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Arabia
Misfired Patriot missile hits farm in Qatar
2019-03-31
[REUTERS] U.S. forces in Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
 accidentally fired a Patriot missile at a farm in the Gulf Arab state but caused no injuries, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

The U.S. military is investigating the missile launch, first reported by Al Jazeera television. The Patriot is an anti-missile system.

"Those things are not supposed to accidentally discharge," said Pentagon front man Bryan Whitman. "It was not supposed to happen."

Whitman said the missile was fired into an unpopulated farm area. The missile was fired during a training exercise, said Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, director of operations for the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Al Jazeera said the missile was fired from the Assayliyah base.
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Pentagon Alerts House, Senate Panels to New Classified WikiLeaks Release
2010-11-25
The Pentagon warned the U.S. Senate and House Armed Services Committees that the website WikiLeaks.org "intends to release several hundred thousand" classified U.S. State Department cables as soon as Nov. 26.
Does anyone know how these people stay in business?
The operations directorate at the CIA is out of practice ...
The documents "touch on an enormous range of very sensitive foreign policy issues," Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Elizabeth King wrote yesterday in an e-mail to the defense panels.

"We anticipate that the release could negatively impact U.S. foreign relations," she wrote, telling committee staff members that "we will brief you once we have a better understanding of what documents the WikiLeaks publication contains."

King said The New York Times, the U.K.'s Guardian and Der Spiegel of Germany "are each currently working with WikiLeaks to coordinate the release of these State Department documents."

These three publications were given advance access to two earlier WikiLeaks releases of U.S. military documents: almost 400,000 related to the Iraq war dated between 2003 and 2010 and about 75,000 from the same period on the Afghanistan war. The Iraq documents were published on Oct. 22 and the Afghanistan documents on July 25.

When the Iraq documents were released, a Pentagon spokesman, Marine Colonel David Lapan, described them as "raw observations from the tactical level of combat operations" and said their publication posed a risk to national security. In her e-mail to lawmakers yesterday, King had similar comments about the State Department documents.

"State Department cables by their nature contain everyday analysis and candid assessments that any government engages in as part of effective foreign relations," she wrote. "The publication of this classified information by WikiLeaks is an irresponsible attempt to wreak havoc and destabilize global security. It potentially jeopardizes lives."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman confirmed that the e-mails had been sent to the two committees.

The Pentagon "had indications for some time" that WikiLeaks planned to release more documents, Whitman said in an interview yesterday. "As a result, we felt we had a responsibility to notify key leaders with oversight responsibility of the department like we normally do," he said.

State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said WikiLeaks has previously said that it plans to release additional classified documents.

"We are doing due diligence," Crowley said in an e-mail yesterday. The department is "assessing the possible impact on our on-going diplomatic activity and notifying both Congress and other governments what may occur."

Crowley told reporters today in a briefing that "we're in touch with our posts around the world," which "have begun the process of notifying governments that a release of documents is possible in the near future."

The State Department has had similar conversations with members of Congress "to let them know what we are prepared for," Crowley said.

"The kinds of cables that posts send to Washington are classified," he said. "They involve discussions we've had with government officials, with private citizens. They contain analysis, they contain a record of the day-to-day diplomatic activity that our personnel undertake."

WikiLeaks receives confidential material that governments and business want to keep secret and posts the information on the Internet.
I know they have identified one douche-bag. Assuming the leaks compromise national security, and/or put our military in harms way...when they find who else has done this they need to prosecute/court martial, and execute them for treason.
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Arabia
No U.S. Plan to Send Counterterrorism Forces to Yemen
2010-11-05
[Yemen Post] There is no plan for sending U.S. Special Forces to conduct secret operations against Al-Qaeda targets in Yemen under the supervision of the Central Intelligence Agency CIA, a front man for the Pentagon has said.
Nor will they tag along with the British teams already roaming the landscape, of course.
The reports previously published by U.S. media that Obama's administration was discussing such a plan after last week's cargo bomb plots were untrue, Bryan Whitman said.

