Syrian Conundrum, Cyber Media War, and Forgotten Federal Contract Workers - Daily Intelligence

As trial balloons on Syria fill the diplomatic sky.

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THE FORCE AND THE FIGHT

1. Obama channels Bush on prospective attack on Syria and leverages the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth order effects of Assad’s chemical stockpile: “when you start talking about chemical weapons in a country that has the largest stockpile of chemical weapons in the world, where over time, their control over chemical weapons may erode, where they’re allied to known terrorist organizations that, in the past, have targeted the United States, then there is a prospect, a possibility, in which chemical weapons that can have devastating effects could be directed at us. And we want to make sure that that does not happen.” Well played, sir.

2. David Cameron . . . let’s just take a breath here. Telegraph.Co.UK reports, “David Cameron backed down and agreed to delay a military attack on Syria following a growing revolt over the UK’s rushed response to the crisis on Wednesday night. . . . The Prime Minister has now said he will wait for a report by United Nations weapons inspectors before seeking the approval of MPs for ‘direct British involvement’ in the Syrian intervention.”

3. NATO chimes in without commitments to strike Syria. Aljazeera.Com reports, “NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has said that a variety of sources pointed to President Bashar al-Assad’s forces being responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Speaking after a meeting of NATO ambassadors in Brussels, Rasmussen said any use of such weapons was ‘unacceptable and cannot go unanswered’, although he did not suggest any response. ‘This is a clear breach of long-standing international norms and practice . . . those responsible must be held accountable,’ he said in a statement. Rasmussen said the military alliance would keep the situation in Syria under ‘close review.’”

4. Understatement of the Fiscal Year. AP’s Julie Pace and Deb Riechmann report, “President Barack Obama is vowing that American retaliation for Syrian chemical weapons use would send a ‘strong signal,’ as U.S. intelligence officials readied briefings for Congress on evidence aimed at linking last week’s attack to President Bashar Assad’s government. . . . new hurdles appear to be slowing the formation of an international coalition to undertake military action. And questions remain about the strength of the case against Assad.”

5. Russia provokes? Russia is joining the game in the Mediterranean, making an explicit implicit statement regarding any attack on its ally, Syria. Reuters reports, “Russia is sending two warships to the eastern Mediterranean, Interfax news agency said on Thursday, as Western powers prepare for military action over last week’s alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria. Interfax news agency quoted a source in the armed forces’ general staff as saying a missile cruiser and an anti-submarine ship would arrive in the coming days because of the “well-known situation” – a clear reference to the conflict in Syria.” See also, “Russia sending warships to the Med.”

6. In AFRICOM, terrorist-supporters charged. Nigerians supporting Iranians looking for Israelis. AP reports from Abuja, “Abdullahi Mustapha Berende, Saheed Oluremi Adewumi and a third suspect were arrested in February when Nigeria’s secret police broke up a group backed by ‘Iranian handlers’ . . . . The court on Wednesday charged Berende with traveling to Iran between September 2011 and December 2012 and providing ‘terrorist training together with others now at large on the use of firearms, explosives and other related weapons,’ among the six counts.” Also, in AFRICOM, UN Peacekeeper killed in combat in Democratic Republic of Congo: The UN peacekeeping mission in DR Congo – known by its French initials, Monusco – is fighting alongside government forces. ‘Monusco has enlisted all of its attack helicopters and its artillery… to push back the M23 offensive that is under way right now on the hills of Kibati . . . .’”

CONTRACT WATCH

1. Hiring vets may have just gotten more expensive for contractors. GovExec.Com reports, “Under one of the new rules, federal contractors must set benchmarks for veteran hiring either at the national level of 8 percent or based on their own analysis of the best available data, as part of an update to the 1974 Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act. This rule increases record-keeping mandates and clarifies job listing and subcontractor requirements, the Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs said. Under another rule, contractors also must strive to fill 7 percent of each job group in their workforces with qualified people with disabilities. This rule, which updates the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, also sets new recruiting, training and record-keeping requirements similar to those aiming to protect women and minorities in the workplace.”

