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Under Obama, an emerging global apparatus for drone killing

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Greg Miller - Dec. 28 (Special Report) - The Obama administration’s counterterrorism accomplishments are most apparent in what it has been able to dismantle, including CIA prisons and entire tiers of al-Qaeda’s leadership. But what the administration has assembled, hidden from public view, may be equally consequential. In the space of three years, the administration has built an extensive apparatus for using drones to carry out targeted killings of suspected terrorists and stealth surveillance of other adversaries. The apparatus involves dozens of secret facilities, including two operational hubs on the East Coast, virtual Air Force cockpits in the Southwest and clandestine bases in at least six countries on two continents. ...

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Report: Military Blew $1 Trillion on Weapons Since 9/11

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Adam Weinstein - Nov. 02 (Opinion) - A new study suggests that defense hawks are crying crocodile tears over planned cuts to Pentagon spending. Capitol Hill conservatives and Pentagon brass fighting cuts to defense spending have argued that the military is limping off the battlefield

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U.S. Wasting Billions While Tripling No-Bid Contracts After Decade of War in Iraq, Afghanistan

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Sep. 02 (News Report) - As the war in Afghanistan approaches its 10th anniversary, a pair of new reports reveal how the Pentagon has squandered tens of billions of dollars while tripling the amount of no-bid contracts. The bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting concludes that between $31 billion and $60 billion spent on projects in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 10 years has been lost to waste and fraud. In Afghanistan, the commission found the United States is indirectly funding the Taliban as money diverted from U.S.-backed projects is paid out to militants to ensure safety. Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s use of no-bid contracts has tripled since the United States was attacked on 9/11, in spite of promises to reform the controversial practice. A new investigative report from the Center for Public Integrity says no-bid spending has ballooned from $50 billion in 2003 to $140 billion in 2011.

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Panetta Says Iranian Arms in Iraq Are a ‘Concern’

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Elisabeth Bumiller - Jul. 10 (News Report) - Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said on Sunday that weapons he said were supplied by Iran had become a “tremendous concern” for the United States in recent weeks in Iraq, where more American troops died in June than in any month over the three previous years.

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U.S. Wars Leave 225,000 Dead, Cost $4.4 Trillion: Study

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Agence France-Presse - Jul. 02 (News Report) - U.S. wars launched since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have left 225,000 dead and cost up to $4.4 trillion, according to a new study by university researchers. The study published by Brown University this week focused on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and counter-terrorism campaigns in Pakistan and Yemen, which came in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.

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Boeing pocketed millions by overcharging Army, IG report finds

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

iWatch News - By Ben Wieder - Jun. 30 (News Report) - Boeing Co. overcharged the U.S. Army by about $13 million for Apache and Chinook helicopter parts, according to a Pentagon inspector general report obtained by the Project on Government Oversight.

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Republicans Packed Defense Spending Bill With Earmarks, Says Sen. Claire McCaskill

Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Colin Clark - May. 27 (News Report) - One of the Senate's top campaigners for good government is charging House Republicans with quietly loading their new defense policy bill with earmarks that are currently banned by the GOP's own rules. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has pledged to keep all earmarks out of the Republican version of the Defense Authorization Act.

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Army report: Military has spent $32 billion since ’95 on abandoned weapons programs

Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Marjorie Censer - May. 27 (Special Report) - For almost a decade, the Defense Department saw its budgets boom — but didn’t make the kind of technological strides that seemed possible.

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CIA flew stealth drones into Pakistan to monitor bin Laden house

Wed, 18 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Greg Miller - May. 18 (News Report) - The CIA employed sophisticated new stealth drone aircraft to fly dozens of secret missions deep into Pakistani airspace and monitor the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, current and former U.S. officials said.

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John Ashcroft takes image-rehab job with Blackwater

Wed, 04 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Alex Pareene - May. 04 (Opinion) - The hiring of Ashcroft -- a puritanical straight-and-narrow type -- is obviously meant to signal to government agencies that Blackwater has totally changed since founder and real piece of work Erik Prince departed the company to concentrate on pretending he's been persecuted for anything besides his impossibly irresponsible management.

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The Mosaic Philosophy at Gitmo

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Harper's - By Scott Horton - Apr. 30 (News Report) - Several in the U.S. leadership became aware of this lack of proper vetting very early on and, thus, of the reality that many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value, and should be immediately released.

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A Professional Military and the Privatization of Warfare

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Miller-McCune - By Jeff Shear - Apr. 22 (Special Report) - The antics of private military contractors are increasingly known, and they're the ones taking over for departing uniformed American troops in Iraq.

