FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. Hell’s Kitchen: CIA’s TS/SCI cook. Editor Lindy Kyzer reports, “Does a chef need a TS/SCI security clearance? He or she does if they plan to work at the CIA. Cooking for spies is no easy job—just check out this batch of recently released—via FOIA, of course—complaints submitted to the CIA cafeteria. (For the record, I also prefer individual ketchup packets and hate it when someone swaps out my kielbasa for one with suspect texture). But does the job of CIA chef really require access to classified information? A recent job posting calls for an executive chef with about 10 years of experience, and – no joke—a TS/SCI clearance.”
2. Space Plane—DARPA’s new paradigm. Contributor Marc Selinger reports, “Hoping to create a ‘new paradigm’ in space operations, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is moving ahead with developing a spaceplane that could fly almost as affordably and routinely as an aircraft. The agency announced July 15 that its XS-1 Experimental Spaceplane program has awarded preliminary design contracts to three companies: Boeing, $4 million; Masten Space Systems, $3 million; and Northrop Grumman, $3.9 million. Boeing’s team includes Blue Origin, while Masten Space Systems will work with XCOR Aerospace. Northrop Grumman’s team includes Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic.”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. The crash. Reuters’ Anton Zverev reports from Hrabove, Ukraine, “World leaders demanded an international investigation into the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner with 298 people on board over eastern Ukraine, as Kiev and Moscow blamed each other for a tragedy that stoked tensions between Russia and the West. One U.S. official said Washington strongly suspected the Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 was downed by a sophisticated surface-to-air missile fired by Ukrainian separatists backed by Moscow.” See also, “Will it change course of Ukraine conflict?” “Double Disasters,” “Tragedy on Top of Crisis,” and “No Match for SA-17 Missile.”
2. Gaza ground attack: twofold. Aljazeera.Com reports, “Israeli tanks and troops have entered Gaza after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a ground invasion, a major escalation in a ten-day offensive . . . . Witnesses in Gaza reported heavy bombing from jets, warships and artillery stationed along the border late on Thursday, with much of the firing directed at northern Gaza. . . . Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said: ‘The military objectives are twofold. ‘To strike Hamas as a terrorist organisation, which is globally labelled, so that they do not have the motivation to continue this aggression against Israel. And second of all to strike the terrorist infrastructure, the rockets, the tunnels, the mechanisms that they are using to strike and attack Israel.’” See also, “Israeli Military Launches Ground Offensive in Gaza.”
3. Counterterrorism in Afghanistan. Also from Washington Post, Dan Lamothe reports, “Gen. Joseph Dunford, up for confirmation to become the next commandant of the Marine Corps, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he does not envision that the Afghan military will be ‘capable of conducting the kind of operations we’re conducting’ to put pressure on al-Qaeda and others in the network of extremists threatening security before 2017 when virtually all U.S. troops are gone. . . . The U.S. withdrawal calls for about 9,800 American troops in Afghanistan by the end of this year, with an additional 4,000 troops from other coalition countries. The U.S. force will include about 2,000 Special Operations troops. The overall number of U.S. troops will be cut in half by the end of 2015, and then reduced again to about 1,000 based at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in 2016 . . . .”
4. Senate gives $550 billion for Defense. TheHill.Com’s Martin Matishak and Kristina Wong report, “The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday easily passed a massive defense spending bill that includes money to train and equip ‘vetted’ opposition groups in Syria. The legislation provides $489.6 billion for the Defense Department’s base budget and $59.7 billion for overseas contingency operations (OCO) funds, including $2.9 billion for cooperative counterterrorism programs. The measure largely rejects many of the cost-cutting measures proposed by the Obama administration. It proposed $338 million to keep the A-10 ‘Warthog’ fleet in the air for another year and gives $848.7 million to refuel the USS George Washington aircraft carrier. ” See also from TheHill.Com, “Senate panel moves to assist Syrian opposition” and from DefenseNews.Com, “Senate Panel OKs Pentagon Spending Bill, But Its Fate Is Uncertain.”
5. Invading Iraq—revisited. Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler considers, “Intelligence findings can be murky—and there is certainly linguistic ambiguity of words such as ‘links,’ ‘ties,’ or ‘relationship.’ . . . Saddam supported terrorist organizations when it served his interests. Yes, at times the short-term goals of Saddam and al-Qaeda overlapped. Yes, they even had a ‘relationship,’ however one wants to define the term. But ‘deep, longstanding and far-reaching’ are misleading terms to apply to that phrase.’”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. Tomahawk—Raytheon’s Congressional win. DoDBuzz.Com’s Kris Osborn reports, “All four Congressional defense committees have aligned to support an increase in Tomahawk missile production in 2015 and beyond. Following suit with the House Armed Services Committee’s mark-up of the fiscal year 2015 defense bill, the Senate Appropriations Committee recently announced it hopes to add $82 million for Tomahawk production in 2015.” Tomahawk refresher.
