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NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2023
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speech of
HON. RO KHANNA
of california
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
Mr. KHANNA. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to thank Chairman Smith as well as Ranking Member Rogers for their leadership to include various measures in the underlying bill that will aid the Department of Defense's effort to prevent and mitigate civilian harm. That includes my amendment that passed the House Armed Services Committee unanimously during the NDAA markup which would permanently extend a global ex-gratia authority that allows the Department of Defense to make condolence payments to civilians inadvertently harmed in U.S. military operations, alongside provisions in the underlying bill to establish a Center for Excellence in Civilian Harm Mitigation and Commission on Civilian Harm.
I want to thank Kate Gould on my staff, and to thank the HASC staff, including Katy Quinn, Phil MacNaughton, Robert Ikoku, and Jonathan Lord for all their work on this. And I want to thank Reps. Jason Crow, Tom Malinowski, and Sara Jacobs for co-leading this amendment and my bill that the amendment is drawn from, H.R. 7625, the Protection of Civilians in Military Operations Act.
It should not be a partisan issue to mitigate civilian harm.
My amendment would simply authorize the resources for the Department of Defense to implement these policies of reducing civilian casualties, which Congress already required the Department of Defense to do nearly 4 years ago.
My amendment would allow the Department of Defense to spend $5 million per year to implement the requirements of section 936 of the John McCain NDAA for Fiscal Year 2019.
Section 936, passed by this body 4 years ago, requires the Department of Defense to establish uniform processes and standards across combatant commands for improving tracking, reporting, analysis, and response to civilian casualties from U.S. military operations.
It is appropriately named after the late Senator John McCain, who believed deeply that the United States military should minimize civilian casualties. This is something that everyone in our military believes.
Now, the Department of Defense has made extraordinary progress in recent years in preventing civilian harm. Secretary Austin has shown leadership in accelerating that progress. As he says, ``Our efforts to mitigate and respond to civilian harm . . . are a direct reflection of U.S. values.''
Some of my colleagues want to prevent harm because of their own personal experience in combat or witnessing war zones where civilians have been killed, and some are motivated because they want to prevent terrorists from exploiting civilian casualties as a recruiting tool.
But to do this, we need resources. I don't think $5 million a year is very much. It is less than not just 1 percent, it is less than not just 0.1 percent, it is less than 0.001 percent of the entire budget to help make sure we have the resources to track and report and minimize civilian casualties.
I am hopeful that we can get bipartisan support for this amendment. I recognize that this NDAA does a lot on minimizing civilian harm, including the establishment of the Center for Excellence. I thank again Chairman Smith for his leadership on that.
Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the amendment, and I just point out that a lot of these requirements already have passed. They are in the FY 2019 NDAA. The amount of money we are talking about here is less than 0.001 percent, so it will not have a negative impact on the total budget.
I thank again our chairman, Chairman Smith, for all of these civilian harm mitigation initiatives in the NDAA. This NDAA, more than any in my 6 years in Congress, has tackled civilian casualties, and I hope that there will continue to be a bipartisan commitment in the House to reduce them to the extent possible.
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SOURCE: Congressional Record Vol. 168, No. 118(1), Congressional Record Vol. 168, No. 118(2)
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