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CIA’s brain drain: Since 9/11, some top officials have moved to private sector

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Julie Tate - Apr. 13 (Special Report) - In the decade since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, private intelligence firms and security consultants have peeled away veterans from the top reaches of the CIA, hiring scores of longtime officers in large part to gain access to the burgeoning world of intelligence contracting.

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U.S. Military Spending Has Almost Doubled Since 2001

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Think Progress - By Judd Legum - Apr. 11 (Research) - A new report released today by SIPRI, a Swedish-based think tank, reveals that U.S. military spending has almost doubled since 2001. The U.S. spent an astounding $698 billion on the military last year, an 81% increase over the last decade.

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The Stoner Arms Dealers: How Two American Kids Became Big-Time Weapons Traders And how the Pentagon later turned on them

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - Mar. 29 (News) - How two American kids became big-time weapons traders — until the Pentagon turned on them

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Documents show Army's disservice to broken soldiers

Mon, 07 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - By Carl Prine - Feb. 07 (Investigative Report) - a nine-month probe by the Tribune-Review found America's sick and injured soldiers must struggle to mend inside 38 Warrior Transition units the Army has turned into dumping grounds for criminals, malingerers and dope addicts. Originally designed to treat the wounded from twin wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, after nearly a decade of battle these barracks snag soldiers in red tape. Despite an epidemic of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, brain injuries and substance abuse linked to repeated combat deployments, soldiers sometimes spend years desperately seeking psychological care.

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Reagan Celebration Hides Brutal History

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Press - Feb. 06 (News Analysis) - Wilkerson and Parry on Reagan centenary: Many of today's catastrophes can be traced to Reagan's presidency

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‘Punisher’ Gives Enemy No Place to Hide

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Military.com - By Christian Lowe - Feb. 05 (News Report) - A new Army weapon designed to target the enemy hiding behind barriers is being affectionately called "The Punisher" by Soldiers fighting in Afghanistan.

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Pentagon cuts don't cut it. Want to really save money? Get a new security strategy.

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - By Charles V. Peña - Feb. 02 (Opinion) - Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently announced that the Department of Defense (DoD) had found "at least $100 billion in savings" and that he was "curtailing or canceling troubled or excess programs that would have cost more than $300 billion if seen through to completion.

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F.A.Q. on U.S. Aid to Egypt: Where Does the Money Go—And Who Decides How It’s Spent?

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

ProPublica - By Marian Wang - Feb. 01 (Research) - We’ve taken a step back and tried to answer some basic questions, such as how as much the U.S. has given, who has benefitted, and who gets to decide how its all spent.

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Watchdog: U.S. Risks Wasting Billions In Afghan Security Aid Given 'Inadequate Planning'

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Amanda Terkel - Jan. 27 (News Report) - The United States is at risk of wasting roughly $11.4 billion unless it comes up with a plan for constructing and maintaining nearly 900 Afghan National Security Forces facilities, according to a new report by a top federal watchdog. The news comes as U.S. President Barack Obama considers a military-backed proposal significantly boost the size of those forces.

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Secret U.S. Space Plane Eludes Observers; May Spook Governments, Too

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Wired - By David Axe - Nov. 18 (News) - The Air Force launched the 29-foot-long, Boeing-built X-37 in April. Now six months into a potential nine-month deployment, the X-37 periodically changes orbits, frustrating amateur satellite-spotters.

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Britain's top soldier says al-Qaeda cannot be beaten

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Daily Telegraph - By Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent - Nov. 14 (News Report) - The new head of Britain's armed forces, Gen Sir David Richards, has warned that the West cannot defeat al-Qaeda and militant Islam.

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Documents: KBR knew of exposure in Iraq

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Press - By Tim Fought - Nov. 12 (News Report) - Months after arriving on the job in 2003, a U.S. defense contractor trying to restore Iraq’s oil fields had blood and urine tests showing personnel with “significant exposure” to a toxic, cancer-causing industrial chemical, according to federal court documents. The documents, first disclosed Thursday by The Oregonian newspaper, are part of a lawsuit National Guard troops filed in federal court in Portland against the contractor — Kellogg, Brown and Root of Houston.

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Blackwater Won Contracts via Web of Companies

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By James Risen, Mark Mazzetti - Sep. 03 (News Report) - Blackwater Worldwide created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, according to Congressional investigators and former Blackwater officials.

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