Pentagon takes drastic measures to combat virus Presented by Northrop Grumman

With Lara Seligman, Connor O’Brien, Sarah Cammarata and Jacqueline Feldscher

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Quick Fix

— The Pentagon goes virtual and bans domestic travel as calls grow for the military to take on a larger role in responding to the coronavirus.

— Senate returns to Washington to take up surveillance legislation and emergency virus relief package.

— New proposed legislation would put an end to a “pass through” funding procedure in which the Air Force seeks money but it gets managed by another agency.

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On the Hill

BACK IN SESSION: Senators return to Capitol Hill today to take up an emergency coronavirus economic relief package and consider legislation to renew contentious surveillance authorities. The upper chamber was scheduled to go on recess this week but Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delayed the break to work on the must-pass bills.

But how prepared is Congress to keep operating in the face of a national emergency, asks Garrett Graff, a former POLITICO magazine editor and author of Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself—While the Rest of Us Die.

“Since the end of World War II, efforts to force the House and Senate to confront how it would function in an emergency have stalled,” he writes in POLITICO Magazine, “and even the lackluster efforts after 9/11 to improve congressional continuity planning fell short of addressing the potential impact of a pandemic.”

CLOSING THE AIR FORCE'S 'BLACK HOLE': Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) is pushing legislation to eliminate "pass through" budgeting in the Air Force, a practice that funds mostly classified, special forces and defense health programs that are managed by other agencies.

The bill from Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general, and fellow Nebraska Republican Jeff Fortenberry, would require the funding — sometimes referred to as the Air Force’s “black hole” — be included in the Pentagon-wide budget to better reflect the Air Force’s true needs. In a statement, Bacon criticized the maneuver as "a convenient administrative conduit.”

Ending it, however, could have implications for funding the new Space Force. Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett told Air Force Magazine last month that using the mechanism is “one of the ideas” to finance the new military branch.

Coronavirus

OPERATION HUNKER DOWN: The Pentagon today will transition to a largely virtual workplace to slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus while the military suspends all domestic travel until May 11 that is not designated critical.

“The Defense Department will drastically shrink staff at the Pentagon starting Monday as the Washington area hunkers down amid the coronavirus outbreak, asking ‘nonessential’ employees to telework and complicating matters for those whose job requires access to classified material,” our colleague Lara Seligman reports.

Many offices will “voluntarily go to minimal staffing,” including staggering shifts in the building “to limit cross-interaction,” said a senior Defense official who briefed reporters on Saturday. That also means that as of Sunday, the Pentagon is now at Health Condition Bravo, which bars foreign visitors, those without an access card, and anyone who has been abroad in designated countries over the last 14 days. “If you’re sick, don’t come to the building. Stay home, contact your health care provider, get tested if necessary,” a senior Defense official advised in a phone briefing Saturday.

Access to secret material: One lingering question is whether some officials will be able to do their work if they regularly rely on classified information. But senior Defense officials who briefed reporters insisted those limits will not have any measurable impact on operations. “If the use of classified information is essential to your mission, then you will continue to have access to the Pentagon and will not be placed on telework,” one official said.

New travel restrictions: The drastic measures also include a halt to domestic travel, except in “compelling cases where the travel is mission-essential, for humanitarian reasons, or warranted due to extreme hardship,” Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist announced late Friday.

“Travel by patients and medical providers for the purpose of medical treatment for DoD personnel and their family members is authorized,” his memo stipulates. “Individuals who have already initiated travel (including intermediate stops) are authorized to continue to their final destination. Individuals whose [temporary duty] ends while this memorandum is in effect are authorized to return to their home station. Individuals pending retirement or separation during this period are exempt.”

The new guidance comes on top of measures instituted late last week to halt all travel to the most affected areas of the world and as the Navy reported on Sunday night the first sailor aboard ship, the USS Boxer, to test positive for the virus.

More workforce-related info: The Washington Headquarters Service has additional guidance for government employees in the National Capital Region. And here is information for employees and parents of children who attend Defense Department-run schools.

