Department of Defense

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Most Troops OK With Gays in Uniform
Most Troops
OK With Gays
in Uniform
Oct 29, 2010 11:55 AM CDT

Most Troops OK With Gays in Uniform

Pentagon review finds that most think it's no big deal

(Newser) - A Pentagon report on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell shows that a majority of troops aren’t opposed to gays serving in the military, reports the Wonk Room blog at Think Progress. "The number one answer was. ‘I don’t care,'” NBC's Richard Engel, who got...

US Intel Spending Breaks $80B
 US Intel Spending Breaks $80B  
Oct 29, 2010 8:36 AM CDT

US Intel Spending Breaks $80B

Spending revealed for first time this century

(Newser) - American intelligence spending hit $80.1 billion, or some 12% of defense spending, for the just-ended fiscal year—more than what was spent on either the Department of Homeland Security ($53 billion) or the Justice Department ($30 billion). It's triple the $26.7 billion that was budgeted in 1998, the...

Al-Qaeda Cleric Attended Pentagon Lunch After 9/11

Terror imam Anwar al-Awlaki chowed down with top brass

(Newser) - Anwar al-Awlaki, currently on the FBI's "kill-or-capture" list, was invited to lunch at the Pentagon a few months after the 9/11 attacks, a Fox News investigation finds. The Yemeni-American cleric dined with Defense Department brass as part of a Pentagon campaign to reach out to moderate Muslims, a defense...

Pentagon Asks Media Not to Publish WikiLeaks' Iraq Files

Pushes against distribution of war material

(Newser) - The Defense Department is asking media organizations not to publish or post on websites classified US war files released by WikiLeaks. The department has been bracing for a possible leak of as many as many as 400,000 documents from a military database on the Iraq war. The documents are...

Troops Ignoring $324M in Unclaimed Backpay

Many believe it's too good to be true

(Newser) - The government is trying—really hard—to dole out $324 million in no-strings-attached money to military troops, but many have yet to apply for their share of the free cash. About 145,000 troops who were involuntarily kept on duty under the military’s controversial “stop-loss” policy , which was...

Gates Plans to Retire in 2011
 Gates Plans to 
 Retire in 2011 
Aug 16, 2010 11:12 AM CDT

Gates Plans to Retire in 2011

Unless he changes his mind again

(Newser) - Defense Secretary Robert Gates has always hated Washington, and he plans to get the heck out sometime next year, he revealed today in a lengthy interview with Fred Kaplan for Foreign Policy . “I think that it would be a mistake to wait until January 2012,” he reasons. “...

Pentagon Slashing Thousands of Jobs

Gates to ax Joint Forces Command

(Newser) - "No sacred cows" are safe from the budget ax as the Pentagon seeks to trim spending, Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned yesterday as he announced massive cuts. Reductions include the closure of Joint Forces Command, which employs some 5,000 people, and a 10% reduction in the budget for...

WikiLeaks Wants Pentagon Help Scrubbing Docs

Site asks for military help in making documents safe to publish

(Newser) - WikiLeaks—apparently heeding warnings it may have blood on its hands because of leaked Afghan documents—wants the Pentagon's help in scrubbing names from its next batch. The site has held back 15,000 more classified reports and it wants defense officials to help review them so they can be...

Pentagon Workers Accused of Downloading Child Porn

Some Defense Department employees had top-secret security clearances

(Newser) - Several dozen Pentagon officials and contractors with high-level security clearances have allegedly been caught buying or downloading child pornography. Federal investigators identified alleged perverts everywhere from the NSA to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and some of them even used their work computers to download the material, the Boston ...

Angry Spy Crew Hits Back at WaPo Probe

Boast they've thwarted attacks

(Newser) - The intel community has struck back fast at a scathing Washington Post investigation that portrayed post-9/11 intelligence gathering as wastefully massive and out of control. "The fact is, the men and women of the intelligence community have improved our operations, thwarted attacks, and are achieving untold successes every day,...

US Intel Gathering Insanely Out of Control

 US Intel Gathering 
 Insanely Out of Control 

wapo Investigation
Jul 19, 2010 7:56 AM CDT

US Intel Gathering Insanely Out of Control

Post 9/11 buildup has left us with more info than we can handle

(Newser) - In the wake of 9/11, the US has built an unspeakably massive top-secret counter-terrorism apparatus that appears to be riddled with waste, according to a major investigative piece that some 20 journalists spent nearly two years working on for the Washington Post . The paper found that 1,271 government organizations,...

Did Pentagon Use the Times to Hype its Afghan Auction?

Timing of miracle minerals story fishy

(Newser) - There has been much grousing about the New York Times’ non-scoop on Afghanistan’s trillion-dollar mineral deposits. Most people figured the Pentagon spoon-fed the paper the story to drum up public support for the war. But now it looks like it may have been trying to drum up customers, says...

Military to Tape All Interrogations on Bases

That includes Gitmo and Bagram, where most CIA suspects are held

(Newser) - From now on, military personnel must tape any interrogations that take place on a major military base, and are aimed at gathering “strategic intelligence,” according to a new order from the Pentagon. The regulations would apply to Guantanamo Bay, and Bagram Air Base, where the CIA is holding...

Gates: US Lacks Cohesive Strategy in Iran

White House downplays defense secretary's missive to Jones

(Newser) - The US lacks a viable long-term plan for dealing with Iran's nuclear program, Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote in a January memo that one anonymous White House official called a "wake-up call." As the New York Times reports, the missive came amid an administration push to develop a...

What Is the Air Force Doing With This Spaceship?

Unmanned X-37 will be launched this month for indefinite time in orbit

(Newser) - This month the Air Force will send the X-37—a sort of unmanned mini-space shuttle salvaged from a scrapped NASA project—into orbit, but its intentions, what the X-37 is designed to do, and why it rescued a project NASA planned to ax in 2006 remain mysteriously unclear. The Air...

Pentagon Official Ran Private Assassin Support Crew

Honcho probed over secret 'Jason Bourne' crew

(Newser) - A senior Pentagon official secretly set up a private network of contractors to help track and kill militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, military officials say. Michael D. Furlong may have diverted money from other programs to fund his own network of former CIA and Special Forces operatives, officials tell the...

Military to Ease Off on 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

Gays outed by third parties won't be prosecuted

(Newser) - The military will no longer aggressively pursue disciplinary action against gay service members who are outed by a third party, the Pentagon will announce today. Under the new policy, gay personnel would face discharge only if they go public themselves on their sexual orientation. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm....

Officers May Be Punished for Ft. Hood Tragedy

Review finds Hasan's shortcomings ignored

(Newser) - Up to eight army officers may be disciplined for errors of judgment ahead of the deadly Fort Hood shooting rampage, according to an official familiar with a Pentagon review of the incident. The review found that officers allowed accused shooter Nidal Malik Hasan's career to advance despite his erratic behavior...

Military Stymies Obama Nuke Reduction Plan

Catches lurk everywhere, from stockpile to strategy

(Newser) - A truculent military and national security apparatus has bogged down President Obama’s push to reconsider the size and mission of the US nuclear arsenal, just as it did during the Clinton administration. Insiders tell the Los Angeles Times that there are multiple areas of concern, including how much of...

Army Historians Fault Early Afghan War Strategy

Forces were undermanned, and planning was shoddy

(Newser) - The US missed out on chances to stabilize Afghanistan early in the war because it devoted too few troops and too little planning to the conflict, write Army historians in an official chronicle of the conflict. "It should have become clear” in late 2003 “that the coalition presence...

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