immediate and tangible benefits to our peoples, more strategic approaches and the continued emphasis on our youth and empowerment of our citizens,” he added.

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Caricom secretary general optimistic about region"s future