Opinion: Backroom defense bill lets dictators and kleptocrats off the hook
By Josh Rogin
Columnist
December 8, 2021 at 5:56 p.m. EST
The most important national security legislation of the year has just been mismanaged so badly, it could end up letting some international bad guys escape accountability for some pretty horrible abuses and crimes. Democrats and Republicans are pointing fingers at one another, but there is plenty of blame to go around.
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There’s always some drama on Capitol Hill surrounding the end-of-year consideration of the National Defense Authorization Act, Congress’s annual defense policy legislation, because it is considered a “must-pass” bill. But this year, congressional dysfunction surrounding the defense bill hit a depressing new low. Even though various committees spent months crafting and debating provisions, the process got derailed. Running out of time, the staffs of the leaders of the House and Senate armed services and foreign affairs committees met secretly over the past couple of weeks, wrote a bill of their own, and released it to the rest of the Congress as a fait accompli.
The new National Defense Authorization Act that the House approved on Tuesday was released only six hours before the vote. The Senate is now set to pass it as soon as this week with no chance to debate or amend it. Both parties are celebrating the higher defense budget authorization numbers. Conservatives brag that provisions such as adding women to the draft were dropped.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/08/backroom-defense-bill-lets-dictators-kleptocrats-off-hook/
