Hearing of the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee - Does the President's FY 2016 Budget Request Address the Crises in the Middle East and North Africa?

Hearing

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, made the following statement at a subcommittee hearing entitled, "Does the President's FY 2016 Budget Request Address the Crises in the Middle East and North Africa?" Statement by Ros-Lehtinen:

"Before we begin today, I wanted to take a moment to express our condolences to the people of Tunisia, Poland, Italy, Germany, and Spain, for today's senseless and cowardly terror attack in Tunis that has left at least 19 people dead. We all have great hopes for Tunisia as it leads the way on its path towards democracy against all odds and this attack reminds us that we must continue to support it as it strives to make progress. The Chair now recognizes herself for five minutes. First, let me again welcome you both for being here and thank you for your service.

Each year, as part of our oversight obligations, we hold this hearing to examine the President's budget request for the State Department's Near Eastern Affairs bureau and USAID's Bureau for the Middle East. We're all aware of just how difficult the Middle East and North Africa is with all the instability, the sectarian tensions, the violence and the terror, so we know it isn't an easy task to address all of these crises and protect our own national security interests. What I hope to hear today from our two distinguished guests is the administration's plan to address the most pressing issues in the region, and how the budget request is commensurate with what we are aiming to achieve.

In this year's budget, the administration is requesting $7.14 billion in overall non-humanitarian bilateral aid for Middle East and North Africa countries, an 8.7% increase over last year's request. It is also requesting an additional $873.4 million in bilateral aid for these countries as part of its Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund, a 5.7% increase since 2014. On top of that, there is a request for an additional $1.64 billion for humanitarian aid for the crisis in Iraq and Syria. I'm fully aware that this region poses probably the most difficulty for us to address, but in a time when we don't seem to have a clear and decisive plan to tackle these crises, these increases must be closely scrutinized by us and the administration must justify them.

This is a significant sum of U.S. taxpayer dollars, and we can't just sign off on such increases without identifying our policy goals and objectives, and this administration has been plagued by indecision and half-measures. And time and time again, we hear that the administration was surprised or caught unawares by certain events. We heard the President say the rise of ISIL was a surprise. Then the administration was surprised when ISIL easily captured Mosul. More recently, even though President Obama hailed our counterterrorism efforts in Yemen as a model of success in September, the administration acknowledged that it was surprised by the collapse of the U.S.-backed government in Yemen earlier this year. Yet all of these events were foreseeable.

In Syria, the President has still not defined a clear and comprehensive plan for dealing with ISIL, al-Nusra and Assad, nor has it been able to put forth a clear and distinct strategy for addressing the humanitarian crisis that has resulted. Instead of seeking the removal of Assad, now Secretary Kerry has lowered the threshold and is seeking to negotiate with Assad -- a man responsible for over 220,000 deaths and who used chemical weapons against his own population. But this is part of the administration's willingness to negotiate with the world's worst regimes at the expense of our allies and partners. In the meantime, Iran is now essentially in control of four capitals in the region -- Damascus, Beirut, Sana'a and Baghdad -- yet we carry on these misguided P5+1 nuclear talks while continuing to alienate our traditional partners and allies in the region, which is a recipe for disaster.

While in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, the administration failed to prevent Abu Mazen from agreeing to a unity government with Hamas and failed to prevent Abu Mazen from going to the UN Security Council with a resolution that would establish a Palestinian State outside of the Palestinians' obligation to come to a negotiated settlement with Israel. And though that initiative may have failed -- at least for now -- we were unable to prevent Abu Mazen from acceding to the Rome Statute and joining the International Criminal Court, the ICC, which has since launched a preliminary investigation against Israel.

In Egypt, the President's request for Economic Support Funds (ESF) is $150 million - $50 million less than Fiscal Year 14 -- and we were told this decrease was the result of a policy decision, but we were given no specifics. This is somewhat puzzling, since a GAO report that I requested with Mr. Connolly, recently made public, shows that we still have nearly half a billion dollars in previous unobligated funds for Egypt. So why are we requesting an additional $150 million and what are we doing with the half billion dollars?

There are significant funds from the OCO account that are intended to go to Iraq, including $250 million in FMF for the Iraqi Security Forces, but what about the Kurds who bear the brunt of much of the fighting against ISIL? The administration has recognized the continued progress that Tunisia has made on its path toward democracy, but the tragic and deadly attack and hostage situation in the Bardo Museum in Tunis today serves as a reminder that there is still much work to be done on the democracy and security front. There are plenty of good programs and good work that this budget request supports, and I am pleased to see that it commits continued support to our ally Morocco and recognizes the increased assistance to Jordan as part of the new Memorandum of Understanding as the Kingdom continues to be on the front lines of the humanitarian crises and fight against ISIL.

So I do hope that we will hear from our witnesses today on how the administration plans to address these challenges head on, and how we can all work together to make the region more secure, more stable, while furthering our interests as well."

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