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Secretary of State John Kerry signaled today that he plans to decide soon whether to formally accuse the Islamic State of genocide amid what sources describe as an intense debate within the Obama administration about how such a declaration should be worded and what it might mean for U.S. strategy against the terrorist group.
“None of us have ever seen anything like it in our lifetimes,” Kerry said during a House subcommittee hearing Wednesday about beheadings and atrocities committed by the Islamic State.
But in response to questioning by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, a Nebraska Republican who has been spearheading a resolution in Congress demanding the administration invoke an international treaty against genocide, Kerry was careful not to tip his hand on what has turned into a thorny internal legal debate with political and potentially military consequences.
Saying the department was reviewing “very carefully the legal standards and precedents” for a declaration of genocide against the Islamic State, Kerry added that he had received “initial recommendations” on the issue but had then asked for “further evaluations.”
In his first public comments on the issue, Kerry said he “will make a decision on this” as soon as he receives those evaluations. He didn’t elaborate on when that might occur.
The administration’s plans to invoke the powerfully evocative genocide label — an extremely rare move — was first reported by Yahoo News last November. But at the time, the State Department was focused on restricting the designation to the Islamic State’s mass killings, beheadings and enslavement of the Yazidis — a relatively small minority group of about 500,000 in northern Iraq that the terrorist group has vowed to wipe out on the grounds they are “devil worshipers.”
The disclosure set off a strong backlash among members of Congress and Christian groups who argued that Islamic State atrocities against Iraqi and Syrian Christians and other smaller minority groups also deserved the genocide label. Some conservatives even chastised the administration for displaying a “politically correct bias that views Christians … never as victims but always as Inquisition-style oppressors.”
The issue has since made its way into the presidential campaign; Sen. Marco Rubio has signed a Senate version of a House resolution, co-sponsored by Fortenberry and Rep. Anna Eshoo, for a broader genocide designation that incorporates Christians, Turkmen, Kurds and other groups. Hillary Clinton has also endorsed such as move. In response to a question from a voter at a New Hampshire town hall last December about whether she believes Christians as well as Yazidis should be declared victims of genocide, she said, “I will, because we now have enough evidence.”
A Iraqi Yazidi woman and her children took refuge at the Bajid Kandala camp in Dohuk, Iraq, after fleeing Islamic State jihadists. (Photo: Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP)
But administration sources and others intimately familiar with the internal debate say the issue has proven more complicated. While ISIS has openly declared its intention of destroying the Yazidis, they argue, the terrorist group’s leaders have not made equally explicit statements about Christians even while committing killings, kidnappings, forced removals and the confiscation and destruction of churches aimed at Christian groups. As a result, administration officials and State Department lawyers have weighed labeling those acts “crimes against humanity” — a step that critics have said doesn’t go far enough. “We’ve been trying to tell them, crimes against humanity are not a bronze medal,” said one administration official, contending that it should not be viewed as a less serious designation.
Kerry seemed to hint as much in his responses to Fortenberry at Wednesday’s hearing, noting that Christians in Syria “and other places” have been forcibly removed from their homes. “There have been increased, forced evacuations,” he said. “No, its not — they are killing them in that case — but it’s a removal and a cleansing, ethnically and religiously, that is equally disturbing.”
At the same time, two sources familiar with the debate said, Pentagon officials have expressed concerns that a genocide designation would morally obligate the U.S. military to take steps — such as protecting endangered populations or using drones to identify enslaved women — that could divert resources from the campaign to defeat the Islamic State. (An administration official told Yahoo News Wednesday that any such concerns have not been raised in “interagency” discussions over the genocide issue. “There is no resource issue,” the official said.)
In fact, many legal scholars say, there is considerable debate about just what practical impact a genocide designation would have. It would be made under a loosely worded 1948 international treaty that compels signatory nations, including the United States, “to prevent and to punish” the “odious scourge” of genocide defined as acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical (sic), racial or religious group.” As documented by Samantha Power, now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, in her 2002 book, “A Problem from Hell,” President Clinton’s Secretary of State Warren Christopher, resisted labeling the mass murder of the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 as genocide for fear, as one State Department memo put it at the time, “it could commit [the U.S. government] to actually do something.”
But 10 years later, Secretary of State Colin Powell declared the killings of non-Arab people in Darfur to be genocide — the first time the U.S. invoked such a declaration during an ongoing conflict. But he did so only after receiving a secret State Department memo concluding the designation “has no immediate legal — as opposed to moral, political or policy consequences for the United States.”
