Pentagon

The Pentagon is creating a new intelligence service aimed at gathering information on terrorist networks, weapons of mass destruction and other emerging concerns, a senior defense official said Monday. The new Defense Clandestine Service will draw several hundred officers from the existing Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the classified program. The officers - some military, some civilian - will work alongside CIA counterparts in places such as Africa, whereal-Qaida has grown more active, and Asia, where Chinese military expansion and North Korean and Iranian weapons ambitions are drawing increasing U.S. concern.

There's a tendency among some to shorthand the ongoing federal budget debate as between Republicans who want to reduce government spending and Democrats who don't. This isn't really the case, as recent actions in the House have demonstrated. On Wednesday, the House Armed Services Committee took a close look at President Barack Obama's proposed $525.4 billion defense spending plan and decided that simply wasn't enough. The GOP-controlled committee voted to authorize nearly $4 billion more than what the Pentagon had requested for 2013.

Why is there not more public outrage about the reported excesses and criminal behavior at — what federal department was it, again? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services? Or was it the Department of the Interior? During the past decade, the agency in question (the Labor Department, perhaps?) has been unable to account for nearly $9 billion of appropriated dollars, some of it in cash. Top officials have misrepresented the department's performance and attempted to hide scandals ranging from accidental fatalities to the rapes committed by its employees.

The Pentagon is creating a new intelligence service aimed at gathering information on terrorist networks, weapons of mass destruction and other emerging concerns, a senior defense official said Monday. The new Defense Clandestine Service will draw several hundred officers from the existing Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the classified program. The officers - some military, some civilian - will work alongside CIA counterparts in places such as Africa, whereal-Qaida has grown more active, and Asia, where Chinese military expansion and North Korean and Iranian weapons ambitions are drawing increasing U.S. concern.

I am extremely disappointed in Rep. John Sarbanes' opposition to an amendment that would have insisted that cuts to the Pentagon budget be a significant part of any effort to control deficit spending. The House is attempting to make sweeping cuts in federal government spending for the rest of this fiscal year, including cuts in domestic spending, diplomacy, development and international assistance. Why should the Pentagon budget be exempt from cuts? Military spending has doubled in the past 10 years and the Pentagon has a history of enormous cost overruns.

There was no enemy involvement in the air crash that killed an airman from Upper Marlboro in Africa over the weekend, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Senior Airman Julian S. Scholten, 26, was one of four special operations airmen killed Saturday when their single-engine U-28 turboprop crashed six miles from Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport, according to the U.S. Africa Command. "This is obviously a tragic incident," Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said Tuesday, according to the American Forces Press Service.

Usually at budget time the Pentagon leadership troops up to Capitol Hill with a large spending proposal supported by dire predictions if they don't get it all. They face hostile questioning from legislators trying to free up money for their own pet projects.This year the roles are reversed. President Clinton has submitted a tight budget but key GOP leaders -- pushing deficit worries aside -- want to put more money into the Pentagon, particularly in areas that conflict with administration objectives.

President Clinton's star-crossed search for a secretary of defense might at last have chanced upon a star in William J. Perry, a steady beacon of good sense and military expertise in an administration too much given to gyration. As deputy to the outgoing secretary, Les Aspin, Mr. Perry took care of the maintenance of an effective force structure in a period of post-Soviet downsizing while Mr. Aspin tried with mixed success to handle policy decisions.Now the tough, out-front issues will be Mr. Perry's in one of the most complex jobs in government.

ON AND OFF, for almost half a century, in one dangerous place or other, Bob Hope's Christmastime visits to entertain U.S. forces have been an American institution. Through television and press coverage, Americans back home could always look forward to sharing his gags and pratfalls with their friends and relatives overseas. But not this year. The Pentagon is barring news organizations from covering the 87-year-old entertainer's current shows, citing security and a potential for exploitation of his jokes by Iraqi propaganda.

