House panel spurns Trump’s Germany troop withdrawal
WASHINGTON ― The House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday delivered a near-unanimous bipartisan rebuke to President Donald Trump’s plans to pull about 10,000 U.S. troops from Germany.
During its markup of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, the panel voted 49-7 to approve the measure. It was backed by HASC’s chairman, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., its top Republican, Rep. Mac Thornberry, of Texas, and other lawmakers who said the move was poorly planned and undermines the NATO alliance.
“Part of what our military does is build those alliances and makes sure we don’t have to actually use the military. All of those things should be thought about before we announce we’re going to yank 10,000 troops out of Germany,” Smith said. “By the way, the president has not yet been clear on what he’s doing.”
The amendment bars the administration from lowering troop levels below current levels until 180 days after Pentagon leaders present a plan to Congress and certify it will not harm U.S. or allied interests. There are currently about 34,500 U.S. troops stationed in Germany.
Republicans who opposed the restrictions echoed Trump’s view that Germany was not pulling its weight in the NATO alliance, and they found common cause with Progressive Democrats who favor a restrained use of the military.
“If we do reduce our troop presence, I think that we could count on our European partners to step up. I think that the way they become stronger is by having to become stronger,” said Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, a staunch ally of the president.
The amendment from Reps. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., and Don Bacon, R-Neb., came a day after Trump approved Pentagon plans to redeploy 9,500 U.S. troops from Germany.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley, who briefed Trump on Monday, said the plan would improve “strategic flexibility” and benefit troops and their families, according to a statement released by the Pentagon Tuesday evening.
In the Senate, a bipartisan group of senators led by Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney have proposed an amendment to the Senate’s version of the NDAA that would freeze troop numbers in Germany.
Trump’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, said in an op-ed published last week in The Wall Street Journal that the U.S. may send those troops “may be reassigned to other countries in Europe.”
“Thousands may expect to redeploy to the Indo-Pacific, where the U.S. maintains a military presence in Guam, Hawaii, Alaska and Japan, as well as deployments in locations like Australia,” O’Brien said.
In addition, last week, the U.S. ambassador to Poland, Georgette Mosbacher, told TVN24 in Poland that the U.S. will send another 1,000 troops to Poland — over and above the 1,000 declared last year. But she said they might not necessarily be transferred from Germany.
Howard Altman, of Military Times, contributed to this report.
Pompeo defends Trump administration response to intelligence assessments about Russian bounties on U.S. lives in Afghanistan
Intelligence officials have told the AP that the White House first became aware of alleged Russian bounties in early 2019 — a year earlier than previously reported.
WASHINGTON — Criticized for inaction, President Donald Trump and top officials on Wednesday stepped up their defense of the administration’s response to intelligence assessments that Russia offered bounties for killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Trump’s national security adviser said he had prepared a list of retaliatory options if the intelligence proved true.
Trump, meanwhile, called the assessments a “hoax” and insisted anew he hadn’t been briefed on them because the intelligence didn’t rise to his level. However, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said both the CIA and Pentagon did pursue the leads and briefed international allies.
“We had options ready to go,” O’Brien said on “Fox and Friends.” “It may be impossible to get to the bottom of it.”
At a State Department news conference, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the situation was handled “incredibly well” to ensure the safety of U.S. troops.
“We took this seriously, we handled it appropriately,” Pompeo said, without giving additional details. He said the administration receives intelligence about threats to Americans “every single day” and each is addressed.
Pompeo added that Russian activity in Afghanistan is nothing new and that Russia is just one of many nations acting there. He said that Congress has had similar information in the past, and that he often receives threat assessments that don’t rise to the level of a presidential briefing.
Trump is coming under increasing pressure from lawmakers of both parties to provide more answers about the intelligence and the U.S. response or lack of one. Democrats who were briefed at the White House on Tuesday suggested he was bowing to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the risk of U.S. soldiers’ lives.
The president has repeatedly said he wasn’t briefed on the assessments that Russia offered bounties because there wasn’t corroborating evidence. Those assessments were first reported by The New York Times, then confirmed to The Associated Press by American intelligence officials and others with knowledge of the matter.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany pointed to an individual who she said made the decision not to brief Trump, identifying the person as a female CIA officer with more than 30 years of experience. O’Brien said the person was a “career CIA briefer.”
“The national security adviser agreed with that decision,” McEnany said. “It was the right decision to make, and at this moment as I speak to you it is still unverified.”
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Trump remained defensive about the intelligence in early morning tweets, dismissing stories about it as “Fake News” made up to “damage me and the Republican Party.”
