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NATO preparing to hand over security in Afghanistan
Even though senior NATO and Pentagon officials have expressed doubt that Afghan forces will be ready to take over security for the country in 2014, NATO leaders say thery will move ahead with step one of the plan to do just that. Britan, Canada and other allied countries say they do not want to be in a combat role in 2014 and are beginning to phase out their troops. The U.S. says it will begin it's withdrawal from Afghanistan next year.
Tags: DoD , Pentagon & Beyond , Pentagon , NATO , Defense
Is Iraq on the brink?
How will the U.S withdrawal from Iraq next year affect security there? Colin Kahl, deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee security remains strong and the pullout at the end of 2011 will not ignite a dramatic increase in violence. Al Qaida, while successful in pulling of several high profile attacks in recent weeks, killing hundreds has not succeeded in ingniting widespread sectarian violence.
Tags: DoD , Pentagon & Beyond , Pentagon , Colin Kahl
Bolivia Flexes at U.S.
A very curt message for Defense Secretary Robert Gates yesterday. Bolivian President Evo Morales said Latin American nations will pick their own friends and business partners, including Iran, regardless of U.S. opinion. The remarks came during a welcome ceremony for delegates at a regional defense conference Morales never mentioned Gates. But observers say most of the speech, and all of the applause lines, obviously aimed at Gates.
Tags: DoD , Pentagon & Beyond , Pentagon , Robert Gates , Evo Morales , Defense
Commission seeks assesment of Chinese military capabilities
The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressional advisory commission says in its annual report that lawmakers should require a Pentagon assessment of the military's capacity to withstand a Chinese air and missile assault on American regional bases and the implications of a similar assault on Taiwan's air defenses. The commission was set up by Congress in 2000 to advise, investigate and report on U.S.-China affairs.
Tags: DoD , Pentagon & Beyond , Pentagon ,
Canada to stay in Afghanistan until 2014
Canada confirmed Tuesday that 950 soldiers and support staff will remain in Afghanistan in a training role after Canada's combat mission ends in 2011. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said they will be stationed in the Kabul area and will stay until 2014. The pledge of support may help plug a critical shortage of trainers for NATO's year-old mission to bolster Afghan security forces. The training mission would be confined to military bases.
Tags: DoD , Pentagon & Beyond , Pentagon ,
Drug traffickers buy long range planes
It's the latest innovation by international drug traffickers. U.S. prosecutors say South American gangs are buying old jets and other planes, filling them with cocaine and flying them more than 3,000 miles across the ocean to Africa. At least three gangs have struck deals to fly drugs to West Africa and from there to Europe, according to U.S. indictments. Most of the cocaine flown to Africa is bound for Europe, where demand has been rising over the last decade.
Tags: DoD , Pentagon & Beyond , Pentagon ,
Honor finally restored
Almost 100 years after his death, a black Union Civil War vet from South Carolina finally has a veterans marker on his grave. The Associated Press reports, the white gravestone for Henry Benjamin Noisette was dedicated Thursday during a Veterans Day ceremony at a small black cemetery near an interstate. Noisette's military past was not discovered until recently by a researcher with the African American Historical Alliance, a nonprofit working to increase awareness of the role of blacks in the war and Reconstruction in South Carolina. Noisette escaped slavery and joined the U.S. Navy in 1862.
Tags: DoD , Pentagon & Beyond , Pentagon ,
Germany deploys cautiously
More than 60 years after world war two, Germany is still very sensitve how it deploys it's troops in foreign countries. The government has announced it will extend three military deployments including its contribution to an EU naval force tracking pirates off Somalia. Germany has more than 300 troops participating in the anti-piracy force. There are 120 soldiers to Bosnia, and it's considering sending a ship with 220 soldiers to take part in NATO's Active Endeavour operation patrolling in the Mediterranean. Germany also has 4,900 troops in Afghanistan.
Tags: DoD , Pentagon & Beyond , Pentagon ,
What was that?
Missile launches off the coast of California are commonplace --but this one was a mystery. Military officials said early on it didn't represent a threat to the United States. They also said it was not a launch by a foreign power. The video captured by a news helicopter showed an object shooting across the sky and leaving a large vapor trail. DoD said it wasn't involved, and that it might have been created by something flown by a private company. Which could lead to big trouble for that company.
Tags: DoD , Pentagon & Beyond , Pentagon ,
Enriched uranium moved
The U.S. government says it has removed nearly 132 pounds of spent nuclear fuel from a shuttered San Diego-area reactor that conducted research for nearly 40 years. The National Nuclear Security Administration disclosed the removal Monday in a press release without revealing the name of the research facility. The agency says nearly 60 kilograms of enriched uranium was moved during three weeks in August and September in three convoys to an unspecified secure federal facility nearly 1,000 miles from San Diego.
Tags: DoD , Pentagon & Beyond , Pentagon ,
