House chairman wants civilian agencies to play larger role in Iraq

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said today he hopes to insert language into the fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill to require more cooperation between federal agencies doing work in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Skelton acknowledged that his committee's markup of the authorization measure, set for next week, will be just the first step in a long debate that will involve several congressional committees.

But he hoped his panel could approve binding language that would relieve the pressure on deployed military personnel and give more responsibility for reconstruction and other duties to the State Department and other agencies.

"You need all of the agencies working together," Skelton said. "The military can't do it all."

Skelton's comments today echoed concerns he has raised with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the Bush administration has failed to create long-term policies to improve collaboration among departments involved in national security.

"All of this needs to be better coordinated," Skelton said today. "It's going to take a lot of give and take."

As he prepares for his panel's markup of the authorization measure, Skelton said his top priority, as it was last year, is to improve the military's readiness levels. While he did not disclose specifics on how he plans to address readiness in the Pentagon policy bill, Skelton said he continues to worry about how equipment shortfalls and the strain on heavily deployed forces would affect the military's ability to respond to unexpected contingencies. In discussing long-term defense spending, Skelton suggested that Congress may be forced to give priority to funding for readiness over other areas of the budget. "It's our job to raise and maintain [the military], and it's our job to sometimes pick and choose," Skelton said. Skelton said his second major area of concern as chairman is focusing more attention on Afghanistan - an issue he hopes to address in the fiscal 2009 bill. "I'm not quite sure what it would look like, but … it might be a sense of Congress as to priorities," he said. But Skelton, who last year fought to keep controversial language on the Iraq conflict out of the typically bipartisan defense authorization bill, said he hopes to again avert a showdown over the unpopular war this year. His approach differs widely from Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin, who has said he will try again to attach troop withdrawal language to the Senate's version of the bill. But Skelton said he hoped the upcoming war supplemental spending bill will put pressure on Iraqis to take more control of their own security and reconstruction efforts. Meanwhile, Levin disclosed that Gates has agreed to reduce a planned reallocation of Defense Department funds for Iraq reconstruction and infrastructure by $171 million and will instead ask the Baghdad government to pay that amount. According to a letter released by Levin's office today, Gates said, "I have decided not to proceed with reallocation of the $171 million identified for police station construction. As an alternative, we will seek funding from the Government of Iraq for this purpose." Gates added that he had heard Levin's committee "loud and clear on the need for Iraq to pay for economic and civilian infrastructure" at a hearing April 10 and in subsequent contacts with Levin. Gates' decision won praise from Levin, who issued a statement saying, "U.S. taxpayers continue to spend far too much on Iraqi reconstruction, particularly given the huge sums sitting in Iraqi government bank accounts."