Later in the day, Trump said in a television interview that it was a hoax and “we never heard about it” because intelligence officials didn’t think it rose to that level.
“The intelligence people, many of them didn’t believe it happened at all,” Trump said on Fox Business.
O’Brien said the intelligence wasn’t brought to Trump’s attention initially because it was unverified and there was no consensus among the intelligence community. But it’s rare for intelligence to be confirmed without a shadow of doubt before it is presented to senior government decision-makers.
The national security adviser echoed the recent White House talking point faulting not Russia but government leakers and the media for making the matter public.
Senate Republicans appeared split on the matter, with several defending the president and saying that the Russian meddling wasn’t new.
Others expressed strong concern.
Sen. Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania called for administration officials to address the entire Senate and answer questions. He said he had reviewed classified documents regarding the potential bounties “upon which recent news reports are based” and said the information raises many questions.
“If it is concluded that Russia offered bounties to murder American soldiers, a firm American response is required in short order,” Toomey said.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley had similar words on the Senate floor, saying that if the reports are true, “it demands a strong response, and I don’t mean a diplomatic response.”
House Democrats who were briefed at the White House on Tuesday questioned why Trump wouldn’t have been briefed sooner and pushed White House officials to have the president make a strong statement. They said the administration should brief all members of Congress.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, one of the Democrats who attended the briefing, said it was “inexplicable” that Trump won’t say publicly that he is working to get to the bottom of the issue and won’t call out Putin. He said Trump’s defense that he hadn’t been briefed was inexcusable.
“Many of us do not understand his affinity for that autocratic ruler who means our nation ill,” Schiff said.
Senate Republicans who received their own briefing largely agreed with the White House that the intelligence was unverified. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said Trump “can’t be made aware of every piece of unverified intelligence.”
Similarly, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he didn’t think Trump should be “subjected to every rumor.”
Intelligence officials, including CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, will brief the so-called Gang of 8 — McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the top Republicans and Democrats on the two intelligence committees — in a classified meeting on Capitol Hill Thursday morning.
While Russian meddling in Afghanistan isn’t new, officials said Russian operatives had become more aggressive in their desire to contract with the Taliban and members of the Haqqani Network, a militant group aligned with the Taliban in Afghanistan and designated a foreign terrorist organization in 2012.
The intelligence community has been investigating an April 2019 attack on an American convoy that killed three U.S. Marines whenr a car rigged with explosives detonated near their armored vehicles as they traveled back to Bagram Airfield, the largest U.S. military installation in Afghanistan, officials told the AP.
Three other U.S. service members were wounded in the attack, along with an Afghan contractor. The Taliban claimed responsibility. The officials the AP spoke to also said they were looking closely at insider attacks from 2019 to determine if they were linked to Russian bounties.
Intelligence officials told the AP that the White House first became aware of alleged Russian bounties in early 2019 — a year earlier than had been previously reported. The assessments were included in one of Trump’s written daily briefings at the time, and then-National Security Adviser John Bolton had told colleagues he had briefed Trump on the matter.
Trump defense on Russian bounty story falls flat, even with Republicans
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany continued to defend President Trump on Tuesday in the wake of reporting by the New York Times and confirmation by other news outlets that intelligence officials had concluded in 2019 that Russia’s government offered bounties to Taliban fighters for killing American troops in Afghanistan.One day after telling reporters that Trump had not been briefed on the alleged Russian bounties — contradicting reports that the intelligence was included in at least one President’s Daily Brief in 2019 — McEnany was asked why the president does not read those documents.Numerous insider accounts of Trump’s time in the White House portray him as having a short attention span and demanding information be presented orally or graphically, rather than in written form.“The president does read,” McEnany responded. “And he also consumes intelligence verbally. This president, I’ll tell you, is the most informed person on planet earth when it comes to the threats that we face.”
But the wave of outrage over the reports, in which at least a few Republicans joined, did not abate Tuesday.
After criticizing the Times for publishing its initial story on the bounties paid by Russia, McEnany also took aim at presumed leakers in the intelligence community. Asked if intelligence officials could be seeking to embarrass the president with leaks about the Russian program, McEnany replied, “It very possibly could be, and if that’s the case it’s despicable.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said Tuesday that the Russian bounty story was evidence of a concerning pattern.
“This president talks about cognitive capability. He doesn’t seem to be cognitively aware of what’s going on,” Biden said. “He either reads and/or gets briefed on important issues, and he forgets it, or he doesn’t think it’s necessary that he need to know it.”
The intelligence community finding that Vladimir Putin’s government paid Taliban fighters to kill Americans in Afghanistan was relayed to Trump in person more than a year ago, former national security adviser John Bolton said Monday.
