Headlines & Admiral Mullen at Gettysburg
FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Project Management Part I: Time is Money. The first of contributor Jillian Hamilton’s four-part series considers project scheduling: “A project that stays on schedule usually stays within budget. The project schedule is the team road map – it builds out for contingencies, and anticipates challenges. Without it, it is easy to deliver late, over budget, and out of scope.”
2. The Budget Control Act (Sequestration). Also from contributor Jillian Hamilton, a look at the corrosive effect of our dysfunctional Congress: “Although some articles tout the possible silver linings in the cloud of sequestration, the real effects of the Budget Control Act are not likely to be so rosy. What is more likely to happen is a growing impact to the economy and the security of America. Of course the sky did not fall when sequestration went into effect. The erosion to the American capabilities and economy is slow, and it’s the slow, creeping changes that have the biggest impact.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Lincoln speaks at Gettysburg! “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. . . . .” See also AP contributors Matt Rourke and Mark Scolforo’s view from a century-and-a-half later: “The ideals expressed in the speech also weren’t necessarily a reflection of reality. Only a few years after the war a separate cemetery for black Civil War veterans was created in Gettysburg because they were ‘denied burial in the National Cemetery because of segregation policies,’ according to a historical marker placed in 2003.”
2. McRaven’s SOCOM – postured for success. American Forces Press Service’s Karren Parrish covers Admiral McRaven’s Reagan Library remarks: “Thanks to the support of Congress, he reported, Socom has since 2001 doubled its people, tripled its budgets and quadrupled its capability – not just in the areas of hardware and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets, but also in noncommissioned officer training, officer education, and language and cultural studies. The question now, McRaven said, is whether the special operations force that has evolved to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is also adaptable to today’s threats. He said it absolutely is.”
3. 2013 Taliban Rollup. Khaama.com reports, “According to a latest United Nations report, at least 12,000 Afghan Taliban fighters have been killed, wounded or captured during the military operations in Afghanistan this year. The report by UN which cites a threefold increase in violence in Afghanistan comes amid preparations by US-led NATO forces to withdraw the bulk of 75,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of the next year.” [Uh, there’s more where those came from.]
4. Loya Jirga elders will let us know: will we stay, or will we go? Reuters’ Hamid Shalizi reports from Kabul, “Thousands of Afghan tribal and political leaders will gather in the Afghan capital this week to decide whether to allow U.S. troops to stay after the 2014 drawdown of foreign forces. The fate of a U.S.-Afghan security deal that will determine whether U.S. forces stay or not is in the hands of 2,500 tribal chieftains and notables who will meet in a giant tent on Thursday for five days of deliberations. Without an accord on the Bilateral Security Agreement, the United States says it could pull out all of its troops at the end of 2014, leaving Afghanistan’s fledgling security forces on their own to fight the Taliban-led insurgency.”
5. Kerry readies for Geneva II on Iran. Reuters’ Lesley Wroughton reports, “U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday pressed Iran to finalize an agreement that can prove to the world its nuclear program is peaceful, but said he has ‘no specific expectations’ for talks in Geneva this week between major powers and Iran. The White House said President Barack Obama will meet with Senate leaders on Tuesday to press his case that lawmakers should not adopt any further economic sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program to allow the international talks a chance to succeed.” Tough talk from the French thrill the Israelis, and Iranian lawmakers intend to stymie concessions. [Should be a fun week.]
6. $50 billion difference. The Pentagon’s comptroller analyzes the numbers and effects of sequestration: “The Defense Department has assumed a substantial level of risk to military readiness and to its civilian workforce because of the long-term instability of its budget and the budget process, Pentagon Comptroller Robert F. Hale said . . . . DOD officials slashed facilities maintenance, froze hiring, laid off temporary and term workers and made major cuts in training and maintenance, Hale said, causing the Air Force to stop flying and the Army to stop training brigade combat teams. ‘That has taken a toll,’ the comptroller said. ‘We clearly have degraded readiness in the military right now.’” See Reuters’ special report on Pentagon waste for a different view – below, or here.
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Behind the curtains – repairing HealthCare.Gov. FederalTimes.com’s Andy Medici reports, “Leading the effort was Todd Park, the federal chief technology officer, who helped coordinate work among the teams and resorted to sleeping on the floor of his office that first week, and Henry Chao, CMS’ deputy CIO. Contractor QSSI created a dashboard to track progress on each problem and to manage employee and contractor staff.”