U.S. reports said on Monday that an increasing number of military officials within Obama's administration urged to deploy U.S. counterterrorism forces in Yemen under the supervision of the CIA.

The explosive parcels, that were seized before they could reach their destinations in the U.S., emphasized the need for reconsidering all military options before the administration to fight Al-Qaeda in Yemen, which was responsible for sending the packages intercepted in London and Dubai, reports citing unidentified officials said.

Sending U.S. troops to Yemen will help the United States of America to carry out quick and more secret strikes against Al-Qaeda targets in the country, they said, citing officials as saying that the administration was also mulling over the addition of CIA drones to the Yemen-based anti-terrorism arsenal.

But Whitman said at a presser a day later' the Pentagon did not take seriously all proposals for the contents of the reports, and there is no radical change in the way we support Yemen's efforts to root out terrorism.

The Yemeni counterterrorism efforts are applauded, and the U.S. is working closely and cooperatively with the Yemeni authorities to face all security and other challenges, he said.

You will never get information about what you call secret terror operations in Yemen, he told news hounds.
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Arabia
US killed civilians in Yemen attack: Amnesty
2010-06-08
Amnesty International: actively on the other side.
[Al Arabiya Latest] A U.S. cruise missile carrying cluster bombs was behind a December attack in Yemen that killed 55 people, most of them civilians, Amnesty International said.

The human rights group says it has evidence that points to U.S. involvement in airstrikes on suspected al-Qaida hideouts in Yemen late last year,
Do tell us, AI: were they actually AQ hideouts? Because if they were, the fact that civilians were there means the AQ men chose to put them in danger, instead of stashing them safely with their families elsewhere, and therefore it's not surprising bad things happened to them. This is why smart guerrilla fighters keep their camps far from civilian communities.
and criticizes Washington for allegedly using cluster munitions
Show us the evidence for cluster bombs. Allegations don't count. Thank you.
and not taking precautions to avoid civilian casualties.
Allegations that precautions were not taken? That's pathetic.
The group is also urging the United States to acknowledge role it played in the attack.

There are differing accounts of the Dec. 17 attack in the al-Majalah area of the southern Yemeni province of Abyan. Yemeni security officials originally said 34 al-Qaida militants were killed, although a Yemeni parliamentary committee later said in its report on the strike that 41 civilians were killed in the attack as well as militants.

After the attack, Yemen's defense ministry had claimed responsibility for it without mentioning a U.S. role, and Washington has not acknowledged a role in it. However, U.S. officials, speaking on conditions of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, acknowledged U.S. involvement in the bombing.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman referred questions on the Dec. 17 strike to the Yemeni government. But he also commended San'a for "dealing with the al-Qaida threat in their nation" and said the U.S. strongly supports action against the terror group in Yemen.
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Southeast Asia
Ahead of visit, Obama reconsiders Indonesia military
2010-03-14
The United States is looking to break a taboo and train an elite Indonesian force linked to past abuses, as President Barack Obama courts the world's largest Muslim-majority nation with a visit.

Ahead of Obama's trip next week, top officers from Kopassus -- a military unit that focuses on counter-insurgency and intelligence -- visited Washington to discuss a resumption of training, people with knowledge of the talks said. The United States cut off support for Kopassus under the so-called Leahy Amendment in 1997, which prohibited training to foreign military units involved in human rights abuses.

Ernie Bower, Southeast Asia director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank, said military ties were "absolutely fundamental" if the Obama administration was serious about transforming ties with Indonesia. "Indonesia was going to be the India of the Bush administration -- a country with which they move to a whole new place because they understand it and put a real focus on it," Bower said, referring to former US president George W. Bush's drive to end decades of mistrust with New Delhi.

The talks with Indonesia come amid unease in some circles in Washington about the strong role of the military in the two historic US allies in Southeast Asia -- the Philippines and Thailand.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said that the United States was discussing a re-engagement with Kopassus "that's in accordance with our laws, our values and advances our interests."