TECH, PRIVACY, & SECRECY

1. Syria’s cyber war has started without much debate. The Syrian Electronic Army still under wraps. VentureBeat.Com reports, “The Syrian Electronic Army has been on a hacking spree, affecting many U.S. publications that have written about the conflict in Syria. The SEA most recently claimed responsibility for a hack on the New York Times yesterday that took the site offline. This month, it also hacked into the Washington Post through content partner Outbrain, which re-promotes a website’s existing content to its visitors. Beyond that, the SEA has claimed hacks for the Associated Press, NPR, CBS, Reuters, Al Jazeera, and others.” See also, “Who built the Syrian Electronic Army?” and how the SEA does it.

2. 3D printer NASA engine fires. Wired.Com’s Jason Paur explains, “NASA hot-fired a rocket engine using an injector fabricated from layers of a nickel-chromium alloy powder. That’s cool. What’s cooler? They used 3-D printing to create it. It’s the biggest printed engine component the agency has tested and it’s a big step for NASA, which hopes to implement the technique across several facets of space travel. The injector component is part of the rocket engine that allows the hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen to pass through to the combustion chamber, where the thrust is produced. The engine tested with the 3-D printed injector developed 20,000 pounds of thrust, about 10 times more than any previous engine that’s used a printed part.”

3. Cybersecurity and all the limits. DefenseOne.Com contributor Matthew Cooper explains, “the country’s efforts to beef up cybersecurity are stymied, even after thefts at the National Security Agency and the Army have made Edward Snowden and Chelsea (nee Bradley) Manning emblems of computer vulnerability. . . . For the last three years, Congress has been unable to come up with a cybersecurity bill that the president could sign. And to be fair, it’s been over honest disagreements rather than raw obstructionism, such as filibuster abuse.”

POTOMAC TWO-STEP

1. Dancing through an old minefield. NYTimes.Com Mark Mazzetti and Mark Landler report, “the White House faces steep hurdles as it prepares to make the most important public intelligence presentation since February 2003, when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made a dramatic and detailed case for war to the United Nations Security Council using intelligence — later discredited — about Iraq’s weapons programs. . . . the botched intelligence about Iraq still casting a long shadow over decisions about waging war in the Middle East, the White House faces an American public deeply skeptical about being drawn into the Syrian conflict and a growing chorus of lawmakers from both parties angry about the prospect of an American president once again going to war without Congressional consultation or approval.”

2. Leave it to the Constitution to screw everything up. Perhaps – perhaps not – the conundrum regarding Syria will bring the Congress back into the go-to-war process. WeeklyStandard.Com’s Daniel Halper reports, “Democratic congressman Jerrold Nadler appears to be warning President Obama in a statement released today on striking Syria. . . . ‘Since there is no imminent threat to the United States, there is no legal justification for bypassing the Constitutionally-required Congressional authorization. “Consultation” with Congress is not sufficient. The Constitution requires Congressional authorization.’” See related, “Congress urges Obama.”

OPINIONS EVERYONE HAS

1. “Better safe than Syria.” Slate.Com’s William Saletan argues, It sounds better than an invasion. It’s certainly less likely to create new problems. But it’s also less likely to solve existing problems. That’s the price of minimal intervention: The less you do, the less you accomplish. Over the last 25 years, we’ve fought several wars that were explicitly limited in scope. Those limits carried a price. In Syria, we should expect the same or worse.”

2. “Obama is closer to Nixon than MLK.” Aljazeera.Com contributor Paul Rosenberg argues, “The US president’s militaristic foreign policy shows how far removed he is from the civil rights leader’s ideas. . . . as the almost-simultaneous sentencing of Chelsea nee Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison should remind us, a more accurate historical comparison to that time would link Obama to Richard Nixon, rather than King. Nixon, after all, tried to have Daniel Ellsberg jailed for revealing the Pentagon Papers, and Ellsberg himself has said, ‘I’m sure that President Obama would have sought a life sentence in my case.’”

3. “Federal contract workers deserve justice on pay.” CNN.Com contributor William Lucy argues, “Nowhere is this two-tiered capitalism more dire than within the hidden workforce employed by federal contractors. According to a recent study by Demos, a public policy think tank, nearly 2 million private sector employees working on behalf of America earn wages too low to support a family, making $12 or less per hour. These are Americans who sweep the floors of our nation’s capital, stitch our soldiers’ uniforms and ensure quality care for the elderly and disabled, and yet they cannot afford necessities like food, housing and health care. Like the sanitation workers of Memphis, they are the backbone of our economy, and are in turn treated like second-class citizens.”