The 411 on the 1206

It appears that the Administration’s soon-to-be-released FY 2011’s budget will continue U.S. foreign security assistance going through the Pentagon rather than the State Department. According to the Cable, “The president’s budget will keep those funds in the Pentagon’s purse following a pitched internal battle in which the State Department eventually conceded.” The funds, known as the “1206 account,” are used to do things like military training and joint operations with countries other than Iraq and Afghanistan, such as Indonesia and Somalia. The Cable quotes Secretary Clinton, speaking before the USGLC, as saying the administration is pushing to focus more on development and diplomacy. However, the story quotes insiders working on the issue as saying that, in the end, the State Department  was “not sure they have the capacity to actually run the 1206 programs,” an issue that has hampered the transfer of other foreign security assistance programs as well.  As the story observes, taking on the 1206 account would also be difficult when the QDDR hasn’t been completed.

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