World more dangerous than in 2009: Armed Services Committee Chairman Thornberry

The threats to global and U.S. security are escalating, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) warned at a National Press Club luncheon on Wednesday, Jan. 13.

“The world is more dangerous today than it was in 2009,” he proclaimed. Despite President Barack Obama's claims in the State of the Union address on Tuesday night, ``that is not just hot air. That’s the facts. That’s reality,” Thornberry said. “This notion that our enemies are not growing stronger, I think that is empirically not true.”

With the president winding down his term, “it’s unlikely the Obama Administration is really going to do anything over the next year that’s going to change that fact,” Thornberry predicted. “So all that means the next commander-in-chief, whoever he or she may be, is going to inherit a whale of a mess on their first day.”

Hillary Clinton, if she became the next president, would be different from Obama, Thornberry said. Over her career, she ``has shown herself to be for stronger positions when it comes to national security,” he said. Another difference: "The Obama Administration approach to Congress has been very dismissive,” and Clinton's leadership would mean better relations, he said.

Contrasting relations between an earlier Democratic president and Republican House, he recalled it was ``much better during Bill Clinton’s day.” Thornberry would know, having first been elected in 1994 during the GOP’s House majority takeover.

The shadow of 9/11 still looms large. “Seventy-five percent of the House was not in office on the morning of 9/11," he said. "Those of us who were here will never forget that morning.”

He said Congress should vote and pass an Authorization for the Use of Military Force against ISIS, instead of relying on the AUMF that passed a few days after the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001.

"That specifically is tied to those who committed the attacks and those that harbored them. Well, ISIS didn’t exist then,” Thornberry said. “So what the Administration has to do is try to draw a link that this is a successor regime. The problem is, in Afghanistan today, ISIS is fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda!”

Moving to threats beyond terrorist groups, he criticized China’s recent claims of ownership of islands in the South China Sea, saying “lots of allies in the region are looking to see is the U.S. going to step back and let China do what it wants to?”

Some of Russia’s recent aggression and new weapons are designed with an eye toward the U.S., Thornberry warned. “There are those who believe they sense a U.S. retreat from the world. They want to step forward, take advantage of it, and reoccupy the place that they knew they had enjoyed in the past.”

Domestic financial issues compound the problem. Building a strong military requires money, and ``last fall’s budget agreement does not provide enough money for defense,” Thornberry said.

Since taking over as chairman last year, arguably Thornberry’s biggest accomplishment was military retirement reform, which he said could serve as a model for larger budget issues.
This is particularly necessary because non-military entitlements are indirectly harming the military by constraining defense budgets, he said.

“Roughly two-thirds of the federal budget is spent on mandatory spending programs,'' mostly entitlements, he pointed out. ``We are down to about 15 percent of the federal budget spent on defense. That’s all it is.” Thornberry recalled it was about 50 percent during John F. Kennedy’s administration.

Thornberry declined when asked to endorse a candidate for president, including his fellow Texan Ted Cruz.