"Indonesia's democratic reforms over the past decade have been pretty remarkable and its greatly improved human rights record has enabled us to engage more broadly," Whitman said.

The United States ended overall sanctions on the Indonesian military in 2005, the same year that Australia resumed joint training with Kopassus. But US rights advocates remain deeply uneasy about Kopassus and few expect a deal before Obama leaves on his trip to Guam, Indonesia and Australia on March 21.

Kopassus spearheaded the anti-communist pogrom in 1965 that killed up to 500,000 people. It was seen as a key force in the 1975 invasion of East Timor and the 1999 violence when the territory voted for independence.

Senator Patrick Leahy, who authored the 1997 law that bears his name, stood firm against training. He said that Indonesia must first bring Kopassus members to justice for past abuses. "It is important that the people of Indonesia see that justice is possible, and that impunity for committing serious crimes is no longer acceptable," said Leahy, a member of Obama's Democratic Party from Vermont. "Indonesia has made progress in its democracy and in curbing some of the excesses of its military. But the past must not be forgotten," Leahy said.

One compromise under consideration is for the United States to train only younger Kopassus members. But T. Kumar, the international advocacy director of Amnesty International USA, said Indonesia should try senior officers involved in past wrongdoing. "Kopassus has such a bad record that to hold no one accountable in a meaningful way sends the wrong message to others," Kumar said.

He called for Obama to meet survivors of the 1965 mass killings. The United States is widely suspected of supporting the pogrom, which future strongman Suharto launched in response to rumors of a communist coup.
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Home Front: WoT
Pentagon may speed U.S. air tanker award
2010-03-10
Northrop Grumman drops out

WASHINGTON, March 9 (Reuters) - The Pentagon may speed up awarding a multibillion-dollar aerial tanker contract after Northrop Grumman Corp and Europe's EADS pulled out of the contest, leaving Boeing Co the sole bidder.

The current plan calls for companies to submit their bids by mid-May, with a contract award expected in September; but Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said defense officials are looking at accelerating the current timeline for the program.

"We may be in a position where we will be able to take a look at reducing some of those milestones," he said on Tuesday, referring to the 75-day deadline for bids, and plans for the U.S. Air Force to award a contract 120 days later.

Senator John McCain, whose probe of an earlier $23.5 billion lease-then-buy tanker deal with Boeing eventually scuttled that contract, declined to fault the latest contest. McCain told reporters on Tuesday the Air Force's handling of the competition appeared to be "legitimate," which made it difficult for lawmakers to intervene, even if they would have preferred to see a competitive process.

"I don't see how we can, unless we find some flaw in it, and we haven't found any flaws so far," McCain said.

Defense analyst Jim McAleese said McCain's endorsement of the Air Force process, however tepid, made it unlikely that Congress would intervene to avert a sole-source bid by Boeing. "No one else has the conviction or credibility to generate an intervention," McAleese said.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton chimed in late on Tuesday, saying he was disappointed that there would be no competition, but said it was important to start replacing the aging current KC-135 fleet "without any further delay."

Whitman said the Pentagon was confident it could negotiate a reasonable price for the tankers even if Boeing were the only bidder. EADS on Tuesday ruled out a solo bid for the work.

"There is baseline cost data that is associated with these air frames," he said. "There are also measures the department can take to make sure we are controlling the costs."

He declined to specify what measures were in mind, but federal acquisition rules require sole-source providers to certify their pricing data is accurate, timely and complete.

The government could also buy less than the 179 airplanes expected in this competition if it believed Boeing's prices were too far off the mark, McAleese said.

Unlike the new radar-evading fighter being developed by Lockheed Martin Corp, aerial tanker planes already exist today, Whitman said. He said officials also have ample cost data from the last competition, which Northrop and EADS won in February 2008 but later lost after government auditors upheld a Boeing protest.

