June 18, 2009 -- The chairman of the House Armed Services air and land forces subcommittee today blasted the Quadrennial Defense Review as neither valuable nor reliable.
Speaking at a breakfast with reporters in Washington this morning, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) said he and others on Capitol Hill had high hopes for the original QDR because of the support of retired Gen. Colin Powell.
“So the assumption -- possibly a bit naïve by myself and others -- was that Gen. Powell . . . had such amazing credibility at the time, and the atmosphere in the Congress was such that everybody recognized there had to be some changes in the direction and modernization and so on,” Abercrombie said.
“We thought that that's what it was going to be,” he continued. “Well, what it turned out to be -- I remember when we first got it, I looked at it and I thought, 'This is a PR stunt.'”
The QDR, a congressionally mandated assessment that includes a review of force structure, strategy and equipment, kicked off earlier this year with guidance from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to consider how the military might “rebalance” its capabilities to deal with an increasingly complex set of national security challenges. These include not only traditional military allies and terrorist groups, but forces like climate change and the global financial crisis.
Of the first QDR, Abercrombie said “it was generals of four stars staring into the middle distance.”
“There was nothing, and it's all rhetorical flourishes, and here we go,” he added. “It's all Thunderbird stuff, booms and all that.”
The subcommittee chair went a step farther, contending that the QDR harms the budgetary process because it acts as “a stall.”
Abercrombie said President Obama -- busy with domestic and foreign policy issues -- is deferring in the area of defense “to the ongoing enterprise.
“And Mr. Gates, I think, should have used that as an opportunity to make the transition from the previous administration, to serve the president better by not putting off this stuff and trying to fool people into thinking that somehow this PR exercise that the QDR is, is going to present some kind of definitive pathway to strategic proposals by the Defense Department,” he continued.
Despite the criticism, Abercrombie had positive words for Gates' overall efforts.
“I think he's done an excellent job at trying to make this transition and has a desire, a genuine desire to deal with questions that previously were not dealt with adequately,” he told reporters, adding that Gates has made many changes -- in areas like the presidential helicopter program -- the committee has long supported.
“I think he's taken extraordinarily positive steps in terms of trying to come to grips realistically and forthrightly with some of the imperatives associated with defense now, both from a fiscal point of view and from a policy point of view,” Abercrombie said today. “I couldn't be more enthusiastic about the idea that he's trying to come to grips with this.” -- Marjorie Censer
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