The Pentagon is not committing to meeting a congressionally mandated deadline to present lawmakers with the Obama administration’s plan to “defeat” the self-proclaimed Islamic State, just days before that plan is due to be delivered to Congress.
President Obama in November signed the annual defense policy law that included a 90-day window for the administration to provide Congress with its plan to beat the radical Sunni terrorist group militarily.
“We are aware of the report and are actively working with multiple interagency offices to complete this legal requirement, per the NDAA, and look forward to submitting the completed report to Congress in the near term,” a Pentagon spokesman told the Washington Examiner on Thursday.
The spokesman, Maj. Roger Cabiness II, said he couldn’t confirm whether the Defense Department will actually make Monday’s deadline.
Key lawmakers said the Pentagon had not communicated with them as of yet and were unsure if the report would be submitted by the legally binding date.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who has repeatedly pointed to the deadline’s inclusion in the law as proof that Republicans are forcing the administration to spell out exactly how it will tamp out the terrorist group, was prepping to prod the administration again.
His office was set to issue a memo titled: “Deadline Reminder: Your Plan to Defeat ISIS is Due Monday” addressed to the White House.
“Our records show that you have just four DAYS to present your plan to defeat ISIS,” the draft memo wrote, mimicking a reminder notice from a teacher or doctor’s office.
“To comply with the 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, a bill signed into law by President Barack Obama on Nov. 15, 2015, you are required to submit to Congress a real, comprehensive strategy to defeat ISIS by Monday, Feb. 15, 2016,” it reads.
There seems to be some confusion on Capitol Hill about what the deadline is, even though the NDAA was clear. But lawmakers included the same provision in the year-end, catch-all spending bill, which set a deadline of June 18.
Speaking at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, said he folded the provision into the omnibus appropriation. He pressed the administration’s anti-Islamic State czar, Brett McGurk, on whether the administration would make the June 18 deadline, without mentioning the earlier NDAA due date.
“But I think there is no real concrete strategies to defeat ISIS — not contain — but to defeat ISIS,” Poe told McGurk. “June 18th is the deadline. You see any reason, based on your expertise, why we won’t be able to get that strategy by June 18th?” he asked. “When in terms of the strategy were going to suffocate this network every single which way?”
In responding, McGurk repeated a point that White House officials often make when discussing the new mandate for a strategy, which is the administration already presented lawmakers with a plan to counter the Islamic State.
Republicans roundly rejected that plan as incomplete.
