Department of Defense

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Panetta Pays Coach Fare for $30K Flights Home

Defense secretary required to travel on military jets

(Newser) - Leon Panetta usually heads home to California for the weekend, and the defense chief is racking up huge costs in cross-country travel, reports the Washington Times . Panetta has made the journey 14 times since taking the post in July, and the Times says each round trip in a military jet...

Pentagon Allows Gay Weddings on Military Bases

And will allow military chaplains to perform them

(Newser) - The Defense Department today issued guidance to military chaplains saying that they are free to perform gay marriages on or off military bases in states where it’s legal. The memos are quick to add that these weddings can’t be official Defense Department events, and that “making DoD...

Pentagon: Army Didn't Properly Test Body Armor

Army rushed through plates, can't prove they meet standards

(Newser) - The Army didn’t properly test much of the body armor deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and can’t prove that it meets military standards, the Pentagon’s inspector general declared in a scathing new report. Because of the demands of the conflict, the army rushed some bullet-blocking plates into...

Panetta: Debt Deal Trigger Puts America in Danger

$1T in Pentagon cuts 'completely unacceptable'

(Newser) - The Pentagon can't tighten its belt any further without putting America in danger, Leon Panetta warns. The defense secretary says major cuts beyond the $350 billion outlined in the debt ceiling deal are "completely unacceptable" and could do "real damage " to national security, the New York ...

What We&#39;ve Learned From Robert Gates
 What We've 
 Learned From 
 Robert Gates 
analysis
Jun 28, 2011 7:20 AM CDT

What We've Learned From Robert Gates

A look back at the retiring defense secretary's career

(Newser) - With Robert Gates, who has served eight presidents over four decades, about to retire, the Washington Post looks back at how Gates operated in the Pentagon. He’s been “careful, conservative, and consensus-oriented,” writes Greg Jaffe, and he’s “earned a reputation as the most ruthlessly efficient...

Pentagon Renovation Complete After 17 Years

Massive project considered a design coup

(Newser) - Renovation of the Pentagon has been completed, and it took only 17 years. That may sound like forever, but rebuilding the 29-acre site while it was operational is considered a major success, even an inspiration for other federal projects, the Washington Post reports. When renovations began—under the Clinton administration—...

Congress: US Wasting Billions in War on Drugs

Pair of reports blast counter-narcotics spending in Latin America

(Newser) - The Obama administration has essentially no evidence that the billions spent combating the drug trade in Latin America have done anything to stem the flow of narcotics into the US, according to a pair of scathing new congressional reports. “We are wasting tax dollars and throwing money at a...

Lines Blur in War, Spying
 Lines Blur in War, Spying 
Apr 28, 2011 7:26 AM CDT

Lines Blur in War, Spying

Which explains the Panetta-Petraeus shake-up

(Newser) - Today, President Obama is expected to announce that CIA director Leon Panetta will become secretary of defense, and that David Petraeus will slide into his old job. That’s a pretty startling illustration of just how far the lines between spies and soldiers have blurred over the past year, the...

Gitmo Doctors Covered Up Torture: Study

Doctors didn't inquire, despite evidence of physical, mental abuse

(Newser) - The Defense Department doctors and psychologists who tended to Guantanamo Bay detainees were complicit in covering up their torture, according to a new study released yesterday. Medical records and legal files reveal that the doctors saw evidence of bone fractures, contusions, and lacerations; heard stories of rape; and saw signs...

Why It's Called 'Odyssey Dawn'

The answer is ... kind of dull

(Newser) - What does the name “Odyssey Dawn” have to do with the military operations in Libya? Actually, not a thing, reports the Washington Post . “The goal is to create a name that has absolutely nothing to do with the activity of the region, so you could walk down the...

To Collect Full Benefits, War Widows Must Remarry

Confusing rules result in weird set of complications

(Newser) - Thanks to a confusing system of federal regulations, tens of thousands of war widows can’t fully collect on insurance bought by their late husbands—unless they marry someone else. There’s more: that remarriage must occur when the widows are 57 or older to count, the AP reports . The...

US Government to Workers: No Reading Leaked Docs!

Plus, State Dept. official gives similar warning to university students

(Newser) - Despite the fact that many diplomatic cables and other classified documents have already been public and easily accessible for a week thanks to WikiLeaks , the government is ordering federal employees not to read them. “Classified information, whether or not already posted on public websites or disclosed to the media,...

DADT Repeal or No, Military Discharges Drop Off

Top-level approval required under Obama

(Newser) - Despite the continued reign of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the military has lately been discharging far fewer people under the rule, the Los Angeles Times reports. Thanks largely to changes in enforcement under President Obama, the number of discharges has fallen off this year after a continuous decline...

Interrogators Ask US to Drop 'Abusive' Techniques

'Appendix M' also limits more humane method

(Newser) - More than a dozen expert interrogators have written an open letter urging defense chief Robert Gates to scrap a section of the Army Field Manual because it endorses methods they consider "abusive" and "counterproductive," reports Harper's . "The use of sensory deprivation techniques, extreme isolation and stress...

No. of Feds Making Over $150K Soars

GOP to attack government pay in lame-duck Congress

(Newser) - The number of federal government employees making at least $150,000 a year is 10 times what it was five years ago, and it has doubled since President Obama’s inauguration, says a study by USA Today . House GOP members are hoping to pounce on the issue as the lame-duck...

Most Troops OK With Gays in Uniform
Most Troops
OK With Gays
in Uniform
Oct 29, 2010 11:55 AM CDT

Most Troops OK With Gays in Uniform

Pentagon review finds that most think it's no big deal

(Newser) - A Pentagon report on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell shows that a majority of troops aren’t opposed to gays serving in the military, reports the Wonk Room blog at Think Progress. "The number one answer was. ‘I don’t care,'” NBC's Richard Engel, who got...

US Intel Spending Breaks $80B
 US Intel Spending Breaks $80B  
Oct 29, 2010 8:36 AM CDT

US Intel Spending Breaks $80B

Spending revealed for first time this century

(Newser) - American intelligence spending hit $80.1 billion, or some 12% of defense spending, for the just-ended fiscal year—more than what was spent on either the Department of Homeland Security ($53 billion) or the Justice Department ($30 billion). It's triple the $26.7 billion that was budgeted in 1998, the...

Al-Qaeda Cleric Attended Pentagon Lunch After 9/11

Terror imam Anwar al-Awlaki chowed down with top brass

(Newser) - Anwar al-Awlaki, currently on the FBI's "kill-or-capture" list, was invited to lunch at the Pentagon a few months after the 9/11 attacks, a Fox News investigation finds. The Yemeni-American cleric dined with Defense Department brass as part of a Pentagon campaign to reach out to moderate Muslims, a defense...

Pentagon Asks Media Not to Publish WikiLeaks' Iraq Files

Pushes against distribution of war material

(Newser) - The Defense Department is asking media organizations not to publish or post on websites classified US war files released by WikiLeaks. The department has been bracing for a possible leak of as many as many as 400,000 documents from a military database on the Iraq war. The documents are...

Troops Ignoring $324M in Unclaimed Backpay

Many believe it's too good to be true

(Newser) - The government is trying—really hard—to dole out $324 million in no-strings-attached money to military troops, but many have yet to apply for their share of the free cash. About 145,000 troops who were involuntarily kept on duty under the military’s controversial “stop-loss” policy , which was...

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