Boeing last week said it would offer an updated 767-based tanker this time around, including a new digital flight deck from its 787 Dreamliner and a new fly-by-wire refueling boom.

The European Commission on Tuesday said it regretted Northrop's decision and would be "extremely concerned" if it became clear that the terms of the competition were written to inhibit competition from Northrop and its European partner.

It also noted that the United States traditionally sold more defense goods to Europe than vice versa. In 2008, the United States exported $5 billion, and imported only $2.2 billion of defense material from the European Union.

Northrop said it was disappointed that the rules favored Boeing's smaller tanker, but said it would not protest to avoid further delays in the Air Force getting new planes that are used to refuel fighter jets and other planes in mid-flight.
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Home Front: WoT
Sen. Levin seeks to block $1 bln Blackwater deal
2010-03-06
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon should consider blocking a potential $1 billion contract with the company formerly known as Blackwater to train Afghan police because of questions about its conduct in Afghanistan, a top U.S. senator said.

In letters to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Attorney General Eric Holder, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said there was evidence of misconduct in a previous subcontract awarded to a Blackwater affiliate to conduct weapons training for the Afghan National Army.
Levin, of course. Too bad he doesn't have enough to do in saving GM and Chrysler ...
There was evidence, the Democratic senator wrote, that Blackwater may have used a front company for the contract, made false official statements and misled Department of Defense officials in its proposal documents. There was also evidence Blackwater may have misappropriated government weapons, carried weapons without authorization and hired unqualified personnel with backgrounds that included assault and battery, as well as drug and alcohol abuse, Levin said in the letter dated Feb. 25.

Blackwater Worldwide has since changed its name to Xe.

Levin said the Pentagon should consider Blackwater's past "deficiencies" in deciding whether to award the new contract worth as much as $1 billion to the company to provide Afghan national police training.
This is just another attack by the progressive Left on private security forces that contract with our military. The Left understands that they can't attack our military directly -- average Americans won't stand for it -- so they're using 'Blackwater' as a surrogate.
The Pentagon had no immediate comment on the contracts involved.

"The department is required to follow the law with a certain degree of transparency with respect to awarding contracts," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. But he said: "I don't know of of any prohibitions with respect that particular company (being) banned from being able to compete for U.S. government contracts."
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Home Front: Culture Wars
Pentagon to Offer Emergency Contraception to Military Bases Worldwide
2010-02-05
The Pentagon for the first time will require military bases worldwide to offer emergency contraception or the so-called morning-after pill, a military spokesman told Fox News Friday.

The decision follows a recommendation by an independent panel of doctors and pharmacists in November, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. The panel determined that emergency contraception should be added to the military's list of medications that must be stocked at each military facility.

The decision represents a policy shift from the Bush administration when such a change was resisted, Nancy Keenan, president of the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement praising the decision.

Over much resistance from abortion opponents, the Food and Drug Administration approved the over-the-counter sale of the morning-after pill to adults in 2006.

The drug, which contains a high dose of birth control pills, can be used to prevent pregnancy after unprotected sex by blocking ovulation or fertilization. Critics of the contraceptive say it is the equivalent of an abortion pill because it can prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus.

It is not known when the policy would be implemented.

Military hospitals are legally forbidden to perform abortions. When asked if the new policy violated that law, Whitman had no immediate response and said he'd have to defer to the policy experts.
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Home Front: WoT
Obama Orders First Release of a "High-Value Detainee"?
2009-12-22
Another important note about the Obama administration's transfer of Gitmo detainee Abdullahi Sudi Arale to Somaliland: In June 2007, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman called Arale a high-value detainee."
"Abdullahi Sudi Arale is suspected of being a member of the Al Qaeda terrorist network in East Africa, serving as a courier between East Africa Al Qaeda (EAAQ) and Al Qaeda in Pakistan. Since his return from Pakistan to Somalia in September 2006, he has held a leadership role in the EAAQ-affiliated Somali Council of Islamic Courts (CIC).