Administration officials have argued they are already taking extraordinary steps to protect threatened minorities in Iraq, pointing to, for example, the 2014 evacuation of Yazidis from Mount Sinjar — and that a genocide designation wouldn’t change that. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said as much when he was pressed on the issue during a recent White House briefing during which he said a genocide designation is “an open question that continues to be considered by administration lawyers.”
“The decision to apply this term to this situation is an important one,” Earnest said during a Feb. 4 briefing. “It has significant consequences, and it matters for a whole variety of reasons, both legal and moral. But it doesn’t change our response. And the fact is that this administration has been aggressive, even though that term has not been applied, in trying to protect religious minorities who are victims or potential victims of violence.”
Authorities in the Kurdistan said on Friday, according to Reuters, that they are investigating another suspected gas attack by Islamic State (ISIS) against the Kurdish Peshmerga.
Civilians and Peshmerga alike in the Sinjar area are being treated for nausea and vomiting after ISIS rockets containing a chemical substance were fired at them on Thursday the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC) said on its Twitter page.
“If confirmed this will be the eight ISIL weaponized chemical attack against Peshmerga. ISIL tactics continue to become more sophisticated,” warned the council.
The KRSC said the American-led anti-ISIS coalition is helping them with the investigation.
This attack comes the same week that a source within the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said that mustard gas was used against the Peshmerga in August of last year, making 35 of them ill.
This latest attack however appears to have used chlorine gas, a type of gas that is often used in the Syrian conflict. Chlorine gas is a choking agent and nausea and vomiting are telltale signs one has been exposed to it.
Rogan/NR: Chemical agents, by disrupting a military adversary and sowing terror among its civilian population, make for powerful psychological weapons. And, as attested by Bashar al-Assad’s ongoing suffocation of innocent Syrians, chemical weapons are also tools of torture. The National Institutes of Health describes how concentrated chlorine gas affects a human body: “respiratory failure, pulmonary edema, likely acute pulmonary hypertension, cardiomegaly, pulmonary vascular congestion, acute burns of the upper and especially the proximal lower airways, and death.”
For ISIS, weaponized chlorine is a perfect instrument. And ISIS is using it. Reports suggest that ISIS has employed mustard- and chlorine-gas–based weapons in Iraq and Syria. Unfortunately, far worse is likely to come. After all, it’s increasingly obvious that ISIS regards its chemical-weapons programs as a key strategic priority. Last October, for example, the Associated Press described how European organized-crime groups are offering radioactive material to ISIS. And just last week, the Independent reported on the disruption of a ten-person ISIS cell in Morocco — a cell masterminded by ISIS leaders in Libya. The connecting threads are clear: Morocco, a favored destination of Western tourists, offered ISIS an opportunity to follow up in 2016 on its 2015 massacre of 38 people — including 30 Britons — in Sousse, Tunisia. ISIS wants to scare Western tourist investment away from moderate-Muslim nations and implode those nations into chaos. ISIS chemical weapons also threaten U.S. personnel. As ISIS confronts higher stakes — as it does in the battle for its Iraqi capital, Mosul — U.S. personnel will face a growing threat of chemical attack.
This threat demands the strengthening of the U.S. deterrent posture against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. At present, that posture stands eviscerated because of the failure to punish Assad’s breach of President Obama’s “red line” on chemical weapons. But that’s only half the story. Consider, too, that an AP report from October highlighted how senior figures in WMD conspiracies are escaping consequences for their actions. That must end. In future, those who enable ISIS WMD programs should face one of two simple repercussions: detention by Jordan’s GID intelligence service, or death. The special urgency of this threat is unique. From Morocco and France to Turkey and Indonesia, ISIS has proven its ability to launch attacks from separate bases in Iraq, Syria, and Libya — and to do so while evading detection by Western intelligence. ISIS chemical-weapons plots must not be underestimated. Of course, as Wilfred Owen reminds us, the use of chemical weapons in pursuit of human misery is nothing new. My British great-grandfather — a veteran of World War I– described German chemical attacks this way: “We could smell the gas coming. Every horse that we had was blind due to gas.” President Obama must recognize this new, old reality. In February 2016, “acute burns of the upper and especially the proximal lower airways, and death” are no longer peripheral concerns suffered by forgotten Syrians at the hands of Assad. Today, ISIS has the means and intent to drown Western civilians — and American credibility — in a green and yellow sea.
