Photograph by Andoni Lubaki/AP Photo

Free Syrian Army fighters take a break from the front line in Aleppo, Syria.

As frustration mounts over the war in Syria, senators will prod President Barack Obama to do what he has resisted: arm the rebels.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee takes up a bill today that would authorize the president to provide military weapons to groups seeking the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.

“To change the tipping point in Syria against the Assad regime, we must support the opposition by providing lethal arms and help build a free Syria,” Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the panel’s Democratic chairman, said in a statement last week. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, the panel’s top Republican, is a cosponsor.

While the Obama administration hasn’t ruled out such a move, officials have expressed reluctance to flood Syria with more weaponry, partly because elements within the opposition have ties to al-Qaeda.

“Understandably, there’s a desire for easy answers,” Obama said on May 7. “We want to make sure that we are acting deliberately.”

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel gave a noncommittal answer at a news conference last week when asked about the option of providing arms.

“We continue to keep every option open, as the president has said,” Hagel said. “We are already doing a lot in Syria on the humanitarian side, on the non-lethal side. We are continuing to try to bring some consensus with all the different countries involved.”

A vote on the bill comes amid reports that Russia is providing the Assad regime with advanced anti-ship missiles and air-defense systems.

Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on May 17 that Russia’s continued arming of the Syrian regime is “at the very least an unfortunate decision that will embolden the regime and prolong the suffering.” Russian officials have said they are fulfilling their commitments under existing arms contracts.

Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress last month that Russia was supplying Syria with a supersonic anti-ship cruise missile called the Yakhont that he said poses “a major threat to naval operations, particularly in the eastern Mediterranean.”

Russia also is supplying S-300 air-defense missile batteries to Syria, according to a Kremlin official who asked not to be named discussing the arms sales. The S-300S would bolster Syria’s air defense network, complicating any effort by other countries to create a no-fly zone within Syria to assist rebel groups.

Some Republicans, led by Arizona Senator John McCain, have been urging the administration for months to arm the rebels and create a no-fly zone.

The Menendez-Corker bill would authorize weapons to groups that go through “a vetting process which meet certain criteria on human rights, terrorism and non-proliferation,” the statement said.

The bill also would create an annual $250 million “transition fund” through 2015 to assist the opposition in creating a post-Assad government.

Original post is Senators Take Up Bill to Arm Syrian Rebels by Political Capital.

Photograph by David Lerman/Bloomberg

Girl Scout Beach

Girl Scout Beach seems an unlikely place to find terrorists.

Yet just up the road from this secluded strip of shoreline, which offers stunning views of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, lies the military courthouse that is hearing the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

If there is any special pride or excitement at this U.S. naval station in hosting the biggest terrorism trial in U.S. history, it was hard to find yesterday at Girl Scout Beach. The beach, which can be used by anyone on the base, hosted a few swimmers and surfers and a pair of girls who sunbathed on a small strip of sand.

A large Cuban iguana stood watch on a rock, unintimidated by a Romanian TV crew that had come to cover the court hearings and took time to film the creature.

While the lizard appeared in fine form, the court hearings did not. After little more than an hour of proceedings today, the judge postponed a new round of preliminary hearings until tomorrow amid allegations that the government is eavesdropping on private conversations between defense attorneys and the accused.

Proceedings have been stymied since the disclosure two weeks ago that an unnamed government official had interrupted the audio and video feeds transmitted to public viewing sites. The incident led to concerns by defense lawyers that their private conversations with their clients may be monitored by the unnamed authority because of the courtroom’s sensitive microphones.

The chief prosecutor in the case, Army Brigadier General Mark Martins, declined to say who the unnamed authority is, which government agency he or she represents, or even where the mysterious official is located. For now, at least, the mystery continues.

If the iguana knows the answer, it isn’t talking.

Original post is Few Signs of Terrorism Trial Disturb Guantanamo Beachgoers by Political Capital.

