We start off this Wednesday INSIDER Daily Digest with Defense Secretary Ash Carter testifying on Capitol Hill this morning:
Carter pleads for omnibus spending bill as negotiations stall
Defense Secretary Ash Carter is pleading with Congress to pass a fiscal year 2016 omnibus spending bill amid news that negotiations between Republicans and Democrats have stalled as the government inches toward a Friday deadline.
Document: Senate hearing on countering ISIL
The Army is setting its sights on the Asia Pacific:
Army locks in funding for Pacific Pathways exercises until FY-22
The Army has inserted funding in the fiscal year 2018 to FY-22 program objective memorandum for three annual series of drills in the Asia-Pacific region, according to the head of the service's Pacific Command.
Some unmanned systems news from the Navy:
Fleet input on unmanned-system gaps due this month
The Navy is due this month to receive input from fleet commanders on gaps they see in their unmanned systems capabilities, according to a top service official.
(For more unmanned systems news, check out our Notification Center, where you can sign up to receive email alerts whenever a related story is posted.)
More news from this week's Inside the Army:
U.S. defense contractor numbers swell again in Central Command area
The number of contractors working for the U.S. Defense Department within the U.S. Central Command area has seen an uptick recently, as America is getting drawn deeper into the fight against the Islamic State.
Army focuses on training as it fields resource planning systems
The Army is zeroing in on training soldiers with newly fielded enterprise resource planning systems as the key to the service's ability to become audit-ready by fiscal year 2018.
Army weighs utility of multiple-award, task-order contracts
The Army is evaluating whether a type of large, multiple-award contract is really as fast-paced or cost-effective as it was envisioned to be, according to a top service procurement expert.
A couple recent documents of note:
DOD joint doctrine on noncombatant evacuation operations
The Nov. 18, 2015, document "provides doctrine to plan and conduct joint noncombatant evacuation and repatriation operations."
DOD joint doctrine on public affairs
The Nov. 17, 2015, document "provides doctrine to plan, execute, and assess public affairs activities in joint operations to include fundamentals, roles, responsibilities, and relationships to joint functions and capabilities."