So, no U.S. citizens with teaching certificates? Perhaps the mission is to lower payroll costs and meet quotas? Or join unions and teach selected history…
Is there a state left that can define what citizenship is? Is there a state that is protecting ‘the pursuit of happiness’? Apparently teaching, a noble profession, or at least used to be is no longer noble.
For reference, Tashfeen Malik, the female San Bernardino killer could have been a teacher in your child’s classroom, she came into the United States under false documents…no documents? What is the difference?
ALBANY — Undocumented immigrants in New York will be able to apply for teacher certifications and professional licenses, according to the state Board of Regents.
The board that oversees education policies in New York voted Wednesday to allow people who can’t get legal residency because of their parents’ immigration status to seek teacher certifications. They also will be able to apply for a license from among the 53 professions overseen by the state Education Department, including a variety of medical professions.
“These are young people who came to the U.S. as children,” state Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said in a statement. “They are American in every way but immigration status. They’ve done everything right. They’ve worked hard in school, some have even served in the military, but when it’s time to apply for a license, they’re told ‘Stop. That’s far enough.’ We shouldn’t close the door on their dreams.”
The Board of Regents pointed to a June 2012 policy by the Obama administration called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals that allows individuals who came to the U.S. as children and meet certain guidelines to request consideration of “deferred immigration action” for two years that can be renewed.
The federal policy, the board said, applies to young people who usually get their immigration status from their parents, many of whom are undocumented.
“As a result, most of these individuals have no current mechanism to obtain legal residency, even if they have lived most of their lives in the U.S.” the Board of Regents said in a statement.
But people in the system are prohibited from obtaining teaching certification and licenses in certain professions, the board said, including pharmacy, dentistry and engineering.
The regulation by the Board of Regents will be finalized after a public-comment period.
Sen. Terrence Murphy, R-Yorktown, Westchester County, ripped the policy.
“Allowing lawbreakers to teach, or practice medicine, says a lot about how backwards our priorities truly are in New York,” Murphy said in a statement. “This is another example of why rule-making by unelected bureaucrats is what is ruining New York state. Will they next unilaterally enact free college tuition for illegal immigrants?”
He said New York doesn’t allow a military spouse with an equivalent license in another state to teach in New York, so “Elia should be focusing on reciprocity and interstate licensure for those who have earned it, instead of doing further harm to our already broken immigration system and rewarding lawbreakers.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he has yet to review the new education policy to determine its legality.
“It depends on how they write the policy, as to whether or not it’s legal and constitutional, and I haven’t seen anything,” Cuomo said when asked about the policy by reporters Thursday in Albany.
Democratic lawmakers praised the action. Democrats have been pushing for the Dream Act in New York, which would allow immigrants in the country illegally to access state financial aid for college. Republicans have opposed the measure.
“This is a tremendous win for New York’s students,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, said in a statement. “The Assembly majority has always led the charge to expand opportunities for every student, and we have championed issues like the DREAM Act and greater investment in higher education to show our commitment to all of the families who have made New York their home.”
An ambitious program begun by the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 to consolidate all of its component agencies’ HR systems, from payroll to timesheets and beyond, isn’t near completion after more than 12 years of work. Many in Congress are not pleased.
A Government Accountability Office study on the DHS HRIT investment released for a Feb. 25 House Homeland Security Oversight and Management Efficiency subcommittee hearing said 400 of the agency’s human capital systems that were to have been consolidated under the program are unaccounted for. The program has cost millions, GAO found, but DHS did not keep track of exact costs.
Carol Cha, GAO’s director of IT acquisition management issues, testified at the hearing that the HRIT has been on her agency’s list of high-risk IT projects for some time.
“That’s breathtaking,” said subcommittee Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa.). More than a dozen years and $180 million later, he said, DHS is “no closer” to completing the project than it was in 2003. The exact cost to date, said Perry, because of the inadequate record-keeping.
“This is a poster child of inept management,” he said, declaring the lack of cost tracking “reprehensible, unacceptable.”
DHS, Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J) said, “has shown a tremendous lack of commitment” to the project.
Later in the hearing, Perry’s irritation with DHS’ handling of the sprawling project flared again and again. “For the love of God Mr. Fulghum, [the money] has been pissed away,” he snarled at Chip Fulghum, DHS’ deputy undersecretary for management.
