Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, is among the latest to join calls criticizing Sen. Kent Conrad’s (D-N.D.) proposal to cut USD4 billion from the foreign affairs budget request for fiscal 2011, Josh Rogin says.
Mullen reportedly wrote to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to voice his opposition to Conrad’s proposed cut.
“We are living in times that require an integrated national security program with budgets that fund the full spectrum of national security efforts, including vitally important pre-conflict and post-conflict civilian stabilization programs,” Mullen wrote in the letters. “Diplomatic programs are critical to our long-term security.”
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have issued similar statements.
Pentagon officials are also lobbying foreign affairs budget appropriators as they make their rounds on Capitol Hill, Rogin writes on Foreign Policy’s “The Cable” blog. Pentagon officially usually talk only to defense appropriators, Rogin says.