Photograph by L'Osservatore Romano-Vatican Pool via Getty Images

Pope Benedict XVI meets with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at the end of the General Audience at the Paul VI Hall on Jan. 16, 2013 in Vatican City.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is asking for a little divine intervention as he wraps up his service at the Pentagon.

Panetta is spending this week on a trip to western Europe, with the official purpose of thanking NATO allies for their participation in the Afghanistan war.

Yet the schedule allowed time for the Italian-American Pentagon chief to have an audience with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican today.

Panetta, a Roman Catholic, attended a prayer gathering at the Pius VI Audience Hall with several thousand people.

Along with about two dozen others, Panetta went up on the stage to kiss the pope’s ring.

“Thank you for helping to protect the world,” the pope told him, according to Panetta.

“Pray for me,” Panetta replied.

The trip, which includes stops in Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom, is almost certainly his last international outing before he leaves office. President Barack Obama has picked former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel to take Panetta’s place.

Original post is Pope to Panetta: ‘Thank You’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Richard Olley/Columbia Pictures via Everett Collection

A scene from Zero Dark Thirty.

On a flight to Lisbon today, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had a chance to
weigh in on the controversial, Oscar-nominated film “Zero Dark Thirty,” which depicts the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

Senators including Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, have criticized the film for suggesting that harsh interrogation techniques yielded crucial information that led to bin Laden.

Panetta, as head of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, played a pivotal role in directing the raid. James Gandolfini of “The Sopranos” fame plays Panetta in the movie, which opened in limited release on Dec. 19 and went wide this past weekend.

If Panetta is troubled by the film, he wasn’t willing to say so today. He stopped short of offering any critique.

“You know what?” he told reporters on his plane when asked about the film. “I lived it.”

“Zero Dark Thirty” proved the weekend’s top-grossing film in the U.S. and Canadian markets, taking in $24 million. Its Oscar nominations include Best Picture and Best Actress (Jessica Chastain). The Golden Globe award for best actress has gone to Chastain, who draws a cafeteria visit from Gandolfini playing Panetta in the film, with praise for her work on the bin Laden hunt.

Original post is Panetta Passes On Critiquing ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ — ‘I Lived It’ by Political Capital.

The fight over Chuck Hagel’s fitness to be the next secretary of defense has now triggered a bagel battle.

Maybe it was inevitable, since much of the debate about the Republican former senator from Nebraska has focused on whether he is sufficiently supportive of Israel.

The anti-Israel charge stems largely from a single remark Hagel made in 2008 to author Aaron David Miller, that “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here.”

The Emergency Committee for Israel, a group led by William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard magazine, already has run a TV ad on Washington area cable stations attacking Hagel.

Now comes J Street, which describes itself as “the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans.” Coming to Hagel’s defense, the advocacy group has a new slogan and petition campaign on its website:

“Smear A Bagel, Not Chuck Hagel.”

Here’s part of the petition’s pitch: “For every 18 people that sign, we’ll send bagels to local food banks in honor of Bill Kristol to fight the smears.”

For the record, a bagel is normally schmeared, not smeared.

Original post is Bagel Battle Breaks Out Over Hagel by Political Capital.

Photograph by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post/Getty Images

Chuck Hagel on Capitol Hill.

Written with Laura Litvan

Chuck Hagel is getting a grilling even before President Barack Obama says whether he’ll nominate the former Nebraska senator for secretary of defense.

The Republican’s past comments opposing the troop surge during the Iraq war, questioning economic sanctions against Iran and citing the influence of the “Jewish lobby” have drawn a campaign of opposition from supporters of U.S. intervention abroad and from some advocates for Israel.

“However bad Obama’s foreign policy is, Hagel is to the left of Obama,” William Kristol, who was chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle, said in a Dec. 14 podcast. Kristol is editor of the Weekly Standard, which calls itself a “conservative magazine and blog.”

Hagel, 66, is a leading candidate to replace the departing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, according to a White House official who asked not to be identified discussing deliberations on the president’s second-term Cabinet. Some of Hagel’s opponents have called for Obama to choose an alternative such as former Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy.