Once again a congressional committee hears horror stories about the bookkeeping chaos that passes for financial management at the Pentagon. Once again, we feel safe in predicting, the legislators will trot off after the sound bites have run out. When will someone in authority -- the president, the secretary of defense, Congress -- do something besides wring its hands over the billions of tax dollars poured down a rathole by a military establishment that...

There was no enemy involvement in the air crash that killed an airman from Upper Marlboro in Africa over the weekend, the Pentagon said Tuesday. Senior Airman Julian S. Scholten, 26, was one of four special operations airmen killed Saturday when their single-engine U-28 turboprop crashed six miles from Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport, according to the U.S. Africa Command. "This is obviously a tragic incident," Pentagon Press Secretary George Little said Tuesday, according to the American Forces Press Service.

As President Barack Obama proposed a new round of military base closures and reorganization, Maryland's political and business forces already are working to protect installations here and position the state to benefit from any future moves. Maryland still is growing from the last round of the base realignment process known as BRAC, which brought new commands, new missions and tens of thousands of new jobs to Fort Meade, Aberdeen Proving Ground and other military installations around the state.

In announcing the administration's new Defense "guidance," President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta have - to their credit - avoided the historically oft-repeated pitfall of assuming that the conflicts of today portend the nature of the conflicts of the future. However, the vision they outline fails to realistically and specifically define just how the United States will, would, and could defeat a threat such as we have faced in Afghanistan and Iraq with the transformed, leaner force prescribed.

As defense strategists at the Pentagon carry out their review of how to make roughly $400 billion in cuts over 10 years, and Congress considers the possibility of reductions twice as large as required by the supercommittee's failure to reach agreement, one clear change in policy is appropriate: It is time to drop the longstanding assumption that U.S. ground forces must be capable of fighting two overlapping regional wars. Rather, ground-force planners should adopt a "1+2" framework, planning for one major war together with two smaller (but perhaps longer)

Weapons-makers, ideologues and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta are busy whipping up fears in reaction to scheduled reductions in our bloated military budget. Don't be fooled. These cuts will not put our security at risk, though they will cut into profits and executive pay at certain defense-establishment corporations. In this time of debilitating unemployment and financial disaster, our slavish devotion to military spending undercuts our opportunity to rebuild America. Military expenditures have doubled in constant dollars since 2001.

Now that the so-called supercommittee has failed in its task to find $1.2 trillion in budget cuts over the next decade, if Congress does not manage to reach a deal before 2013, across-the-board cuts will be implemented. These cuts would hit the military particularly hard. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says that any additional budget cuts (on top of the several hundred million dollars' worth that were previously scheduled to take place) would "hollow out the military" and leave our country less secure.

WASHINGTON -- Morton H. Halperin, President Clinton's embattled choice to head a new Pentagon position for peacekeeping policy, has withdrawn his name for the job, administration officials said yesterday.The nomination of Mr. Halperin, a 55-year-old former director of the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union, stirred a degree of passions unusual for a mid-level position, as conservatives attacked his liberal positions. Mr. Halperin had reversed his initial support of the Vietnam War, fought with the Nixon administration during the Watergate scandals and criticized many U.S. spying operations abroad.

Pentagon critics and their allies in Congress are planning t push for sweeping reforms next year to wipe away the "the old boy network" they say has blocked changes in the way the military handles sex-crime allegations within its ranks."

In the wake of Sept. 11, there were many over-reactions. As a result of some of them, our hard-won constitutional rights were eroded. There were also attempts to gain partisan political advantage by claiming to be tougher on terror than the other guy. Unfortunately, some of that kind of dangerous over-reaction and game playing is still happening. A phony problem has been manufactured, and the solution created to solve it would damage all of our rights and undermine our legal system.

Last Sunday, we all focused on a day of remembrance. Many of us were lucky to have our loved ones return home on that fateful Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. Others were not so lucky. Each of us will forever remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard about the planes striking the World Trade Center's towers, in New York, and then hitting much closer to home as one struck the Pentagon. Our family in particular received a wake-up call that day. Both my husband, John; and my brother, Eric; worked in the Pentagon.