Stories related to: Defense Department

The Defense Department cannot show that nearly $6 billion the US has sent to Pakistan since 2001 has been used, as intended, to fight terrorism. In a report yesterday, the Government Accountability Office said the Pentagon hadn’t properly tracked the funds, CNN reports, blindly signing off on questionable charges—leading critics to charge that Pakistan bolstered its own defense capability at US expense. More »

The investigation that resulted in the dismissal of top US Air Force brass two weeks ago also found that hundreds of nuclear-missile parts remain missing, the Financial Times reports. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon needed "to re-establish positive control of these sensitive, classified components" in announcing the firings June 5; the report's conclusions present further embarrassment. More »

A military judge has expelled a Pentagon general from the case of a Guantanamo detainee in a move that could open the military tribunal system to further attacks. The judge said the general—who is supposed to be impartial as overseer of the Gitmo legal process—worked too closely with the prosecution, fueling critics’ argument that the system is designed to score convictions, the New York Times reports.  More »

Guantanamo Bay inmates likely will not be tried for charges connected to the Sept. 11 attacks while President Bush is still in office, US officials say. The system set up in 2006 for trying charges brought against the prisoners is crawling. "Every little detail ends up being contested, because it's an entirely new system," a Human Rights Watch observer tells the Washington Post . More »

A Republican lawmaker wants to keep America's fighting men and women out of harm's way—the harm he says is caused by exposure to incoming copies of Playboy and Penthouse . The Military Honor and Decency Act sponsored by Georgia congressman Paul Broun would tighten existing laws to prevent the magazines from being sold on military bases, reports the Military Times . More »

Millions of dollars government employees charged to federal credit cards went for less-than-appropriate perks ranging from digital cameras to dating services, sexy lingerie, laptops, and a $13,000 postal party, reports the Washington Post . An investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that 48% of major purchases on federal credit cards violated rules . More »

A small Defense Department agency credited with inventing the Internet and rockets that sent men to the moon is turning 50, the Washington Post reports, and is fine-tuning its next innovations. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's work spans biology, satellites and aircraft; it has no permanent labs and its staff has been called “100 geniuses connected by a travel agent.” More »

Secretary of State Robert Gates has ordered Pentagon officials to take a new inventory of all US nuclear weapons and related equipment, the Washington Post reports. The count, to be completed in 60 days, is in addition to a specific probe into how 4 missile fuses were shipped accidentally to Taiwan and not noticed for 18 months. More »

Beijing unloaded on Washington today, enraged by reports that the US had accidentally sent nuclear missile parts to Taiwan. China demanded a full US investigation, and said the mistake had “disastrous consequences.” China told the US to halt all arms shipments to Taiwan to “avoid endangering the peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the improvement in Sino-US relations.” More »

The US accidentally shipped components used in nuclear missiles to Taiwan in 2006, CNN reports. Instead of helicopter batteries, the Defense Department sent fuses designed to allow 1960s ballistic missiles to detonate; no actual nuclear material was involved. Taiwan quickly alerted the US to the error, but it wasn’t until this week that the US realized that the shipment contained missile parts. More »

The Navy has fired a vice admiral for giving the Department of Defense "false and misleading information" during an investigation, reports the Navy Times. John Stufflebeem, the director of the Navy staff, lied to an inquiry into an alleged inappropriate relationship while serving as a military adviser to former President Bush in 1990, reports the Navy Times. More »

A poignant and little-known ceremony featuring wounded vets is held privately indoors at the Pentagon every six weeks, reports the Wall Street Journal. It's called the "Wounded Warrior March." Hundreds of Defense Department employees line the corridors of the Pentagon to applaud, cheer, shake hands, or hug servicemen wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.  More »

A top Iraq war architect slams the CIA and State Department for flawed handling of the build-up and eventual invasion in a new book, the Washington Post reports. Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense, takes shots at Colin Powell, Tommy Franks, and ex-occupation chief Paul Bremer, among others, for brushing off Feith’s and the Bush administration’s plans. More »

Google camera teams have been banned from US military installations after panoramic views of the inside of a Texas base ended up on the internet, the AP reports. The street-level images show "where all the guards are, how the barriers go up and down, how to get in and out of buildings," said a general worried about the security implications. A message sent to all Defense Department facilities has ordered officials not to allow Google Earth crews to photograph them. More »

Boeing is calling for an “immediate debriefing” on the Air Force's choice of a foreign company to build its fuel tankers, Bloomberg reports. The selection of Airbus and Northrop Grumman is to be the subject of a scheduled March 12 meeting, but Boeing says that isn’t protocol. “We would expect this briefing to occur within days, not weeks, of the announcement,” said a company rep. More »

The US Marine Corps has asked the Department of Defense to investigate delays obtaining vehicles with blast-resistant armor for combat units in Iraq. An internal USMC memo claims the money needed for the vehicles, which could have cut deaths from roadside bombings by 50%, was diverted to other projects, reports Stars & Stripes.     More »

The missile fired at the errant spy satellite on Wednesday succeeded in destroying a tank full of toxic fuel, the Defense Department has concluded after analyzing the debris from the shootdown. The tank was said to have held 1,000 pounds of toxic hydrazine, which could have been released into the atmosphere as the satellite fell to Earth, the AP reports. "By all accounts this was a successful mission," Gen. James Cartwright said today. More »

Federal authorities investigating the Blackwater shootings that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead will revisit the scene of the massacre this week. Prosecutors from the Justice Department have already arrived in Baghdad, to be joined by inspectors from the FBI. But the inquiry has been hamstrung by the American government's promise of immunity to Blackwater bodyguards who gave written testimony, writes AP. More »

National security concerns have scuttled the buyout deal for 3Com by private equity firm Bain Capital and a Chinese telecom, the Wall Street Journal reports. 3Com, which supplies networking services to the Defense Department, withdrew its application from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, having been unable to reach an agreement on the involvement of the Chinese company, Huawei. More »

The FBI arrested a Defense Department employee and three others today on charges of spying for China, the Washington Post reports. The Virginia-based  DoD weapons analyst and two accomplices in New Orleans were coincidentally busted on the same day as an ex-Boeing engineer in Southern California, Justice Department officials in Alexandria, Va., and Los Angeles said. More »