Fulghum was in the hot seat to defend the agency’s work on the project. “We don’t care if it’s hard to do,” Perry said, later adding, “you’re the heavies, get it done.”
Although Fulghum said DHS agreed with the GAO’s 14 recommendations to address HRIT’s poor progress and ineffective management, he pointed to the agency’s work on the consolidated performance management and learning system called PALMS as evidence that DHS can execute on enterprise-wide IT consolidation. He said the agency’s component agencies are close to signing off on PALMS’ use.
Fulghum also said DHS is working aggressively to strengthen the program’s oversight and direction. He said the agency had also appointed Angela Bailey as chief human capital officer a few months ago to coordinate the project.
Bailey, who also testified at the hearing, assured the panel that her agency has stepped up oversight meetings with an executive review councils and boards to spur progress. “Clearly we have work to do,” she said.
Amid the admonitions from the congressional panel, Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) threw something of a life preserver to Fulghum in the middle of the hearing, asking the DHS executive if the agency has considered shared services to handle some of the HR functions that HRIT would do.
Richmond noted that the Agriculture Department’s National Finance Center provides payroll and other financial management services, as well as human resources management services. “At the end of the day, we just want things to work,” said Richmond, whose Louisiana district is home to the NFC. “You should talk to the director of the National Finance Center. They say they can solve the problem.”
Fulghum said he supported shared services and that “we’re absolutely interested” in exploring such opportunities.
At the end of the hearing, Flughum pledged to spur progress on the program in the coming months. He said the oversight panel would receive a concrete plan by early May that contains hard deadlines and a blueprint for moving ahead.
WASHINGTON (AP)— Personnel at U.S. Central Command have deleted files and emails amid allegations that intelligence assessments were altered to exaggerate progress against Islamic State militants, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Thursday.
“We have been made aware that both files and emails have been deleted by personnel at CENTCOM and we expect that the Department of Defense will provide these and all other relevant documents to the committee,” Rep. Devin Nunes said at a hearing on worldwide threats facing the United States. Central Command oversees U.S. military activities in the Middle East.
A whistleblower whose position was not disclosed told the committee that material was deleted, according to a committee staff member who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly disclose the information.
Navy Cmdr. Kyle Raines, a spokesman for CENTCOM, said the combatant command was fully cooperating with the Defense Department inspector general’s probe into the allegations.
“While it would be inappropriate to discuss the details of that investigation, I can tell you that as a matter of CENTCOM policy, all senior leader emails are kept in storage for record-keeping purposes, so such records cannot be deleted,” Raines said. It’s unclear if emails written by lower-level staff were also maintained.
Nunes, R-Calif., also said the Office of the Director of National Intelligence briefed the committee on a survey indicating that more than 40 percent of Central Command analysts believe there are problems with the integrity of the intelligence analyses and process.
“To me, it seems like 40 percent of analysts who are concerned at CENTCOM — that’s just something that can’t be ignored,” Nunes said.
A senior intelligence official said that each year the DNI conducts a survey at all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies to gain feedback on the integrity, standards and objectivity of the process used to analyze intelligence. In the most recent survey, conducted between August and October of last year, approximately 120 employees from CENTCOM responded to the survey. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose details of the internal survey.
A report on the survey issued in December 2015 indicated that 40 percent of those who responded at CENTCOM answered “yes” to the question: “During the past year, do you believe that anyone attempted to distort or suppress analysis on which you were working in the face of persuasive evidence?”
Asked whether he considered 40 percent an unusually high number, Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the committee that he did.
Stewart said that while it would be favorable for all to “get closure on exactly the extent of this allegation,” he cannot control the pace of the watchdog’s investigation. He said that while the investigation proceeds, intelligence officials continue to look into ways to improve the process of producing the assessments, and he noted that the DIA’s ombudsman had looked into a particular incident.
The New York Times, which first disclosed the investigation, reported that the probe began after at least one civilian DIA analyst told authorities he had evidence that officials at Central Command were improperly reworking conclusions of assessments prepared for President Barack Obama and other top policymakers.
*** So this begs the question, what is the truth today on Islamic State, on Russia, Syria, North Korea, China, Iran or the thousands of terror groups? What is the final product including today with briefings? What does the media receive other than filtered reports? Who really DID order this suppression of intelligence data? Who is going to be the fall person? What was shared with foreign intelligence through normal daily collaboration?