There is significant information available indicating that Arale has been assisting various EAAQ-affiliated extremists in acquiring weapons and explosives, and has facilitated terrorist travel by providing false documents for AQ and EAAQ-affiliates and foreign fighters traveli

That phrase was reserved for less than twenty detainees. As far as I know, the U.S. has never transferred a "high-value detainee" from its custody.

One "high-value detainee," Ahmed Ghailani, was transferred to New York for trial. But he is, of course, still detained by the U.S.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian who faces terrorism charges for his role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies, asked a judge to order U.S. prosecutors to surrender information about "black sites" where he was held.
Does this mean that Arale was the first "high-value detainee" ever transferred from American custody?
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Arabia
US backs Yemen's raids on Qaeda: report
2009-12-20
[Al Arabiya Latest] The United States gave military hardware, intelligence and other support to Yemeni forces who raided suspected al-Qaeda hide-outs this week, U.S. media reported on Saturday.

Officials in Washington familiar with the operations said the U.S. help, approved by President Barack Obama, had been given at the request of the Yemeni government, The New York Times reported.

The support was intended to help Yemen prevent al Qaeda from mounting attacks on American and other foreign targets inside its borders, the Times reported.

"Yemen should be commended for actions against al-Qaeda," Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, told the newspaper.

Yemeni said on Thursday its security forces had foiled a planned series of suicide bombings by attacking targets including a Qaeda training centre in the southern province of Abyan and sites in Arhab district.

About 30 Qaeda militants were killed and 17 arrested in Abyan and in Arhab, northeast of the capital Sanaa, it said.

Several fighter planes took part in the raid and hit a civilian area by mistake, a local official in Abyan told AFP. Abyan is a part of the former South Yemen republic authorities say has become a regrouping base for Islamist militants.

Raids also took place in the capital Sanaa and the neighboring district of Arhab, to the northeast, a defense ministry official.

Some of the strikes against suspected Qaeda hideouts in Yemen this week were undertaken by local forces alone, U.S. officials told the Times.

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Iraq
US military drone security breach fixed-official
2009-12-18
[Asharq al-Aswat] The Pentagon has closed a security breach that allowed insurgents to hack into data feeds from pilotless "drone" aircraft that provide real-time video of war zones, a U.S. defense official said on Thursday. The comments followed a report in the Wall Street Journal that revealed Shi'ite fighters in Iraq used software that cost as little as $26 to intercept the video feeds, potentially allowing them to monitor U.S. military operations.

"It is an old issue that was addressed and fixed," the U.S. defense official said when asked about the article.

The article said U.S. military personnel in Iraq discovered the problem last year after apprehending a Shi'ite insurgent who had digital files of drone video feeds on his laptop. More files were found on other militants' laptops in July.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to discuss details of the article, or intelligence matters more broadly. But he defended the expanding use of drone aircraft in Iraq and Afghanistan, which provide "eyes in the sky" to track enemy movements and keep U.S. troops out of harm's way. "Every capability comes with its advantages, disadvantages, benefits as well as potential weaknesses," Whitman said. "As you develop those (technologies) you have to be mindful of how the enemy can counteract any technology that you have. That's why you always have a constant review process in place to not only improve that capability but address any vulnerabilities it may have."

Publicly traded companies that manufacture the pilotless drone aircraft and sensors include Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop Grumman Corp and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc.
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Iraq
Pentagon scraps plans to deploy more troops to Iraq
2009-10-17
Xinhua) -- The Pentagon said on Friday that it has canceled plans to send a 3,500-strong army brigade to Iraq in January due to improved security environment in the country and a stronger Iraqi security force.

"The decision was based purely on the improved security environment and the continued improvement in the ability of Iraqi security forces, and is completely unrelated to our operations in Afghanistan," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

Whitman made the remarks to dispel speculations that the troops may be redeployed to Afghanistan.

The spokesman said the decision to scrap the Iraqi deployment was sanctioned by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and there will be no replacement for the abortive plan.
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