A Hagel nomination would benefit from the support senators usually give current and former members of the chamber. Republican Senator William Cohen of Maine was unanimously confirmed for defense secretary in 1997, and Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton of New York was confirmed for secretary of state on a 94-2 vote in 2009.

Still, colleagues say he would be pressed at his confirmation hearing to provide assurances on the issues raised by his critics.

“He’s a former colleague, so he would get very fair treatment up here,” Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Republican leader, said in an interview. “But it’s an important position, and he’d have to answer some of the same hard questions any nominee would. There’s a lot going on in the world right now.”

Hagel, who declined to comment through a spokesman, is a decorated Vietnam War veteran who established a reputation as an independent thinker on foreign policy during 12 years in the Senate, where he served on the Foreign Relations Committee.

He irked members of President George W. Bush’s administration and some fellow Republicans by becoming a vocal opponent of the surge of 30,000 U.S. troops to Iraq in 2007. Hagel argued the administration lacked a coherent strategy and was inflaming anti-U.S. sentiment in the region.

“The surge turned out to be successful,” Senator Dan Coats, an Indiana Republican, said in an interview. “I think he was very publicly critical on a lot of policies that didn’t represent positions of our party.”

Opponents have organized an anti-Hagel campaign including blog posts and a commercial appearing on cable news channels in the Washington area. His nomination was opposed by the Washington Post in an editorial titled “Pentagon Mismatch.”

Hagel’s friends and supporters are starting to fight back against the depiction of his position on Middle East issues. They are circulating a two-page point-by-point rebuttal that portrays the criticism as overblown and based on isolated votes or comments taken out of context.

“Chuck Hagel’s knowledge, experience and relationships in this region, including Israel, outclass his critics,” Andrew Parasiliti, who served as Hagel’s foreign-policy adviser from 2001 to 2005, said in an e-mailed statement. “To tag him as ‘anti-Israel’ is simply wrong and a cheap smear.”

See the full report on Hagel at Bloomberg.com.

Original post is Hagel Grilling Before Any Nomination by Political Capital.

Photograph by Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, with his golden retriever dog Bravo, during an interview at the Pentagon.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta today suggested his dog Bravo turned out to be a better keeper of secrets than David Petraeus, who resigned in disgrace as CIA director last month after acknowledging a sexual affair.

Panetta appeared surprised when asked at the National Press Club why Petraeus had to resign instead of accepting a lesser punishment.

“In this town, with that kind of e-mail, do you think he could have survived as director of the CIA? I don’t think so,” Panetta said during a luncheon appearance. The Petraeus affair was exposed after the FBI discovered e-mails he wrote to his biographer, Paula Broadwell, with whom he had an extramarital affair.

While Petraeus couldn’t keep the affair secret, Panetta touted the discretion of his own golden retriever, who he said sat in on many of the top-secret meetings that focused on planning the raid that killed terrorist Osama bin Laden last year. Panetta was CIA director when the raid occurred.

The dog “used to come to the office when I was CIA director,” Panetta recalled. “And Bravo sat in on almost all of the meetings involving the operations against bin Laden. And you know, to this day, he hasn’t told a damn soul what happened.”

Original post is Panetta Says His Dog, Unlike Petraeus, Proved Soul of Discretion by Political Capital.

Photograph by Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

Secretarty of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, and White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew, watch President Barack Obama at the NATO Summit in Chicago.

There’s nothing like a sex scandal to weaken the standing of a Washington power broker.

Take David Petraeus, the former CIA director and a retired star general of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

The once-widely admired Petraeus was slated to place in the top 10 of the inaugural Top 100 Most Influential People in U.S. Defense, released today by the sister trade publications Defense News and Army Times.

The preliminary ranking had to be revised after Petraeus admitted to a sexual affair and resigned his CIA post. He plunged to No. 100 on the list.

That rating makes him less influential than Army Private First Class Bradley Manning, who has been charged with leaking classified documents to the Wikileaks anti-secrecy website. Manning came in at No. 60.