“He can disown everything if nobody ever told him about it,” said Bolton, whose memoir, “The Room Where It Happened,” paints a damning picture of a disengaged, ignorant and impulsive Trump.
Trump has often spoken warmly of his personal relationship with the Russian president and has pursued policies that appear to align with Russian interests, including relocating some American troops from bases in Germany and seeking to have Russia readmitted to the G-7. Russia was expelled from the compact in 2014 as punishment for invading Ukraine and annexing Crimea.
At the same time, he has boasted of his “toughness” toward Moscow, and McEnany insisted that “no president has been as tough on Russia as this president.”
“This is as bad as it gets, and yet the president will not confront the Russians on this score,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday in response to the story in the Times.
Some Republicans, including Trump allies, have also been critical of the administration in the wake of reporting about Russia’s actions and the lack of an administration response.
Locked in a tough reelection fight, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., suggested Tuesday that Russia should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.
While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday that briefings given by the White House to Senate Republicans were “appropriate,” he added that he did not “have an observation about what may have happened” regarding Trump’s knowledge of the bounties.
Asked if Russia should be allowed back in the G-7, McConnell replied, “Absolutely not.”
At least two PACs opposed to Trump, VoteVets and the Lincoln Project, released ads over the weekend attacking the administration on the issue. Cindy McCain, the widow of Sen. John McCain, who clashed with Trump in the year before he died, also weighed in:
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Museum or mosque? Top Turkey court to rule on Hagia Sophia
Hagia Sofia in Istanbul has been a church and a mosque and is currently a museum
Istanbul (AFP) – Turkey’s top court will deliver a critical verdict Thursday on whether Istanbul’s emblematic landmark and former church Hagia Sophia can be redesignated as a mosque, a ruling which could inflame tensions with the West.
The sixth-century edifice — a magnet for tourists worldwide with its stunning architecture — has been a museum since 1935, open to believers of all faiths.
Despite occasional protests by Islamic groups, often shouting, „Let the chains break and open Hagia Sophia” for Muslim prayers outside the UNESCO world heritage site, authorities have so far kept the building a museum.
The Hagia Sophia was first constructed as a church in the Christian Byzantine Empire in the sixth century but was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.
Transforming the Hagia Sophia into a museum was a key reform of the post-Ottoman Turkish authorities under the modern republic’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
But calls for it to serve again as a mosque have raised anger among Christians and tensions between historic foes and uneasy NATO allies Turkey and Greece.
Turkey’s Council of State will deliver a ruling on its status either on the same day or within two weeks, the official Anadolu news agency reported.
– ‘High-profile symbol’ –
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month said the decision was for the court — known as the Danistay — adding: „The necessary steps will be taken following the verdict.”
But Erdogan previously indicated it was time to rename the Hagia Sophia as a mosque, saying it had been a „very big mistake” to convert it into a museum, in comments before municipal elections last year.
„The Danistay decision will likely be a political one. Whatever the outcome, it will be a result of the government’s deliberation,” said Asli Aydintasbas, fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
But she added the government will be weighing a number of issues, including relations with Greece, Europe and with the US where „religion is an important matter”.
U.S. urges Turkey to let Hagia Sophia remain a museum
U.S. urges Turkey to let Hagia Sophia remain a museum
By Humeyra Pamuk
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday urged Turkey to let Istanbul’s former Byzantine cathedral of Hagia Sophia remain a museum, a day before a court ruling that may pave the way for requests to turn it back into a mosque.
Hagia Sophia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that was at the heart of both the Christian Byzantine and Muslim Ottoman empires, is one of Turkey’s most visited monuments.
Finished in the year 537 with futuristic building techniques in what was then Constantinople, it was the main cathedral in Christendom – and the world’s largest – for 900 years before becoming an Ottoman mosque in 1453.
It was converted into a museum in 1934 under the secular founder of the modern Turkish republic, Kemal Ataturk, but the case before the court challenges the legality of this step. President Tayyip Erdogan, a pious Muslim, has proposed making Hagia Sophia, called Ayasofya in Turkish, into a mosque again.
In a statement, Pompeo praised the Turkish government for maintaining the building „in an outstanding manner” as a museum, but said a change in its status would diminish its legacy.
„We urge the Government of Turkey to continue to maintain the Hagia Sophia as a museum, as an exemplar of its commitment to respect the faith traditions and diverse history that contributed to the Republic of Turkey, and to ensure it remains accessible to all,” Pompeo said.