Guard call-ups on rise: National Guard troops are also being steadily deployed to support the containment and mitigation efforts — an estimated 580 Air and Army National Guard troops across 13 states as of Sunday morning, a National Guard spokesman told Morning D. “Going forward, each state will have an individual approach based on unique needs of the emergency response enterprise in their state,” he said. On Friday, the National Guard Bureau predicted the numbers will sharply rise in the coming days.

‘Action on contact’: The military is also on a war footing against the virus overseas, especially in hard-hit South Korea, Army Gen. Robert Abrams told reporters at the Pentagon on Friday. “The proximity of the virus to our installations was literally at our doorsteps,” he said, saying the command has “operationalized our approach to combating COVID-19 from the very beginning.”

“This is not an administrative task, this is not a medical task and it's not a routine event, but it's an operation,” he added. “We are conducting 24/7, round-the-clock operations … similarly to how we operate in combat. We apply speed and violence of action on contact. We apply analytical tools and predictive analysis, and provide daily update briefings to me and component commanders so we maintain shared situational awareness.”

As for North Korea, the reclusive kingdom still claims it has not been impacted by the virus. But Abrams strongly doubts that. “It is a closed-off nation, so we can't say emphatically that they … have cases, but we're fairly certain they do,” he said.

Related: Iran says worsening outbreak could strain health facilities, via The Associated Press.

And: ISIS tells terrorists to steer clear of coronavirus-stricken Europe, via POLITICO Europe.

Could the U.S. military do more? The Democratic governor of hard-hit New York thinks so, along with some leading medical professionals who urged President Donald Trump to enlist the Pentagon to help build additional medical facilities to minimize stress on the health care system.

“States cannot build more hospitals, acquire ventilators or modify facilities quickly enough,” Andrew Cuomo wrote in an open letter to Trump in the Sunday New York Times. “At this point, our best hope is to utilize the Army Corps of Engineers to leverage its expertise, equipment and people power to retrofit and equip existing facilities — like military bases or college dormitories — to serve as temporary medical centers. Then we can designate existing hospital beds for the acutely ill.”

“We believe the use of active-duty Army Corps personnel would not violate federal law because this is a national disaster,” he added.

Exclusive: The White House Office of Management and Budget is now preparing another coronavirus funding request for the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs, which also has special authorities for national emergencies, our colleague Caitlin Emma reported late Sunday.

Related: Enlist the military to build a parallel health care system to fight coronavirus, via CNN.

New cancellations: The Navy League’s annual Sea Air Space conference set to begin April 6 at National Harbor, Md., has been canceled, while the Space Foundation’s Space Symposium that was scheduled to begin March 30 in Colorado Springs has been posted indefinitely. The United Nations’ review conference for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty scheduled to begin in April is postponed, the Japanese Kyodo news service reports.

Sign up for POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition, your daily update on how the illness is affecting politics, markets, public health and more.

Pentagon

ECHOES OF THE COLD WAR: The North American Air Defense Command has once again had to scramble fighter jets to intercept pairs of Russian aircraft entering the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone.

"This is the second and third time this week that incursions into our air defense identification zones were met and escorted by NORAD fighters," Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, NORAD commander, said in a statement on Saturday. "We continue to see repeated Russian military aviation activity in the Arctic and we will defend the U.S. and Canada against these threats emanating from our northern approaches."

2020 Watch

“I would call out the military — now. They have the capacity to provide this surge help that hospitals need and that is needed across the nation. I would make sure that they did exactly what they are prepared to do. They have done it. They did it in the Ebola crisis.” — former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday night in the Democratic presidential debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Speed Read

— Two U.S. troops injured in Iraq rocket attack in serious condition: Reuters

— Trump considering full pardon for Flynn: Military Times

— ‘No Timeout’ in future wars, Futures Command chief says: Breaking Defense

— How national security surveillance nabs more than spies: AP

— Inside the most secret place at Guantánamo Bay: New York Times

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