Senate Foreign Relations Committee

It’s not really a statement of support for nominee Rajiv Shah, who’s already got strong and eager support from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. But here’s what the chairman and ranking member of the committee that he’ll appear before for his confirmation hearing have to say:
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) and [...]

Laura Rozen breaks the news: Rajiv Shah, the Department of Agriculture’s undersecretary for Research, Education and Economics, is going to head the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has gone leaderless since the start of the Obama administration. They’ve got to move fast to get Shah in the post. My understanding is that the acting administrator, [...]

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, puts out this statement on today’s Iran nuclear-weapons disclosure:
“In light of Iran’s continuing deception, the international community must step up its demands that Iran halt its enrichment and reprocessing work, answer the International Atomic Energy Agency’s questions, and provide IAEA inspectors with the full [...]

An eclectic group of experts assessed the nuances of counterinsurgency and troop increases at a panel on Wednesday.

Richard Philips, the Maersk Alabama captain who endured a week of captivity by Somali pirates before U.S. Navy SEALs freed him, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today about what measures ought to be taken by commercial shipping to deter or defeat pirate attacks. Here’s Philips’ statement, on the question of arming crew members:
At [...]

Here’s Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, making a clear distinction between Somali pirates and Somali terrorists, while indicating that both scourges are rooted in the dysfunctional state of Somalia itself — a condition he says the United States should work to correct. From an interview today with MSNBC:
Based [...]

According to knowledgeable sources, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has hired John Kiriakou, the former CIA official who assisted with the 2002 capture of al-Qaeda detainee Abu Zubaydah and who said the detainee was tortured, as an investigator. Kiriakou, a CIA counterterrorism official from 1998 to 2004, will start work this week, focusing on the [...]

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s nomination to become secretary of state has cleared its most important hurdle. This morning, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee backed her, 16-1, in a vote to send her bid to become America’s top diplomat to the full Senate. The holdout was Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). No word on whether he cast his [...]

With Vietnam experience and foreign-policy expertise, the 2004 Democratic nominee would bring strong credentials to any possible Obama administration. His close ties to the Illinois senator, as well as his political skills, are assets. But will Biden stand for it?