U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived on an unannounced visit to Kabul on Wednesday for talks with military commanders ahead of a decision on how large a U.S. military presence to keep in the country after the NATO mission ends in 2014.
ON THE FIGHT
The United States has formally designated the Al Nusra Front, the militant Syrian rebel group, as a foreign terrorist organization. The move, which was expected, is aimed at building Western support for the rebellion against the government of President Bashar al-Assad by quelling fears that money and arms meant for the rebels would flow to a jihadi group. The United States has struggled to identify the more nefarious elements of the Syrian resistance, despite ample lead time, even as the President has articulated support for other factions.
The CIA, as well as other U.S. intelligence agencies, have been working with Libyan militias to track down and secure alleged WMDs after it was alleged that Muammar Qaddafi’s program was not entirely shuttered in 2004, Fox News has learned. "Some militias claim Qaddafi hid mustard gas, possibly yellow cake, in underground warehouses as a type of insurance policy," a military source with knowledge of weapons-clearing operations in Libya told Fox News.
The saga of the cash counters, described in a report released Tuesday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, is emblematic of the difficulties looming over international plans to provide Afghanistan with long-term economic support following the departure of U.S. combat troops two years from now.
ON THE FORCE
The Pentagon is disputing recent reports that 3,000 American troops are back on Iraqi soil, with an estimated 17,000 more en route to the Gulf nation, as part of the Pentagon and White House’s contingency plan regarding Syria’s possible use of chemical weapons.
Civilian Acculturation and Leadership Training is a course designed to introduce newly hired, non-prior Air Force civilian employees to the bluesuiter culture and lifestyle, plus prepare them for future leadership, managerial and supervisory positions. CALT is an Air Force Chief of Staff initiative modeled after the Officer Training School curriculum, providing a unique in-residence experience featuring Air Force culture, missions and the significant role leaders play in our overall success. Meanwhile, Air Commandos stationed at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., teamed up with fellow service members and utilized the range’s rough terrain and unique layout to conduct realistic training. Special Operations Forces troops spent weeks honing skills and perfecting capabilities to better prepare them for state-side and global missions.
The Defense Clandestine Service has hit a snag.
A Naval command lost one of its battery-powered vehicles in the Gulf of Mexico near Panama City and Biltmore Beach Thursday night. According to a news release by the Naval Oceanography Mine Warfare Center based at Stennis Space Center, Miss., the command lost contact with the Remus 100 Unmanned Underwater Vehicle during a training exercise. “Its an unmanned underwater vehicle that’s designed to go down to look for mine-like objects in the bottom of the ocean and that’s what it was doing when we lost communications with it,” said Cmdr. Chris Gabriel, commanding officer of the Naval Oceanography Mine Warfare Center. UUV is entirely black, 6-feet long, 7 inches in diameter and weighs 90 pounds, the release stated.
ON TECH
Peter Bright is concerned at the prospect of Microsoft porting its storied office suite to Apple’s wildly popular mobile operating system.
Researchers have developed three attacks capable of crippling Global Positioning System infrastructure critical to the navigation of a host of military and civilian technologies including planes, ships and unmanned drones. The scenarios developed include novel remote attacks via malicious GPS broadcasts against consumer and professional- grade receivers which could be launched using $2500 worth of equipment. A 45-second crafted GPS message could bring down up to 30 percent of the global GPS Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS), while other attacks could take down 20 percent of existing networks. The study, conducted by Carnegie Mellon, can be found here.
Information is what the intelligence world is all about, and so analytics is more or less the central tenet of what the CIA does. However, like most large organizations, the CIA has a problem regarding mobile devices. Gus Hunt, the Central Intelligence Agency’s CTO, is on the prowl for any VC’s working on analytics, he said at the AppNation conference in San Francisco this week.
ON SECRECY – OR LACK THEREOF
A White House advisory panel is calling for a dramatic rethinking of how the government keeps its secrets. Among its proposals:
• Reduce classification levels from three to two as one way to reduce unneeded secrecy. Under the current system, in place since 1953, agencies classify information as top secret, secret or confidential. The board’s proposal would divvy up classified information into two categories: top secret and a “lower level.”
• Automatically declassify information that’s sensitive for only a short time. Most records now remain classified for at least 25 years.
• Strengthen the National Declassification Center, a 3-year-old agency within the National Archives and Records Administration charged with declassifying old materials. The tiny agency is struggling to process a backlog of 366 million records that have passed the quarter-century mark.
CONTRACT WATCH
BAE said it has been awarded an $81 million contract from Lockheed Martin Corp. for 143 infrared seekers for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense weapon system program. Last month, Raytheon received a $22.5 million Navy contract for the company’s ship self-defense system, which helps to defend surface ships against anti-ship cruise missiles.
Mark Chadason has joined MacAulay-Brown in Vienna, Virginia as senior vice president to lead the company’s new National Security Group. Chadason was previously senior vice president of ManTech International’s space, security, cyber and intelligence business unit. In his new role, he will be responsible for managing national intelligence, homeland security and defense intelligence.
General Dynamics will begin research and development on US Special Operations Command’s Dry Combat Submersible, pending contract award.
Robert Caruso is a veteran of the United States Navy, and has worked for the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, Business Transformation Agency and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
