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Entries Tagged as 'National Security'

U.S. reportedly gives billions to firms doing business with Iran

March 8th, 2010 · Defense, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, National Security, Non-Transparency, Politics

Monday, March 8, 2010

The U.S. government, while pushing for tougher sanctions against Tehran, has given $107 billion in the past 10 years to U.S. and foreign companies doing business in Iran, much of it in the energy sector, the New York Times reported in its Sunday editions.

Despite the threat of punishment for companies that seek U.S. federal contracts while dealing with Iran, the Times said successive administrations have struggled to exert authority over foreign companies and overseas units of U.S. firms.

Of the 74 companies the newspaper said it had identified as doing business with both the U.S. government and Iran, 49 still work with Iran and have no announced plans to leave.

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Obama advisers (NOW) set to recommend military tribunals for alleged 9/11 plotters

March 6th, 2010 · Deception, Defense, Democrats, Ethics, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, National Security, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within, Treason

By Anne E. Kornblut and Peter Finn Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, March 5, 2010

President Obama’s advisers are nearing a recommendation that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, be prosecuted in a military tribunal, administration officials said, a step that would reverse Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s plan to try him in civilian court in New York City.

The president’s advisers feel increasingly hemmed in by bipartisan opposition to a federal trial in New York and demands, mainly from Republicans, that Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators remain under military jurisdiction, officials said. While Obama has favored trying some terrorism suspects in civilian courts as a symbol of U.S. commitment to the rule of law, critics have said military tribunals are the appropriate venue for those accused of attacking the United States.

If Obama accepts the likely recommendation of his advisers, the White House may be able to secure from Congress the funding and legal authority it needs to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and replace it with a facility within the United States. The administration has failed to meet a self-imposed one-year deadline to close Guantanamo.

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Obama appointees to the Justice Department represented detainees earlier in their careers.

March 4th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Defense, Democrats, Ethics, Government, Government Control, Homeland Security, Immigration, National Security, Obama Nominees, Obama's Scheme, Terrorism from Within, Treason

Conservatives raise ruckus over Justice appointees’ prior work with detainees

By Carrie Johnson Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 4, 2010

Conservatives who are unhappy with the decision to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have trained their fire on an unusual target: political appointees in the Obama Justice Department who represented detainees earlier in their careers.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) has been demanding for months the names of nine appointees who previously advocated for or represented detainees in their private law practices. Grassley has argued that the lawyers’ backgrounds could pose “conflicts of interest” and complained that the department had been “nonresponsive” to his requests.

The rhetoric reached new levels this week when Keep America Safe, a group affiliated with Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of former vice president Richard B. Cheney, released a YouTube video that featured the headline “DOJ: Department of Jihad?” and asked, “Who are these government officials? . . . Whose values do they share?”

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Court dismisses appeal of Uighurs detained at Guantanamo Bay

March 1st, 2010 · Homeland Security, National Security, Supreme Court, War on Terrorism

By Robert Barnes Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 1, 2010; 11:38 AM

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a major separation of powers case that would have determined what rights judges have to free detainees at Guantanamo Bay who have been found not to be enemy combatants.

The justices, without recorded dissent, agreed with the Obama administration that changed circumstances meant that the challenge brought by a group of Chinese Muslims known as Uighurs was not ripe for the court’s consideration.

At the same time, the justices wiped out a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that had been challenged by attorneys for the detainees. The ruling said that the judicial branch had no power to release into the United States detainees who had been cleared of wrongdoing who cannot be returned to their home countries for fear of persecution.

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Death toll in Afghan war nears 1,000

February 24th, 2010 · Defense, National Security, War on Terrorism

By Craig Whitlock, Greg Jaffe and Julie Tate Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, February 24, 2010

More than eight years after the Taliban was toppled from power, the number of U.S. military fatalities in the war in Afghanistan is nearing 1,000, a grim milestone in a resurgent conflict that is claiming the lives of an increasing number of troops who had survived previous combat tours in Iraq.

As of Tuesday, 996 U.S. military personnel had died while serving in Operation Enduring Freedom. The roll call of the fallen began on Oct. 10, 2001, when Air Force Master Sgt. Evander E. Andrews was killed in a forklift accident in Qatar while building an airstrip in preparation for the invasion of Afghanistan. The latest confirmed addition came Sunday, when Army Pfc. J.R. Salvacion, 27, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, died of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit near Kandahar.

