Jeanne Shaheen Decries Defense Secretary Hegseth Ending WPS Program Signed Into Law By Trump In 2017

Forbes Breaking News

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) spoke about the termination of the Women, Peace and Security program.

Transcript

00:00Senator Shaheen.

00:02Thank you, gentlemen, for your past service to the country and for your willingness to continue to serve,

00:08and welcome to all your families.

00:10On Tuesday, Secretary Hegseth announced by tweet that he was ending implementation of women, peace, and security at DOD,

00:18claiming it was a Biden-era DEI policy.

00:22Unfortunately, he missed the fact that President Trump and members of his current administration,

00:27including Secretary Rubio, Mike Waltz, and Secretary Noem, all worked on this policy in 2017, and President Trump signed it.

00:37U.S. combat units began using female engagement teams during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan

00:43to gather intelligence and build trust with local communities.

00:48Years later, because of the success of those efforts, we enshrined this concept into law as part of the WPS Act.

00:54Since that time, WPS has been used by the warfighters to identify victims of human trafficking

01:02and joint exercises on non-combatant evacuations,

01:06to provide human intelligence on violent extremist groups like ISIS and al-Shabaab,

01:12and to understand the human terrain to improve kinetic and non-kinetic targeting.

01:16I'm very concerned that taking away these tools does not make us a stronger or more lethal fighting force,

01:25and in fact, it takes away some of the options we have to be successful.

01:30Secretary Hegseth also claims that warfighters hate it,

01:34and yet the newly confirmed chairman of the Joint Chiefs not only told this committee

01:38about WPS's operational value, but he was very clear that this is not DEI.

01:48Lawfare made public in an article last night a memo from the director of the Joint Staff

01:53providing their best military advice to the secretary,

01:57and this is a direct quote from that article.

02:00Mr. Chairman, I would ask that the article be introduced into the record.

02:04The article points out from that memo, and I quote,

02:11China and Russia have no equivalent of WPS, and that, end quote,

02:17and that the combatant command's 80 engagements with partners over the next two years under the program,

02:22quote, counter China by gaining access to a population China largely ignores.

02:28The director continues that WPS, quote,

02:32prevents radicalization by violent extremist organizations

02:36and disrupts the smuggling of narcotics, weapons, and humans into the United States.

02:42Officials from every combatant command and from several other military components

02:47concurred with this recommendation from the Joint Chiefs.

02:53And this is information that's not new to this committee.

02:57Every four-star combatant commander has told us about the strategic advantage

03:02that WPS provides to our forward-deployed forces.

03:06So, Mr. Zimmerman, you're nominated to oversee regional security for Europe,

03:11the Middle East, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere.

03:17Don't you need all the tools that are available to counter violent extremism in Africa and the Middle East?

03:22That's a question.

03:28Senator, thank you very much for the question.

03:31The violent extremism, counterterrorism problem is a major concern,

03:37and if confirmed to this role, one that I will be focused on.

03:41It is, it does require, in my view, a whole-of-government type of approach.

03:49And sometimes we're too, we can be too siloed as a government.

03:54In my background in the intelligence community,

03:58I've had the opportunity to work with many other interagency partners

04:02and see the value that comes from across our government.

04:07And if confirmed to the role, I would, of course, make a priority to work with all the tools

04:14and coordinate to make sure all the tools are available.

04:18That argues in my mind for the importance of the WPS effort.

04:23Mr. Overbaugh, you're nominated to oversee intelligence functions for the Department of Defense.

04:28Again, if confirmed, I assume that you would like all tools available to gather human intelligence on the ground,

04:33especially in a conflict scenario.

04:37Every single one I can get, Senator.

04:39And Mr. Lohmeyer, you're nominated to be Undersecretary of the Air Force.

04:43If confirmed, I assume your forward-deployed airmen will want to understand everything they can about the human terrain

04:50before taking strikes like on Houthi's targets in Yemen.

04:54Would you agree?

04:55I would agree with that, Senator.

04:57Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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