Senators brush off White House defense bill veto threat (Ayotte Guantanamo Amendment Attached)

Politico ^ | December 4, 2012 | Laura Litvan

[what's up]

Senators appeared unconcerned Thursday by a White House threat to veto the defense policy bill they are considering on the floor, evidently confident they can get the legislation into a form that President Barack Obama would ultimately sign.

The White House Office of Management and Budget announced that if the bill “in its present form” were passed, it would face a veto over restrictions on Guantánamo Bay detainees, the makeup of the armed forces, its support for certain weapons programs and other details. It was the second time the White House has threatened to veto the National Defense Authorization Act this year. Earlier, it also issued a detailed veto warning about the bill that ultimately was passed by the House.

[what's up]

Because Feinstein was talking about passing legislation to allow Guantanamo inmates to be tranferred to US prisons, Kelly Ayotte took action to attach an amendement prohibiting such tranferrals to this bill.

The bill passed easily with Democratic support despite Obama threatening a veto.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

One thing I would appreciate in a future NDAA is a “utilitarianism procurement” philosophy. That is, if a system is so useful that the military uses it far more than a higher tech version, then there should be “replenishment” contracts made.

For example, the B-52 bomber (~$70m each) is an antique, but it is so incredibly inexpensive, low maintenance and durable as a bomber that it is used far more than several successor generations of bombers. Though it is not a “high tech war” bomber, the vast majority of the time we don’t *need* such bombers.

Another good example is the A-10 Thunderbolt II “Warthog” (~$15m each). Though the Air Force wants to replace these wonderful CAS aircraft with drones, there are limitations to drones that just cannot be overcome, such as severe damage recovery and return. Plus a pilot can make better and faster decisions than can a remote pilot.

As such, while drones have their place, A-10s make a wonderful complement to them. Though practically speaking, they should be flown by Army Aviation instead of relying on the Air Force for CAS.

But the real effort should be put into practical ship design for the US Navy. They have reached a point where they expect fewer and fewer ships to do more and more, which is asking for trouble in the “quantity vs. quality rule”. The USN needs a lot of “cheap and cheerful” lower tech ships to do its support and low level weapons activities.

[ANGGAPO]

When President Obama threatens to veto a bill it is an assurance that the bill has merit.