January 7th, 2013 at 6:40 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
By Ted Nesi
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Gov. Lincoln Chafee is praising President Obama’s decision to nominate his former colleague Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel as the next U.S. defense secretary, joining U.S. Sen. Jack Reed and other Democrats in backing the pick.
April 18th, 2012 at 3:55 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
The U.S. Department of Defense took these two photographs of Governor Chafee and his colleagues meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at the Pentagon on Monday before Chafee’s departure for Afghanistan.
April 28th, 2011 at 2:46 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes
As I mentioned yesterday, Jack Reed won’t be President Obama’s next secretary of defense – the job is going to CIA Director Leon Panetta. Over at the CIA, Panetta will be replaced by General David Petraeus, who carried out President Bush’s surge in Iraq and is currently in charge of the military campaign in Afghanistan.
Thanks to his defense-policy cred, though, Reed has popped up a few times today in stories out of Washington reporting on the changes inside Obama’s national security team (which also includes Rhode Island native Tom Donilon).
The most interesting quote is probably the one Reed gave to The New York Times for its story describing the choices of Panetta and Petreaus as another sign of how the roles of soldiers and spies have become blurred over the past decade:
A succession of wars has strained the ranks of both the Pentagon and the C.I.A., and the United States has come to believe that many of its current enemies are best fought with timely intelligence rather than overwhelming military firepower.
These factors have pushed military and intelligence operatives more closely together in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“In the field, there is a blurring of the mission,” said Senator Jack Reed, a senior Rhode Island Democrat on the Armed Services Committee who served as an officer in the 82nd Airborne Division. “Military operations can buy time to build up local security forces, but intelligence is the key to operations and for anticipating your adversary.”
(The Times’ Caucus blog ran an old picture of Reed with Petreaus, too.)
Then in The Washington Post, Reed offered a favorable comparison between Panetta and outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates – who stayed on when Obama succeeded Bush due in no small part to Reed’s efforts:
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also likened Panetta to Gates. “They’re both thoughtful, serious individuals who are committed to public service and who ask the right questions,” Reed said in a telephone interview.
Reed said the Senate would confirm Panetta quickly, despite his limited familiarity with military programs. “The one thing that he has, based on his experience and history, is good judgment,” the senator said. “He doesn’t have to be a master military technologist.”
Reed told The Providence Journal’s reporter in Washington, John Mulligan, that both personnel picks were good ones, because of Panetta’s expertise on intelligence and budgets and Petreaus’ knowledge of the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan:
As CIA chief, “Leon has operational knowledge of intelligence worldwide that is very critical at this juncture,” Reed said, referring to such military commitments as the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the completion of operations in Iraq and the U.S.-European involvement in the Libyan conflict.
Rhode Island Democrat Reed added that Panetta’s experience as former President Bill Clinton’s budget chief will be valuable “at a time when one of his main challenges as secretary of defense” will be to curb military spending. …
Reed, a former Army officer who is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called Petraeus “a superb professional with a great intellect and great character” who already has a deep understanding of intelligence issues from his experience as U.S. commander in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Reed also pointed out to Mulligan that he was “always accurate” when he said he had no personal interest in taking the helm at the Pentagon.
The last quote isn’t from Reed but rather about him, and it ran in Politico:
Members of Congress, even prominent Republicans, hailed Panetta’s nomination, but some defense experts think his ability to persuade GOP lawmakers to accept painful cuts could be exaggerated. “If you want to cut the defense budget, the technical accounting side is in some ways simpler than the political side,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution. “I don’t think Panetta buys you that much by way of the politics of cutting the defense budget. … There are a lot of people I can think of — Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman … Jack Reed — who would have more credibility on assuring hawks that cuts are being done carefully.”
February 28th, 2011 at 9:41 am by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he will step down at some point before the end of this year – and no matter what he says publicly, U.S. Sen. Jack Reed apparently hasn’t convinced insiders to stop suggesting he could be Gates’ successor.
The latest example comes from Politico, which throws Reed into the mix today:
The information vacuum has created a standing game of defense secretary roulette in Washington’s national security circles, where almost any potential name can seem like a sure thing or a long shot, depending on the day and the person offering it. One roster of potential candidates includes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has said she is not interested; Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Connecticut independent; Sen. Jack Reed, the Rhode Island Democrat; Undersecretary of Defense Michele Flournoy; Navy Secretary Ray Mabus; and John Hamre, president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former deputy secretary of defense in the Clinton administration.
But just because some people are floating Reed’s name doesn’t mean he’s looking to take the job. The senator, who usually brushes aside these reports, said as much in September, the last time I asked him about SecDef rumors:
U.S. Sen. Jack Reed has ruled out becoming President Barack Obama’s defense secretary once and for all – not that he ever said anything otherwise.
“I am committed to serving the people of Rhode Island as their senator, and, as such, I am not interested in being Secretary of Defense,” Reed said in a statement sent to Eyewitness News a short time ago.
(A Beltway-based Nesi’s Notes reader pointed out to me that if Reed became defense secretary and Tom Donilon continued as national security adviser, La Salle Academy would be more or less singularly responsible for America’s national defense.)
February 24th, 2011 at 10:26 am by Ted Nesi under General Talk
Rolling Stone’s Michael Hastings, whose explosive story about Stanley McChrystal forced him to step down, has another bombshell investigative report – that a three-star general “illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in ‘psychological operations’ to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war.”
One of those senators was Rhode Island’s own Jack Reed, a senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee who has visited Afghanistan 11 times since the war there began a decade ago. Others included committee chairman Carl Levin, John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Al Franken.
Reed called for a full investigation of the allegations during a live appearance on MSNBC a few minutes ago.
“Charges of this nature are very serious and disturbing and they have to be fully investigated,” Reed said, though he emphasized that he listened to a range of voices, including diplomats and lower-ranking soldiers, on his visits and “didn’t feel anything unusual going on” when he was there.
“Having grown up as a young Army officer in the Vietnam era, I have an instinctual sort of notion that you have to look very carefully and weigh very carefully what anyone says – not suggesting any improprieties, but there are people with institutional stakes who need to protect their own positions,” Reed said.
The senator also used the opportunity to offer a reminder that he voted against the Iraq war, which he called a “strategic mistake” that drew attention away from Afghanistan and caused coalition forces to “lose a lot of ground” there. He also offered support for President Obama’s plan to begin withdrawing troops from the country this summer.