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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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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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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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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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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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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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Blackwater Reaches Deal on U.S. Export Violations

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By James Risen - Aug. 20 (News) - The $42 million fine allows the controversial security company, now called Xe Services, to avoid criminal charges while being able to obtain government contracts.

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Russia puts missiles in Abkhazia

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Aug. 11 (News Report) - Russia has pledged financial and military support to the breakaway region Russia says it has deployed S-300 anti-aircraft missiles in the breakaway region of Abkhazia in Georgia. The Georgian government - which refuses to acknowledge Abkhazia's

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Mentor Says McChrystal Is ‘Crushed’ by the Change in His Circumstances

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Elisabeth Bumiller - Jul. 02 (News Analysis) - The White House sent a powerful signal this week by permitting Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal to retire with all of his four stars, but the general’s most important mentor, Adm. Mike Mullen, still described him as “crushed” during the shock of a transition from commanding nearly 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan to living in exile on the Potomac.

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Armed Farces

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 07:10:21 -0700

Time - By Tim McGirk - Jun. 08 (Special Report) - It is a nearly impossible mission. Nine out of 10 Afghan enlisted recruits can't read a rifle-instruction manual or drive a car, according to NATO trainers. The officers' corps is fractured by rivalries: Soviet-era veterans vs. the former mujahedin rebels who fought them in the 1980s, Tajiks vs. Uzbeks, Hazaras and Pashtuns. Commanders routinely steal their enlisted men's salaries. Soldiers shake down civilians at road checkpoints and sell off their own American-supplied boots, blankets and guns at the bazaar — sometimes to the Taliban. Afghans, not surprisingly, run when they see the army coming.

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Spending may trip up 'don't ask' repeal

Fri, 28 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Julian E Barnes - May. 28 (News Report) - The bill repealing the ban on gays serving openly in the military could present the Obama administration with a problem: It also contains money for projects the Pentagon considers wasteful. The White House has threatened to veto any bill containing money for weapons programs that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is trying to eliminate as part of his campaign to tame the Pentagon budget.

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Gates: Cuts in Pentagon bureaucracy needed to help maintain military force

Sun, 09 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Greg Jaffe - May. 09 (News) - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates vowed Saturday to lead an effort to cut as much as $15 billion in overhead costs from the Pentagon's $550 billion budget and warned that without the savings, the military will not be able to afford its current force.

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Barack Obama signs nuclear treaty with Russia

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Mark Tran - Apr. 08 (News Report) - The agreement to reduce nuclear warheads by a third succeeds the 1991 strategic arms reduction treaty (Start), which expired in December. It will have to be ratified by the US Senate – where conservative Republicans can be expected to give it a rough ride – and the Russian parliament.

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Chinese Academics’ Paper on Cyberwar Sets Off Alarms in U.S.

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By John Markoff, David Barboza - Mar. 21 (Investigative Report) - A paper imagining a cyberattack and a power failure in the U.S. has highlighted an atmosphere charged with hostility between the U.S. and China over cybersecurity.

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Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti - Mar. 15 (Special Report) - A Defense Department official set up a private network of spies in Afghanistan and Pakistan who gathered intelligence on insurgents, according to officials.

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As drones multiply in Iraq and Afghanistan, so do their uses

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - By Gordon Lubold - Mar. 03 (Special Report) - The Air Force will expand the number of unmanned drone aircraft flying over the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq in the next three years, as a result of commanders' demand for digital images useful in hunting down enemy forces.

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Drone pilots transform Air Force

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Greg Jaffe - Feb. 28 (Special Report) - Winds of change buffet service as aviators are displaced by technology controlled on the ground.

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Blackwater workers took police assault rifles, hearing told

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Daniel Nasaw - Feb. 25 (News Report) - Employees of American defence contractor Blackwater took more than 500 assault rifles intended for Afghan police force Employees of American defence contractor Blackwater took more than 500 assault rifles that were intended for the Afghan police force and routinely carried weapons without permission, it emerged in a hearing of the Senate armed services committee today. It also emerged that to shed its sullied reputation and win contracting business in Afghanistan, Blackwater created what one senator called a shell company. Senators said that company, Paravant, deceived US officials into thinking Blackwater was not involved even as it laid claim to Blackwater?s past performance to establish a track record. "They made representations here ...

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