FROM THE DESK OF CLEARANCEJOBS.COM
1. These are the polygraphs you’re looking for. Contributor Chandler Harris reports, “JEDI MIND was developed by Troy Lau and Scott Kuzdeba from BAE Systems’ Adaptive Reasoning Technologies Group. It uses a ‘combination of innovative statistical techniques to improve predictions approximately 15 percent over the baseline analysis’ . . . . The creators found that a person’s heart rate and reaction time are the most useful signals for discovering lies. IARPA says JEDI MIND could help drive research into neural, physiological and behavioral signals to help anticipate ‘intentions or behavior.’”
2. Follow the debt. Also from Chandler Harris, “[W]orkers with access to classified information could become targets by foreign intelligence if they have financial troubles. While federal law doesn’t prevent a person with tax debt from being granted a security clearance, security clearance guidelines warn about it. ‘An individual who is financially overextended is at risk of having to engage in illegal acts to generate funds’ . . . . ‘Federal laws do not prohibit an individual with unpaid federal taxes from holding a security clearance, but delinquent tax debt poses a potential vulnerability’ . . . .”
THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT
1. Iraq attack timeline. Reuters’ Phil Stewart reports, “Iraqi forces are months away from being able to start waging any kind of sustained ground offensive against the Islamic State and any similar effort in Syria will take longer . . . . In Iraq, the timing will depend on a host of factors, some out of the military’s control—from Iraqi politics to the weather. Iraqi forces also must be trained, armed and ready before major advances, like one to retake the city of Mosul, which fell to the Islamic State in June.”
2. Richest terrorists. DefenseOne.Com contributor Russell Berman reports, “The Islamic State makes about $1 million a day from sales of oil it has seized at war. It has generated $20 million this year alone in ransom. And it has taken untold sums of additional cash at gunpoint in the Syrian and Iraqi towns it controls, and through donations it solicits from sympathizers through social media.”
3. Turkey’s Kobane missteps. Christian Science Monitor’s Alexander Christie-Miller reports, “The decision by Iraq’s Kurdish regional government to send fighters with heavy weapons to reinforce the beleaguered Syrian-Kurdish town of Kobane is offering hope to its defenders, who have been holding off fighters from the self-declared Islamic State in a 37-day siege. But the decision caps a disastrous week for Turkey, which is looking increasingly isolated and at odds with its Western allies, after having branded the town’s defenders as terrorists no different from the jihadi forces attacking them.”
4. Jihadist training camps prolific. LongWarJournal.Org’s Bill Roggio and Caleb Weiss report, “Since the Syrian civil war began in the spring of 2011, the Islamic State, al Qaeda, and other allied jihadist groups have operated more than 30 training camps inside Iraq and Syria. While global jihadist groups have primarily used camps to indoctrinate and train fighters for local insurgencies as part of the effort to establish a global caliphate, in the past al Qaeda has used its camps to support attacks against the West.”
5. Re-set: Strategic Alliance 2015 Base Plan. DefenseNews.Com’s Michelle Tan reports, “The US and South Korea have delayed transferring wartime operational control of allied forces by taking on a ‘conditions-based approach’ and scrapping the previously set deadline of 2015. . . . South Korea was scheduled to take operational control of the two nation’s forces, in the event of a war, by the end of 2015. Now, no new date will be set. Instead, the two nations are working to ‘ensure when the transfer does occur, Korean forces have the necessary capability to address an intensifying North Korean threat’ . . . .”
6. Prince on Blackwater verdict. Washington Post’s Dan Lamothe reports, “The founder and former CEO of the Blackwater Worldwide security firm said Thursday that the conviction of four of his former employees for their roles in the 2007 fatal shooting of 14 unarmed Iraqis was unexpected, and raised questions whether they received a fair trial. . . . Prince’s comments were his first since a federal jury in Washington convicted the Blackwater guards Wednesday after deliberating for weeks.”
