Take a last look at the membership list of the House committee. Longtime Democratic leader and outgoing chairman Ike Skelton of Missouri lost his seat. So did next-up John Spratt of South Carolina. So did next-up-next-up Solomon Ortiz of Texas (though a recount is possible). So did naval-subcommittee chairman Gene Taylor of Mississippi. So did Georgia’s Jim Marshall, New Hampshire’s Carol Shea-Porter, Virginia’s Glenn Nye, Maryland’s Frank Kratovil, Alabama’s Bobby Bright and New York’s Scott Murphy. Three other Democrats retired from the committee — one of them, Pennsylvania’s Joe Sestak, lost a Senate race last night — and things look tough for Washington’s Rick Larsen as well.

So say hello to likely incoming chairman Buck McKeon of California. As we reported last month, McKeon’s a big proponent of missile defense, a skeptic of the Obama administration’s plan to start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan next July, and no great fan of closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. One of his key allies, Virginia Republican Randy Forbes, has blasted the administration for neglect of the Navy and Air Force and general “lack of concern… for the men and women in uniform.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ plans to cut $100 billion in defense overhead in five years is going to get the fine-tooth-comb treatment from the committee. Expect hearings on all of these issues practically as soon as Speaker-in-Waiting John Boehner gavels the next Congress into session in January.

That’s hardly the only upcoming fight. Next month, the Pentagon will complete a military study on repealing the ban on open gay service. Unless the Senate can pass a stalled defense bill during the lame-duck session before January, the ban will remain in place until Congress chucks it. Only now it faces much steeper chances in a GOP-run House: repeal of the ban only passed the House this year after Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania — who, by the way, just lost his seat — added it as an amendment to the House version of the defense bill, to much GOP criticism. Forbes, the incoming chairman of the readiness subcommittee, wants to get the results of the military study before considering an end to the ban. But even if the study finds no problems with repealing it, wide GOP House majorities make it unlikely to get through the chamber. (And the Senate isn’t so hot on it either.)

If the administration doesn’t completely give up its intention to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay — which it failed to do in a Democratic-controlled Congress — administration officials should be ready for an earful on how it shows “more regard for the rights of terrorists than for justice for those lost on September 11th,” as Forbes said in a scathing statement in August. He’ll be joined by McKeon, Texas’ Mac Thornberry — who may get the intelligence committee’s gavel — and a host of new committee members, since the GOP platform for Congress pledged to “keep terrorist combatants in Guantanamo Bay not our local jails and courtrooms.” This might be the end for the end of Gitmo.

Then there’s the looming award of a contract to build the Air Force’s new refueling tanker. The company that doesn’t get the contract — EADS or Boeing — is likely to turn to its friends on the House committee for last-minute pressure on the Air Force and the Pentagon. Boeing’s best friend in Congress, Washington Democrat Norm Dicks, kept his seat last night, and he’ll probably return as top Dem on the defense-appropriations subcommittee. But he won’t chair it anymore, so Boeing may want to spread its money around (even further).

Boehner and the GOP leadership have to decide the next Congress’ committee composition and membership. A possible new addition to the armed-services committee: new congressman Allen West of Florida, a former Army lieutenant colonel (who was disciplined in 2003 for threatening an Iraqi detainee during an interrogation). Two who won’t be on the committee: Ilario Pantano and Tommy Sowers, who Danger Room interviewed last month, both fell short in their races.

The Senate Armed Services Committee, by contrast, sees little membership change; and the partisan composition of the Senate didn’t flip. But with fewer Democrats in the chamber, the Obama administration’s going to have to work harder to sell its nominees for key posts like the next defense secretary and the new leaders of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Army and the Air Force. Typically those jobs have earned bipartisan support, but the larger GOP minority in the Senate might compel the administration to look toward compromise choices in order to avoid being cast as weak on defense.

And if ever John McCain, the ranking member, wanted to wage a fight against the administration’s plans to start pulling troops out of Afghanistan in July 2011, the new Republicans in the Senate are likely to have his back. (Well, maybe not incoming Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, a war skeptic.) The future course of the war is likely to be the first major defense battleground between Obama and the expanded GOP minority in the Senate. And it’s definitely not going to be the last.

Photo: USMC

See Also:

• Not Even Death Can Stop Congress’ Pork King
• Congress to Gates: Screw You. Again.
• Missile Fights! Shipyard Showdown! The Danger Room Guide to The …
• Stealth Jet Faceoff! Wars Over War! The Danger Room Guide to The …
• Petraeus: Here’s My Afghan Redeployment Strategy

Authors: Spencer Ackerman

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