2. BAE, Booz Allen, and CACI on Army’s Group of Eight. GovConWire.com reports, “Eight companies have been awarded positions on a potential five-year, $497 million contract covering technical, administrative, and operation support services for the U.S. Army. The Army solicited bids for the cost-plus-fixed-fee contract via the Internet and will determine work location and funding with each individual order, the Defense Department said Friday. Work will occur through Nov. 15, 2018.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Iran’s Fotros drone ranges Israel. Aljazeera.com covers Iran’s contribution to the drone wars: “Iran has unveiled the biggest missile-equipped drone yet to be developed in the Islamic republic . . . . Defence Minister Hossein Dehghan said on Monday that the reconnaissance and combat drone Fotros had a range of 2,000km, capable of covering much of the Middle East, including Israel. ‘The Fotros drone has an operational range of 2,000km and can fly at an altitude of 25,000 feet, with a flight time of 16 to 30 hours . . . .’”
2. How to stop government surveillance – crawl under your bed. VentureBeat.com’s J. O’Dell explains, “If you actually care about government surveillance, the very first step you should take is stopping your use of social media. This is not hard to do. You can go totally cold turkey and barely notice it. If you really want to get serious about counter-surveillance, you can use Tor, Hushmail, and other such technologies. Again, these are designed to not be difficult. If you want to go all the way, you can ditch your smartphone. This takes some adjustment, but it’s absolutely possible to live an organized life without a bleeping, blooping connection to all the worst parts of the Internet. And if you do all this, you’ll gain something very valuable: Privacy.”
3. Unpaving the Silk Road: how the Feds did it. Wired.com’s Kim Zetter explains, “While investigators in New York focused on gathering evidence around the drug sales, law enforcement in Maryland began mapping the operation. They focused on identifying and nabbing two groups connected to Silk Road: the top 1 percent of sellers and the moderators and system administrators, whose computers and credentials, once seized, could open the door to the site’s private communications and account details.”
4. The race of his life – the exoskeleton suit: “Gene Laureano, 51, is one of seven contenders from across the world racing in the ReWalk, a robotic exoskeleton suit that’s turning wounded warriors into iron men and women.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Taxpayer dollars and the Pentagon’s black hole. Reuters’ special report is worth reading, in spite of its distracting format: “Over the past 10 years, the Defense Department has signed contracts for the provision of more than $3 trillion in goods and services. How much of that money is wasted in overpayments to contractors, or was never spent and never remitted to the Treasury, is a mystery. That’s because of a massive backlog of ‘closeouts’ – audits meant to ensure that a contract was fulfilled and the money ended up in the right place.”
2. Judges? You don’t need no stinking judges. Filibuster claims third Obama judicial nominee: “Facing a nearly unified GOP front, U.S. District Judge Robert Wilkins failed to secure the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster and win a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The 53-38 vote late Monday afternoon marked the third time in three weeks that Senate Republicans used the filibuster to block an Obama nominee to the D.C.-based appellate court. . . . The persistent filibuster, moreover, poisons the well for other judicial nominees, potentially for years to come. It’s prompting Senate Democrats, once again, to consider the so-called ‘nuclear option’ that would change Senate rules and ignite GOP rage. The often threatened but never used nuclear option refers to a parliamentary maneuver that would enable the Senate majority to change the rules and win confirmations with 51 votes instead of 60.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. War isn’t working, maybe diplomacy can? Aljazeera.com contributor Kate Hudson argues a novel idea: “international dialogue and diplomacy can bear fruit. And what these developments also show, is the crucial importance – frequently talked down – of UN treaty frameworks and their legal, monitoring and policing structures. These are provided to facilitate and enable the many small and detailed steps that are necessary to resolve complex problems and avoid conflict. Without the Chemical Weapons Convention and the OPCW, bringing Syria to the disarmament table in a matter of days would have been impossible. And the painstaking work of the IAEA will doubtless play a crucial role in the eventual resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue.”
2. Start with trust, and go from there. Christian Science Monitor’s Editorial Board argues, “Talks between Iran and the West resume Wednesday with the hope that a deal will avert war over the Iranian nuclear program. That hope, however, will rest on more than mere words in a possible agreement. . . . Iran and the US will eventually need to rely on a level of mutual trust to implement what is bound to be a very complex agreement.”
3. On Iran, U.S. and Israel agree, first. WaPo’s Editorial Board argues, “THE RIFT between the United States and Israel over Iran, which some are describing as the worst dispute between the two countries in 30 years, might be seen as yet another chapter in the consistently rocky and sometimes poisonous relations between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That would be a misreading. In reality, the argument reflects a more profound divergence of U.S. and Israeli national interests.”