CONTRACT WATCH
1. $83 million worth of Lakotas, please. MilitaryAerospace.Com Editor John Keller reports, “Airbus Helicopters Inc. in Herndon, Va. (formerly EADS North America), will build 17 UH-72 Lakota utility helicopters with airborne radios for the U.S. Army under terms of a $82.9 million contract modification announced Wednesday. The helicopter order, from the Army Contracting Command at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., calls for Airbus Helicopters to provide the 17 UH-72A helicopters with Raytheon AN/ARC-231 Airborne Communication System radios.”
2. $819 million for Bechtel nuclear propulsion. GovConWire.Com reports, “Bechtel‘s plant machinery organization has secured close to $820 million in contract funds to continue work naval nuclear propulsion components for U.S. Navy vessels. The Defense Department said Wednesday the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington awarded the contract funds as part of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion program. NAVSEA awarded a new $612.8 million contract to Bechtel and a $206.7 million modification on a separate contract.”
TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY
1. More drones. More drones. DefenseOne.Com’s Marcus Weisgerber reports, “Airborne intelligence has arguably given the U.S. military an advantage over adversaries on the ground during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Pentagon will continue to rely on high-tech sensors and cameras mounted on drones high above the battlefield for years to come, according to Andrew Hunter, the head of the Defense Department’s Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell.”
2. F-16s on life support. AviationWeek.Com’s Guy Norris reports, “With the first of its 631 later-model Lockheed Martin F-16s now being fitted with an automatic ground collision avoidance system (Auto GCAS), the U.S. Air Force is studying an upgrade path to add the safety device to more than 300 earlier build, non-digital fighters operated by the Air National Guard.”
3. The urban bike that’s right to like. Wired.Com’s Alexander George reports, “The bike has petite 20-inch wheels (standard size for a folding bike), fenders to keep mud and rain off your clothes, and integrated front and rear lights. Each bike is handmade and comes with a unique QR code that links to the owner’s online profile to help recover your bike, should someone swipe it.”
POTOMAC TWO-STEP
1. Pot calling the kettle? “Sen. John McCain has a long history of ripping President Obama’s foreign policy as ‘feckless,’ and has blamed it in recent months for the rise of the Islamic State that has terrorized Iraq and Syria. McCain just found a less likely target, however, blasting the Pentagon press secretary as an ‘idiot’ for not taking his side when asked about McCain’s recent remarks that the U.S.-led military coalition is losing the fight against the militants.”
2. I’m warning you: “Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake sent an angry letter to Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald ordering him to ‘swiftly remove’ VA officials who were in charge during the period of major delays and mismanagement at VA hospitals—some of which resulted in the death of some veterans waiting for care. In a letter sent Thursday, McCain and Flake, both Arizona Republicans, told McDonald they are ‘extremely disappointed,’ that he has not responded to a letter the two Senators sent last month about VA officials in Phoenix who have yet to implement congressionally mandated reforms to the system.”
OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS
1. “Why the US Needs a Strategy To Counter ‘Hybrid Warfare.’” DefenseOne.Com contributor Robert A. Newson argues, “Regardless of the potential downsides of counter-[Unconventional Warfare], the alternative—allowing our adversaries strategic advantage through the unopposed use of surrogates and proxies—will always be the worse option.”
2. “Learning from Canada after Ottawa attack.” Christian Science Monitor’s Editorial Board argues, “Hate has a way of making something real that isn’t. The attack in Canada should not lead to hatred of Muslims or of Islam . . . . Terrorists must be stopped. But their attempt to trigger hate should be seen for what it is.”
3. “An Islamic State stalemate.” Los Angeles Times’ Doyle McManus observes, “The problem, of course, is that airstrikes alone can’t seize territory. For that, you need ground forces, as Obama and his aides acknowledge. They want local forces—the Iraqi army and, eventually, moderate Syrian rebels—to do that work. But the Iraqi army isn’t ready, and the Syrian moderates, as a practical matter, barely exist.”
THE FUNNIES
2. Hitting home.
