The D Brief: French police close in; Yemen connection confirmed; Five months of airstrikes in Iraq, Syria; A workaround for F-35; Dempsey eyeing more aid for Iraq; Romley to CNAS; And a bit more.
By Gordon Lubold with Ben Watson
Breaking: 100 French special forces have formed a double security perimeter around what they believe are the two remaining Charlie Hebdo gunmen in a town just 12 kilometers from France’s largest airport. The gunmen are holding one hostage and have claimed to be from al Qaeda in Yemen. AFP’s live blog with the latest, here.
The attackers have told police they want to die as martyrs. Meanwhile, U.S. officials now confirm that at least one of the attackers indeed traveled to Yemen. AP’s Angela Charlton and Raphael Satter this hour, here.
The NYT’s Eric Schmitt, Michael Schmidt and Andrew Higgins on his ties to Yemen: “…The suspect, Saïd Kouachi, 34, spent “a few months” training in small arms combat, marksmanship and other skills that appeared to be on display in videos of the military-style attack on Wednesday carried out by at least two gunmen on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper. Both French and American officials were aware that Mr. Kouachi had trained in Yemen. He went there at a time when many other young Muslim men in the West headed to Yemen, inspired by Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric who by 2011 had become a senior operational figure for the terrorist group there, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.”
“American intelligence and counterterrorism officials on Thursday were still trying to determine whether the Qaeda affiliate in Yemen had explicitly ordered Wednesday’s attack. There was no indication that the masked men who carried it out were acting under orders from the group or were part of a larger militant cell in France. But as they launched their attack at Charlie Hebdo, according to witnesses, the pair proudly declared allegiance to the group.” More here.
There are a whopping 88,000 French police who are in a furious search to find the Paris gunmen. McClatchy, here.
Meantime, while Iraq’s security forces gear up for an ISIS counteroffensive, Gen. Marty Dempsey says the U.S. may help Iraq on countering IEDs. AP’s Lolita Baldor: “‘We're working with Iraq's military and civilian leaders to determine the pace at which we will encourage them and enable them to do a counteroffensive,’ Dempsey said. ‘So when the government of Iraq finds itself ready not only to conduct the military operations necessary to recapture their territory, but also to follow it with the humanitarian and reconstruction efforts, then they will, with us, initiate some kind of broad counteroffensive.’”
Iranian influence in Iraq not all that bad so far: “‘If it is a path that ties the two countries more closely together economically or even politically, as long at the Iraqi government remains committed to inclusivity of all the various groups inside the country, then I think Iranian influence will be positive,’ said Dempsey, adding that the U.S. is watching the relationship very carefully.” More here.
And this is your educational quick hit for Friday: Defense One’s own Kedar Pavgi illustrated five months of anti-ISIS air strikes in four cool charts, here.
And al-Qaeda militants from Syria are plotting mass casualty attacks against Western targets, MI5 chief Andrew Parker said yesterday. Reuters’ Guy Faulconbridge in London: “‘The dark places from where those who wish us harm can plot and plan are increasing,’ Parker said… ‘My sharpest concern as Director General of MI5 is the growing gap between the increasingly challenging threat and the decreasing availability of capabilities to address it.’” More here.
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The F-35 gets a home in the U.K. while the Pentagon anticipates some $500 million in savings from closing and consolidating its European footprint. Our own Marcus Weisgerber with more: “The most notable decision announced Thursday is that the Pentagon is moving U.S. Air Force tankers, intelligence planes and tiltrotor aircraft from RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, England, to other bases across Europe.
A number of aircraft, particularly Air Force KC-135 aerial refueling tankers and special operations CV-22 Ospreys will move from Mildenhall to Ramstein and Spangdahlem air bases, respectively, said Tim Bridges, the deputy assistant secretary for Air Force installations…“The Air Force will base two squadrons of F-35s, each with 24 aircraft, at RAF Lakenheath in Eastern England. The base is also home to F-15 Eagles, F-15E Strike Eagles and HH-60G Pave Hawk combat search-and-rescue helicopters. F-35s are scheduled to start arriving there in 2020.”