2. $166 million for ERAPSCO. MilitaryAerospace.Com Editor John Keller reports, “U.S. Navy anti-submarine warfare (ASW) experts are replenishing their supplies of air-launched sonobuoys with a variety of capabilities ranging from taking the temperature of ocean layers at different depths, to detonating submerged explosive charges. . . . Sonobuoys enable Navy ASW forces to detect, track, and pinpoint potentially hostile submarines operating in the open ocean that could be threats to Navy carrier battle groups or other forces. Information from these systems can help enable precision attacks with air-launched torpedoes.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. Senate slash for IT budget. FederalTimes.Com’s John T. Bennett reports, “US senators want to slash the Pentagon’s information technology (IT) spending plan by tens of millions, calling on the military to trim duplicative programs. The Obama administration requested about $11 billion for all Defense Department information technology activities next year. In a report accompanying its 2015 military spending bill, the Senate Appropriations Defense subcommittee proposes several sizable cuts. The Pentagon requested $87.2 million for enterprise information technology activities. The Senate bill, set to be approved late Thursday morning by the full Appropriations Committee, proposes cutting that by $15 million, to $72.2 million.”
2. DOJ’s Botnet battle—$110 billion lost annually. FierceGovernmentIT.Com’s Dibya Sakar reports, “In recent years, Justice Department officials said they’ve successfully disrupted major criminal botnet operations from stealing more information and money. But as criminals continually change their tactics, officials said several U.S. laws need to be changed or updated to keep pace. . . . the threat from botnets has dramatically increased over the past several years. ‘This is a tip of the iceberg,’ said Joseph Demarest . . . . Botnets are essentially networks of hijacked computers—sometimes numbering in the thousands or even hundreds of thousands—that are controlled by criminals to disrupt Internet sites, steal financial or other personal information, spread spam and undermine people’s privacy and security.”
3. Jibo: friend for the friendless. Wired.Com’s Christina Bonnington reports, “For many families, the tablet has become the central, shared computing device in the home. It’s a hub for learning, for entertainment, and for staying connected. But what if your tablet was even more interactive? What if it woke up when you came home, recognized your face, and suggested a couple of things you might want for dinner? What if, when asked a spoken question, it could tailor its answer directly to you, instead of just offering a blanket response?”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. One + One = Two . . . : “[Cox Media Group reporter Justin] Gray, who lives in Washington, D.C., was flying out of Orlando International Airport when a TSA agent said Gray’s District of Columbia driver’s license wasn’t a valid form of identification. Gray said his license is legal and up-to-date, but the TSA agent didn’t seem to know what the District of Columbia was when Gray arrived at the security checkpoint over the weekend. When Gray handed the man his driver’s license the agent demanded to see Gray’s passport. Gray told the agent he wasn’t carrying his passport and asked why he needed it. . . . A TSA spokesman contacted Gray just minutes after he tweeted about the problem. He confirmed that a District of Columbia license is an acceptable form ID. The spokesman said, ‘Officers are trained to identify fraudulent documents, which can potentially deter and detect individuals attempting to circumvent this layer of security.’”
2. Beautiful Washington: a dance around some of D.C.’s most, uh, notable and less appreciated architectural breakthroughs.
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “How the West Chose War in Gaza.” Washington Post contributor Nathan Thrall argues, “The current escalation in Gaza is a direct result of the choice by Israel and the West to obstruct the implementation of the April 2014 Palestinian reconciliation agreement. The road out of the crisis is a reversal of that policy.”
2. “Does Hamas provoke Israel to attack Gaza?” Aljazeera.Com contributor Hamid Dabashi argues, “Zionism as a murderous machinery of colonial conquest will not stop until the very last inch of Palestine is taken . . . .”
3. “If at first you don’t succeed in Iraq, Surge, Surge again.” Reuters contributor Peter Van Buren argues, “The ultimate goal—after hopefully forcing out foreign fighters from within Sunni ranks in 2014, as in 2007—is political reconciliation between Sunni and Shi’ite. It won’t work, because it hasn’t. History is, in the end, all that matters.”
THE FUNNIES
1. Office ambush.
2. Circular world.
3. Reruns.