The number of dead is small in comparison with U.S. casualties in Iraq, where 4,366 uniformed personnel have died since 2003. But as operations intensify in Afghanistan, the war is killing more and more service members who came home safely after serving in Iraq, only to return to the battlefield in another theater.

Since Dec. 1, at least 30 percent of the American military personnel who have died in Afghanistan have been veterans of the Iraq war, according to a Washington Post analysis.

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NYC terrorism suspect cites subway attack plan

February 22nd, 2010 · Homeland Security, National Security, Terrorism from Within, Terrorist Attack

By TOM HAYS and ADAM GOLDMAN

The Associated Press
Monday, February 22, 2010; 3:40 PM

NEW YORK — A former Denver airport shuttle driver admitted Monday to a plot to bomb the New York City subways, saying he was recruited by al-Qaida in Pakistan for a “martyrdom plan” against the United States.

“I would sacrifice myself to bring attention to what the U.S. military was doing to civilians in Afghanistan,” Najibullah Zazi, 25, told a federal judge in a Brooklyn courtroom.

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FBI investigation of 2001 anthrax attacks concluded; U.S. releases details

February 20th, 2010 · Defense, Homeland Security, National Security, War on Terrorism

By Joby Warrick Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 20, 2010

The Justice Department officially ended its eight-year investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks Friday with the release of hundreds of pages of documents that starkly portray the mental unraveling of the deceased Army scientist accused of committing the worst act of bioterrorism in U.S. history.

The records offer substantial support for the FBI’s contention that biologist Bruce E. Ivins single-handedly prepared and mailed deadly anthrax spores that killed five people and terrorized a nation still reeling from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Drawing from the suspect’s e-mails and recorded conversations, the FBI documents show an increasingly agitated Ivins seeking to implicate colleagues while misleading investigators about his ability to make the deadly powder used in the attacks.

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Plane slams into IRS building

February 19th, 2010 · Defense, Homeland Security, National Security, Terrorism from Within, Terrorist Attack

Two bodies recovered at crash site inside Tex. IRS building

By William Branigin and Spencer S. Hsu – Friday, February 19, 2010; 8:06 AM

A pilot on Thursday crashed his small plane into a building in Austin that houses Internal Revenue Service offices, igniting a huge fire that seriously injured at least two federal employees and sent dozens of others fleeing for their lives.

Hours after the crash, two bodies were recovered. Austin Fire Department Battalion Chief Palmer Buck would not identify them but said authorities had now “accounted for everybody,” the Associated Press reported.

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Air travelers will face new security procedure at U.S. airports

February 18th, 2010 · Defense, Homeland Security, National Security, War on Terrorism

Thursday, February 18, 2010

The Transportation Security Administration will begin randomly swabbing U.S. travelers’ hands and baggage for explosives beyond security checkpoints at airports starting Thursday, the latest increase in aviation security measures after the failed bombing attempt of a jetliner on Christmas, the agency announced Wednesday.

The expanded use of machines to detect explosives was tried at five airports for 17 days after the failed al-Qaeda attack on Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, TSA spokeswoman Kristin Lee said. In that incident, Nigerian suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to detonate explosives hidden in his underwear.

Passengers should notice random checks in boarding and gate areas as they are phased in at 450 airports nationwide over a period of weeks starting Thursday.

Airport screeners have generally reserved explosives checks for “secondary screening,” in which passengers are selected for additional scrutiny, but the Abdulmutallab case exposed gaps in the government’s ability to identify people who might pose a threat.

– Spencer S. Hsu

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Obama Administration Protects and Negotiates with Terrorist

February 15th, 2010 · Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, National Security, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within, Treason

Christmas Day bomb suspect was read Miranda rights nine hours after arrest

By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, February 15, 2010

The 23-year-old Nigerian man accused of attempting to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day was read his Miranda rights nine hours after his arrest, according to a detailed chronology released Sunday by senior administration officials.

The timing of events during the arrest, initial interrogation and medical treatment of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was made available after Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) made statements about the process that administration officials believe are misleading. “It makes no sense to get a guy off an airplane who just tried to blow up the airplane and read him his rights within 50 minutes,” Graham said in an interview on Fox News.

Graham is one of several Republicans who have cited the handling of Abdulmutallab as an example of what they see as the administration’s faulty response to a terrorist assault on a U.S. airliner. On Feb. 3, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the American people and Congress wanted to know “why an al-Qaeda-trained terrorist fresh from Yemen and caught in the act of an attempt to blow up an airliner was handed over to a lawyer after a 50-minute interview.”

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