Military Times’ Andrew Tilghman, quoting former NATO commander Jim Stavridis in an interview yesterday on base consolidation and the Pivot: "I think there is a growing realization that the 'Pacific pivot,' while a good idea theoretically, has collided with the reality of bad Russian behavior in Europe. And we have discovered that we have serious security issues to face with our NATO allies in Europe… Three years ago, when the 'Pacific pivot' was announced, I would have expected U.S. force levels in Europe to be lower than they are now. But because of the events in Ukraine, I think we are seeing a halt to that decline.” Read the rest of Tilghman’s story here.
Meantime, F-35 pilots have implemented a workaround for its notoriously buggy diagnostic system that has them contacting Lockheed techs at Fort Worth, Texas, prior to launch. Defense One’s tech editor Patrick Tucker with the latest good news/bad news on the Joint Strike Fighter front: “The U.S. military ran the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter through a series of tests aboard the USS Nimitz super carrier in San Diego in early November... The plane flew through its aerial paces well enough and passed a majority of its flight tests [but]...The Nimitz didn’t have the plane’s Autonomic Logistics Information Systems, ALIS, on board...
“‘ALIS doesn’t always work right and it is not the font of all knowledge about the airplane because I got maintainers out there who fix the airplane, I’ve got pilots who go out and pre-fly the airplane, and everyone in the enterprise thinks the airplane is ready to go except ALIS,’ [Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, the man in charge of the F-35 Program] told a defense budget conference. In terms of manual overrides, Bogdan said ‘we need to start doing that… We can’t do that wholesale, but we need to do that in a measured way.’”
When Michele calls, you go. This just in to the D Brief desk: Dave Romley, a former Marine and press attaché for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, is leaving his post as the Vice President for Development and Partnerships at the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. to become Senior Vice President and a member of the executive team at the Center for a New American Security, where he’ll join Michele Flournoy as CEO, Richard Fontaine as president, and Shawn Brimley as executive vice president and director of studies. Romley starts Jan. 26.
CNAS released a big report on the future of Afghan security force by CNAS Next Generation Fellow Tyler Jost who’s policy brief is called “Defend, Defect or Desert?: The Future of the Afghan Security Forces. Read that report, right here.
Meantime, speaking of former Pentagon policy chiefs, Jim Miller has joined Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Laboratory as a senior fellow. Miller, who resigned as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy last year, will advise on cyber and deterrence at APL. From APL: “Dr. Miller is known for his expertise and leadership in government in the fields of nuclear deterrence, missile defense, space policy and cyber warfare, areas that align strongly with APL’s technical expertise and research priorities.” Miller will work under the guidance of none other than Christine Fox, the former director of the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, or CAPE, office, who is now APL’s Assistant Director for Policy and Analysis.
Miller joins by two other recently appointed Senior Fellows, James Gosler and Phil DePoy.
Duncan Hunter is still on the DCGS case. The California Republican, a member of House Armed Services, is pushing Army Secretary John McHugh for more answers on the Army’s controversial Distributed Common Ground System, or DCGS, which, Hunter wrote McHugh Jan. 7 in a letter provided to The D Brief, “continues to experience delays and overruns.” Hunter continued: “While I appreciate the Army’s effort to audit this system, following my request upon learning of the misallocation of as much as $90 million, the audit provides no assurances whatsoever that the core problems with DCGS are being addressed.” Saying the audit the Army conducted wasn’t good enough, Hunter wants McHugh to provide cost estimates for future increments/releases of the system and “present in detail” the basis and process for determining these costs. Read his Jan. 7 letter to McHugh, here.
SASC’s new sheriff, John McCain, was none too pleased that President Obama failed to visit the formerly scandal-plagued VA facilities in Phoenix during his stop in the city this week. Martin Matishak for The Hill: “‘It is deeply disappointing that the president refused to take time to visit the veterans at the Phoenix VA, where the national scandal of mismanagement in VA health care first surfaced this spring,’ McCain, a Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war, said in a statement.
“The president’s motorcade drove by the facility without stopping on the way to an event aimed at promoting a new effort to lower federal mortgage insurance premiums.” More here.
