Defense Secretary Ash Carter knocked Sen. John McCain for failing to move on military civilian nominees. | Getty Carter chides Congress on the war against ISIL The criticisms are a bold move for a Pentagon chief who’s tried to avoid getting on the bad side of John McCain.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter pointed the finger at Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain and other congressional defense leaders on Wednesday for making it more difficult to carry out the war against the Islamic State by holding up much-needed funding and moving slowly to confirm key Pentagon nominees.

The criticisms, laid out in Carter’s opening statement during an Armed Services hearing on counter-ISIL operations, are a bold move for a Pentagon chief who’s tried to avoid getting on the bad side of the hard-charging 79-year-old Arizona Republican.


They’re also the latest example of fraying relations between the defense secretary and one of President Barack Obama’s chief foreign policy critics, who were on good terms when Carter was confirmed to his post in February.

“Over a month ago, I submitted a request to the four congressional defense committees, including this one, to release ‘holds’ on the final tranche of funds in the Syria equipping program — that is, some $116 million dollars,” Carter told the committee, saying the funds were needed to “transport ammunition, weapons, and other equipment to further enable the progress being made against ISIL in Syria by partners like the Syrian Arab Coalition.”

All four committees, he said, “have failed to act on that request.”

The $116 million is part of a $500 million program to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels to fight ISIL. The Pentagon was initially trying to train a new force of thousands of Syrian rebels — but the program was scrapped soon after the head of U.S. Central Command acknowledged only four or five trainees had made it through the program and were fighting ISIL.

The Pentagon has since shifted its focus to helping existing rebel groups inside Syria.

McCain, though, was quick to seize on the initial failure to justify his reluctance to release the remaining funds.

“We don’t want to approve of something like that again,” he told Carter.

The Pentagon chief also knocked McCain for failing to move on military civilian nominees.

“While this committee has held 58 full hearings over the last year, only three have been confirmation hearings for DoD civilian leaders,” Carter said, explaining that the Defense Department had 16 nominees awaiting Senate confirmation.

“Twelve of those 16 are still awaiting even a hearing, including our nominees to be secretary of the Army, the undersecretaries of each of our three military departments — Army, Navy and Air Force — and the undersecretaries of both intelligence and personnel and readiness,” Carter said. “These positions should be filled by confirmed nominees, especially in a time of conflict.”

McCain has acknowledged moving slowly to approve Pentagon nominees — and has at times cited different reasons, including payback for Democrats using the so-called nuclear option during the previous Congress to move judicial nominees and retribution for Carter’s recommendation that Obama veto the original version of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act.

He also said he was still waiting for the Pentagon to provide a plan for closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — something he says he's been awaiting for nearly seven years.

But he noted Wednesday he was now moving ahead with some nominees.

Later on Wednesday, the Armed Services Committee was scheduled to hold a confirmation hearing for several civilian nominees, including Marcel Lettre to be undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

McCain also leveled some criticisms of his own on Wednesday.

He tangled with Joint Chiefs Vice Chairman Gen. Paul Selva, who testified in place of Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford because he's visiting troops abroad.

Under questioning from Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Selva explained that the military has not recommended establishing a no-fly zone in Syria in part because of concerns about defending the zone from Syrian government air defense systems and possibly Russian aircraft.

And McCain said Selva's statement was "one of the more embarassing" he'd ever heard "from a uniformed military officer.'

McCain also put Carter on notice that he expects him to be making a lot of appearances on Capitol Hill to discuss the war against ISIL.

The senator reminded Carter at the opening of the hearing, "When you were nominated for your position, you agreed to 'appear and testify upon request before this committee.'"

"It is true that you have made four appearances before this committee as secretary," McCain said. But, he added, "If we are truly at war against ISIL, as the president says, then we will continue to expect the secretary of defense to provide regular updates to the Senate Armed Services Committee on the progress of that war."

Walking into the hearing, McCain told POLITICO he doesn't believe Carter has been forthcoming enough with the committee, citing his initial refusal during a previous hearing to confirm the Navy had sailed a ship within 12 miles of one of China's reclaimed islands in the South China Sea.

"The best example is the failure to confirm when we sailed a ship near the islands, inside the 12-mile zone," McCain said, noting there were other examples as well.

Carter laid out several examples of recent successes against ISIL saying that, if requested by the Iraqi government, the U.S. was willing to provide attack helicopters to help the Iraqi military drive ISIL from the city of Ramadi.

"Over the past several months," Carter said, "the coalition has provided specialized training and equipment — including combat engineering techniques like in-stride breaching and bulldozing and munitions like AT-4 shoulder-fired missiles to stop truck bombs — to the Iraqi Army and counter-terrorism service units that are now beginning to enter Ramadi neighborhoods from multiple directions."

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