The deputy chairman of Erdogan’s AK Party, Numan Kurtulmus, promptly retorted that the issue was a matter of national sovereignty:
„The sole decision-making authority about the status of Hagia Sophia … belongs to Turkey. We do not need anyone’s advice or recommendation on our own affairs.”
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; additional reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun in Istanbul; Editing by Dan Grebler and Kevin Liffey)
House passes bill rebuking China over Hong Kong security law
The House on Wednesday joined the Senate in approving a bill to rebuke China over its crackdown in Hong Kong by imposing sanctions on groups that undermine the city’s autonomy or restrict freedoms promised to its residents.
WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday joined the Senate in approving a bill to rebuke China over its crackdown in Hong Kong by imposing sanctions on groups that undermine the city’s autonomy or restrict freedoms promised to its residents.
The bill targets police units that have cracked down on Hong Kong protesters, as well as Chinese Communist Party officials responsible for imposing a strict “national security” law on Hong Kong, which is considered a special administrative region within China and maintains its own governing and economic systems. The measure also would impose sanctions on banks that do business with entities found to violate the law.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the unanimous House vote “an urgently needed response to the cowardly Chinese government’s passage of its so-called ‘national security’ law, which threatens the end of the ‘one country, two systems’ promised exactly 23 years ago today.’’
Pelosi, a fierce critic of Chinese human rights violations, said, “All freedom-loving people must condemn this horrific law’’ imposed by China, adding that it is specifically intended to “dismantle democratic freedoms in Hong Kong.’’
The House bill is similar to a measure approved last week in the Senate, but makes some minor changes. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., a co-sponsor of the Senate bill, said senators will vote as soon as Thursday to give final legislative approval, sending it to the White House.
Lawmakers from both parties have urged the Trump administration to take strong action in response to the crackdown by China against the former British territory, which was granted partial sovereignty under a treaty that took effect July 1, 1997.
China has said it will impose visa restrictions on Americans it sees as interfering over Hong Kong.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced the threat of a visa ban as a sign of “how Beijing refuses to take responsibility for its own choices” and said adoption of the security law “destroys the territory’s autonomy and one of China’s greatest achievements.”
Beijing’s “paranoia and fear of its own people’s aspirations have led it to eviscerate the very foundation of the territory’s success,” Pompeo said in a statement.
Brazil military hand out masks to protect isolated Amazon tribes
Brazil military hand out masks to protect isolated Amazon tribes
By Leonardo Benassatto
BOA VISTA (Reuters) – Soldiers handed out masks to barefooted Yanomami indigenous people including body-painted warriors carrying spears and bows and arrows on Wednesday on the second day of a military operation to protect isolated tribes from COVID-19.
The Yanomami are the last major isolated people in the Amazon rainforest where dozens of indigenous communities have been infected with the latest disease to come from the outside to threaten their existence.
„It’s all under control. We detected no cases here,” Defense Minister Fernando Azevedo, a retired army general, told reporters at a frontier post called Surucucu on the border with Venezuela.
Azevedo said the death of two Yanomami purportedly shot by illegal gold miners on the vast reservation was an isolated case that is being investigated by the federal police.
A gold rush that has brought an estimated 20,000 gold prospectors to invade the Brazil largest reservation has poisoned rivers and destroyed forest, and the Yanomami say the miners have brought the novel coronavirus.
Indigenous leaders appealed to the Supreme Court on Wednesday to order the federal government to protect isolated tribes by barring outsiders from reservation lands and expelling illegal poachers, loggers and wildcat miners said to bring fatal diseases.
The indigenous umbrella organization APIB asked that invaders be removed, with the deployment of military forces if necessary, from the reservations of the Yanomami, Karipuna, Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau, Kayapó, Arariboia and Munduruku peoples.
APIB said 405 indigenous people had died of COVID-19 by June 27, with 9,983 infected among 112 different tribes.
In Surucucu, Yanomami families with mothers carrying their bundled infants were frightened at first by the arrival of the medical personnel and supplies of protective equipment and medicine in roaring military helicopters.
The men fumbled the mask as they covered their faces painted with red body paint from tress barks.
„The indigenous health service (Sesai) is good for us, they help us so we came to ask for help to see if we are well,” said a Yanomami elder through a large white face mask. „We walked four hours to arrive here,” he said through an interpreter.
Nurses took temperatures and rapid COVID-19 tests.
„When we arrived they were a little bit afraid, observing us from afar, but then we started gaining their trust, they came closer and all went well,” said Brazilian Air Force medic, Lieutenant Fernanda Ribeiro.
„They ended up liking the care. It has been so rewarding!”
(Reporting by Leonardo Benassatto; Writing by Anthony Boadle; editing by Grant McCool)
