The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2005

10 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 5 Call for Commission to Investigate Abuse of Terrorist Suspects A bipartisan group of diplomats, lawyers and former legislators has called on Congress and the president to establish an independent bipartisan body, modeled on the Sept. 11 com- mission, to investigate the issue of the abuse of terrorist suspects. Thomas Pickering, a former under secretary of State and ambassador; Floyd Abrams, a lawyer who special- izes in First Amendment cases; and Bob Barr, a former Republican repre- sentative fromGeorgia who deals with civil liberties issues for the American Conservative Union, explained the move in the June 7 Washington Post. The three are members of the biparti- san Liberty and Security Initiative of the Constitution Project, a nonprofit based at Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute ( www.consti tutionproject.org/ls ). With other members of the initia- tive, they believe the American public deserves answers to the many ques- tions that have arisen over the past year in connection with the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal and allegations of abuse at America’s Guantanamo Bay detention facility. “No investigation completed to date has included recommendations on how mistreatment at detention facili- ties might be avoided,” Abrams, Barr and Pickering point out. “Establishing an independent, bipartisan commission would also be beneficial for U.S. relationships abroad,” they add, advocating that such a commission be created urgent- ly “to provide a credible investigation and a plan for corrective action, and to show the world that the United States takes seriously its obligations to uphold the rule of law.” The Constitution Project seeks con- sensus solutions to difficult legal and constitutional issues. The Project has seven initiatives in diverse areas, such as the death penalty, war powers and sentencing. The Liberty and Security Initiative was created following the events of Sept. 11, 2001, to educate policy-makers, the media and the pub- lic about the importance of preserving civil liberties, even as we battle new forms of terrorism. Experts Say U.S. Budget Misses the Big Picture on Security A Unified Security Budget for the United States, 2006 is the title of a detailed report issued by a task force of 14 military and foreign affairs experts assembled by Foreign Policy In Focus and the Center for Defense Information ( http://www.fpif.org/ papers/0505usb.html ). T he report outlines an integrated approach to security budgeting that balances mili- tary and nonmilitary security tools. The administration’s 2006 budget proposal for security, including for the military, international affairs and homeland security, would allocate seven times as much to military pro- grams as to all other security spending combined. Taking into account oper- ations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ratio is nine-to-one. Marcus Corbin, a senior analyst at CDI, and Miriam Pemberton, the Peace and Security editor at the Institute for Policy Studies’ Foreign Policy In Focus , co-authored the report and co-chaired the task force that endorsed it. “Policy-makers, experts and business leaders from across the political spectrum have called for a more balanced approach to terrorism and global security,” states Pemberton. “The Unified Security Budget provides the road map and budget specifics on how we make that happen.” The proposal was the subject of a discussion May 16 at the Center for American Progress. The transcript is available at http://www.american progress.org (enter “Unified Security Budget” in the search function). The Center for American Progress is advo- cating a new national security strategy, and its report, Integrated Power , which includes the call for a unified national security budget, can be accessed online at http://www.ameri canprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=bi JRJ8OVF&b=742277 . Hungary’s Ambassador to the U.S. Rocks Andras Simonyi is an amateur musician with a doctorate in political science. He is also the Hungarian ambassador to the United States. On June 7, Simonyi and his rock band, The Coalition of the Willing, played a tribute concert for wounded mem- bers of the military at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington ( http://www.defenselink.mil/news/ Jun2005/20050608_1644.html ). The concert was just a small token of the band’s appreciation for the troops fighting in the war on terrorism, Simonyi told reporter Steven Donald Smith. “Hungary was one of the first C YBERNOTES