Author: Robert Burns
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Hagel informed Obama of latest sex abuse case
WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel informed President Barack Obama of the latest sexual assault allegations against a soldier who was assigned to prevent such crimes – the second soldier involved in similar accusations – and the president made clear he wants that behavior stopped, officials said Wednesday. Hagel spokesman George Little told reporters that…
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An insider attack: Trust cost 2 Fort Carson lives
WASHINGTON — It was a sneak attack, but not by the enemy they feared. U.S. Army Capts. Joshua Lawrence and Drew Russell, of Fort Carson, were inside a small command post on an Afghan army base, wrapping up a long day of coordinating the safe arrival of nearly 100 Afghan religious and tribal leaders for a…
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Scandal widens; US general’s emails ‘flirtatious’
WASHINGTON — The sex scandal that felled CIA Director David Petraeus widened Tuesday to ensnare the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, in a suddenly public drama involving a Tampa socialite, a jealous rival, a twin sister in a messy custody dispute and flirty emails. The improbable story — by turns tragic and…
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Military class suspended for its view on Islam
WASHINGTON — A course for U.S. military officers has been teaching that America’s enemy is Islam in general, not just terrorists, and suggesting that the country might ultimately have to obliterate the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina without regard for civilian deaths, following World War II precedents of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima…
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Pentagon: Ready for gay ban repeal Tuesday
WASHINGTON — The military has begun accepting applications from openly gay recruits but will not act on them until the legal ban on openly gay service is lifted Tuesday, says a Pentagon official. Pentagon press secretary George Little said Monday that the military is adequately prepared for the end of the current policy, commonly known…
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Gates says Russians hate U.S. missile defenses
WASHINGTON — Russia will “always hate” U.S. missile defenses because it cannot match them, but that should not stand in the way of ratifying a new U.S.-Russian nuclear arms treaty, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday. In blunt language, with the administration’s top diplomat sitting beside him, Gates told a Senate panel there is little…
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New security strategy breaks with Bush
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is breaking with the go-it-alone Bush years in a new strategy for keeping the nation safe, counting more on U.S. allies to tackle terrorism and other global problems. It’s an approach that already has proved tricky in practice. The administration’s National Security Strategy, a summary of which was obtained…
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Private sleuths once pierced U.S. nuclear veil
WASHINGTON — Shortly after nuclear weapons sleuths Tom Cochran and Bill Arkin published their unauthorized estimate of the size of the U.S. arsenal in 1984 they got a call from alarmed U.S. officials. “They called us over and wanted to know where we got the numbers,” Cochran recalls from a time when almost everything about…
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Clinton says no to early end of U.S. nukes in Europe
TALLINN, Estonia — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday ruled out an early withdrawal of U.S. nuclear forces from Europe, telling a NATO meeting that any reductions should be tied to a nuclear pullback by Russia, which has far more of the weapons in range of European targets. No such negotiation with…
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Summit urges acceptance of nuke terrorism treaty
WASHINGTON — World leaders concluding a 47-nation nuclear security conference on Tuesday endorsed President Barack Obama’s call for securing all of the globe’s vulnerable nuclear materials within four years — but offered few specifics for achieving that goal. Aiming for quick action, the United States declared that the Obama administration had submitted to Congress legislation…