Overnight Defense: Senate panel to get classified Niger briefing | Corker, Trump feud heats up | House passes North Korea sanctions

THE TOPLINE: Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) is demanding more information from the Pentagon on the attack in Niger and, more broadly, U.S. advise and assist missions around the world.

Kaine said in a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis that it’s “nearly impossible” to differentiate between combat operations and advise and assist missions.

“While I fully appreciate both the necessity and importance for our Armed Forces to assist in the professionalization and capacity building of local security forces around the globe, to include those in Niger, I am concerned that our complex operating environment has made it nearly impossible to differentiate between ‘advise and assist’ and combat operations,” Kaine wrote in the letter, released Tuesday.

“In turn, this makes the line triggering the requirement for congressional authorization and approval blurry.”

The Hill’s Rebecca Kheel has the rest here.

Kaine may get several of his questions answered later this week as the Senate Armed Services Committee announced they will receive a classified briefing on Niger on Thursday.

The committee will be briefed by Robert Karem, assistant secretary of Defense for international security affairs, and Maj. Gen. Albert Elton II, Joint Staff deputy director for special operations and counterterrorism.

The briefing comes after several committee members, including Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), slammed the Pentagon for failing to keep them in the loop on operations in Niger.

The criticism has mounted after four U.S. soldiers were killed earlier this month in an ambush on their way back from a reconnaissance mission in the village of Tongo Tongo, near the Niger-Mali border.

The attack shined a spotlight on the little-noticed deployment of 1,000 U.S. troops to Niger and surrounding countries. Pentagon officials have said they are there on a mission to train and advise local forces fighting terrorists.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an Armed Services Committee member, on Sunday said he was unaware the United States had that many troops in the region prior to the attack.

But lawmakers were notified in a June letter from the White House that the United States had about 945 troops in the Chad Basin area.

Read more on that briefing here. 

 

AMBUSHED GREEN BERETS WERE GATHERING INFO ON TERRORIST, REPORT CLAIMS: The U.S. soldiers involved in the deadly Niger ambush earlier this month were gathering intelligence on a terrorist leader in the area, CNN reported on Tuesday.

Two military officials told CNN that the unit was not on a kill or capture mission on the leader.

Four Army Green Berets were killed and two were wounded in the Oct. 4 attack near the village of Tongo Tongo. The group of 12 U.S. soldiers and 30 to 40 Nigerien troops were ambushed coming back from a reconnaissance mission in the village. Five Nigerien soldiers were also killed.

CNN also reported that the U.S. team had arrived in the country weeks earlier and it was one of their first patrols in the country.

Joint Staff Director Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told reporters earlier this month that U.S. and Nigerien forces had “done 29 patrols without contact over the previous six months or so,” with no indication that such an ambush would occur.

Read more here.

 

CORKER, TRUMP FEUD HEATS UP: President Trump and Senate Republicans on Tuesday huddled on Capitol Hill for a meeting on party unity hours after he and Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) exchanged heated words on Twitter and in the news.

The fight began when Corker offered a litany of criticisms directed toward Trump in a morning interview on NBC’s “Today.” The two then battled over Twitter, with Trump accusing the Tennessee Republican of trying to stymie his agenda after Corker said Trump should stay out of the tax-overhaul effort on Capitol Hill.

In an interview with CNN in a Senate hallway shortly after the tweets, Corker escalated his criticism, calling Trump a serial liar, saying he regretted supporting him for president, accusing him of debasing the country and refusing to say whether he trusted Trump with the U.S. nuclear codes. 

The Hill’s Jordan Fabian has more here.

Corker also told reporters prior to the meeting that he does not believe Trump’s behavior has improved since he took office in January, saying it instead appears to be “devolving.”

“I’ve seen no evolution in an upward way,” Corker told reporters on Capitol Hill. “As a matter of fact, I would say, it appears to me it’s almost devolving.

Read about that here.

Despite the back-and-forth barbs, the feud between Trump and Corker didn’t come up during a closed-door lunch on Tuesday, GOP senators said as they left the meeting.

The Hill’s Jordain Carney has more here.

 

HOUSE PASSES NORTH KOREA SANCTIONS: The House passed legislation on Tuesday that seeks to cut off North Korea’s access to financial institutions around the world amid its nuclear provocations.

The measure, passed 415-2, would direct the Treasury Department to ban U.S. financial institutions from engaging in transactions that benefit people or entities associated with the North Korean government.

It would also authorize cutting off financial assistance to foreign governments that knowingly fail to prevent transactions that benefit the North Korean regime.

“It’s time for those banks to choose between aiding and abetting the North Korean government or standing for peace with America and its allies,” Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.), the author of the bill, said during House floor debate.

 The Hill’s Cristina Marcos has more here.

The sanctions come as bipartisan group of House Foreign Affairs Committee members are urging the State Department to relist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Read more about that here.

 

ON TAP FOR TOMORROW:

Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) will speak about “Ending Modern Slavery” at the Center for Strategic and International Studies at 8:30 a.m. http://bit.ly/2zoYduu

Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Ben Cardin (D-Md.) provides the keynote address at the Center for Strategic and International Studies “Transformational Leadership in International Affairs” conference at 9:30 a.m. http://bit.ly/2yyhn1R

Afghan first lady Rula Ghani will talk about women as peacemakers at the U.S. Institute of Peace at 10 a.m. http://bit.ly/2zplDQt

A House Foreign Relations Committee subpanel will have a hearing on the next steps after President Trump’s Iran announcement with testimony from outside experts at 10 a.m. at the Rayburn House Office Building, room 2172. http://bit.ly/2gRL5XU

The conferees for the fiscal year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) will have a closed meeting to formally begin the conference process to resolve the differences between the House and Senate defense authorization bills at the Dirksen Senate Office Building G-50.

The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee will vote on three nominations Wednesday off the Senate floor during afternoon votes. http://bit.ly/2krKVZS

 

ICYMI:

— The Hill: McCain denies Vietnam draft comments were about Trump

— The Hill: Sarah Sanders: Niger not a ‘defining moment’ of Trump presidency

— The Hill: Bannon dismisses McCain, Bush speeches as ‘more pablum’

— The Hill: Homeland security adviser rips McCain’s ’empty chair stunt‘

— The Hill: Armed Services Dem: There has not been a lot of briefing on West Africa

— The Hill: Opinion: Will America ever have a grand strategy for the Middle East?, by

Anthony H. Cordesman from the Center for Strategic and International Studies

— The Hill: Opinion: The consequences of US disengagement from the Middle East, by Stephen Blank of the American Foreign Policy Council

–Defense News: Pentagon kicks off intensive F-35 cost review

 

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