Marine General John Allen, the top commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, who got caught up in the Petraeus investigation, also fell down the list after e-mails he wrote to a Tampa, Florida, socialite surfaced as part of the probe. He dropped from the top 10 to No. 34.

And then there’s Christopher Kubasik, who had been tapped to head Lockheed Martin Corp. He was sure to make the list as head of the world’s largest defense contractor– until he suddenly resigned last month after acknowledging a relationship with a subordinate.

“Instead of having the bully pulpit afforded to the chief of the world’s biggest defense contractor, he became a nonfactor, tumbling right off the list,” Defense News said in an article explaining its results.

Petraeus, while coming in dead last, nonetheless made the cut.

“Petraeus survives at No. 100 because of his many (accolades) throughout the military and because history shows that rarely does such an aggressive, ambitious and dynamic leader remain in the shadows for long,” the paper said.

So who topped the list?

Drumroll please…

White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon is No. 1, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta comes in second and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton comes in third.

Original post is Defense and Scandal: Reshuffling Top 100 Most Influential in the Field by Political Capital.

Photograph by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey briefs the media at the Pentagon.

Never mind Hollywood’s Golden Globe nominations.

Defense industry bigwigs in Washington want to know who made The List.

Two sister trade publications, Defense News and Army Times, are compiling their first Top 100 Most Influential People in Defense.

The list, to be unveiled Monday, is the brainchild of Richard Sandza, managing editor of Army Times.

“We’ve had some inquiries from the defense world, not necessarily from the Pentagon, trying to gather a little intelligence on who’s on our list, what we’ve been up to,” Sandza says

They haven’t learned much.

“We’ve run ads in our newspapers saying it’s classified,” he says.

Sandza did offer a few non-surprising tidbits: Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made the list. The rest of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made the list as a group.

Yet most of the most influential don’t wear a military uniform.

“There are 945 generals and admirals in the military,” Sandza says. “Fewer than 25 made our list.”

The list, which was whittled down from about 200 people selected by the papers’ staff, had to be revised in the wake of two recent scandals, he says. Former CIA Director David Petraeus resigned after acknowledging a sexual affair. The Petraeus scandal also triggered an investigation into Marine General John Allen, the commander of forces in Afghanistan. At the same time, Christopher Kubasik, who had been tapped to head Lockheed Martin Corp., resigned after acknowledging a relationship with a subordinate.

“All of them fell down our list and some of them fell off,” Sandza says.

Which ones survived? `

`You’ve got to tune in Monday to find out,” he says.

Original post is Generals Slide, Fall From `The List’ — Defense Industry Awaits Full Roster by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

A soldier next to a placard on the fence line of the "Camp Five" detention facility of the Joint Detention Group at the US Naval Station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The president pledged to close this prison.

Tonight, reporters there were following a presidential debate.

Reporters camping out at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to cover court hearings for the accused plotters of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were determined not to miss the second of three televised presidential debates.

So defense officials made arrangements for the press to watch the debate live from the media filing center near the courthouse.

Pizza was ordered from the local Pizza Hut and reporters gathered around two large televisions, ready to settle in for a night of presidential politics.

Yet modern amenities like satellite television aren’t always as dependable at Guantanamo as they usually are in the U.S.

About a minute before the debate was to begin, the televisions mysteriously lost their signal.

Defense public affairs officers were at a loss to explain the untimely outage. Reporters wondered, mostly in jest, whether it was a conspiracy by the Castro regime.

When a reporter wondered whether anyone had a radio, a few quick-thinking defense officials sprang into action. They drove a van into the empty aircraft hangar that serves as a media and legal center and pumped up the volume on the radio as the van burned gas.

Reporters gathered around the van in the warm, humid night air in Cuba to listen to the debate.

It wasn’t clear what caused the satellite interference, which blocked TV signals in parts — but not all– of the Naval base. In any case, the television signal resumed about 40 minutes later and the debate-watching party could proceed as planned, albeit delayed.

Original post is Guantanamo Debate-Listening Party by Political Capital.