Speaking of McCain, here’s the Committee assignments for the 114th Congress for national security, right here.
Who’s up to what today? Navy Secretary Ray Mabus will attend the 60th Anniversary of "Underway on Nuclear Power" ceremony at the Washington Navy Yard at 10 a.m. During the ceremony he will announce the name of the next Virginia-class attack submarine, SSN 795. Following this morning event, he will head to Charleston, S.C. where he and Charleston Mayor Joe Riley will host a naming ceremony for the future USS Charleston (LCS 18) at 2 p.m… Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert will also attend… Adm. John Richardson, the director of the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, also participates in the 60th Anniversary celebration of the USS NAUTILUS this morning at 10:15 at the Naval Reactors Headquarters, Washington Navy Yard in DC.
The Pentagon will ask Congress for $13 billion less for its OCO account for FY16, Bloomberg’s Tony Capaccio reports in this little scoop: “The Pentagon will request about $51 billion in war funding for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, a 20 percent reduction from the $64 billion Congress approved this year and the least since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, officials and congressional aides said.
“The Overseas Contingency Operations funding, as it’s known, will be sent to Congress in addition to basic defense spending of about $534 billion when President Barack Obama offers his proposed fiscal 2016 federal budget on Feb. 2, according to the officials and aides, who asked not to be identified before the details are made public.” More here.
The U.S. government’s outsourcing of intelligence operations to private contractors poses a glaring and very concerning accountability problem, writes Mike German of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program in Defense One: “‘[W]hat’s already mostly secret in the government is that much more secret when it’s in the private sector.’ That, [Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project on Government Oversight] argued, causes a conflict between profit motives, such as the data collected by telecommunications companies, and the real intelligence value of that data deemed valid for national security gathering despite privacy concerns…
“Waste, fraud, and abuse in defense programs raise serious security concerns as well. Clark Kent Ervin served on the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, which issued a 2011 report identifying between $31 and $60 billion in U.S. taxpayer money lost to waste and fraud. In an interview, Ervin made the startling connection between ill-spent money paid to contractors in Iraq and the fall of the Iraq army at the hands of ISIS.” And you can watch German’s interviews with both Ervin and Brian, here.
With an ammo shortage on Camp Taji, Iraqi soldiers training with U.S. troops are limited to shouting “bang, bang” instead of actually sending rounds to their target. They’re also getting classes on the “will to fight.” WaPo’s Loveday Morris on the scene in Taji on Page One: “‘Camp Taji, about 20 miles north of Baghdad, was once home to tens of thousands of U.S. troops, but today just 175 soldiers from the Army’s Fort Riley, Kan.-based 1st Infantry Division—the “Big Red One”—are based here. Their mission is part of a $1.2 billion American train-and-equip program…
“Capt. Yassin Saleh, an Iraqi trainer at the camp...estimates that only half the 140 U.S. tanks provided to the division in 2011 are still available to the Iraqis… ‘There’s a bare minimum of equipment,’ said Capt. John Cumbie, one of the U.S. trainers. He said that’s not necessarily because it doesn’t exist but because of the hurdles in getting weapons and gear to the right place, due to the complexity of the Iraqi bureaucracy and an underdeveloped logistics system. ‘It’s figuring out where all the stuff is. It exists somewhere in the system; it just has to get to us.’” Read the rest, here.
The D Brief clarifies – Yesterday we brought you the news of an official in Michigan who was taking bribes for helping veterans. We identified him as a VA official, which he is, but he is a county official. The excerpt made that clear, but the headline may have vague. So just for the record, the individual is not an official with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
What’s the highest rank YOU would make in the Marine Corps? Take this little silly quiz. One of us got sergeant major, but we mighta played it that way. Take it here.
A dozen U.S. sailors involved in the secret filming of a female changing area on the ballistic missile sub Wyoming face “significant penalties.” Michael Melia for AP: ““[T]he investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service has been completed and military lawyers are reviewing how to proceed with prosecution... 'Out of a force of 17,000 people we have a very small number of folks who didn't get it, and they're going to learn,' [Vice Adm. Michael Connor] said… The integration of women began in 2011 on ballistic-missile subs, which were seen as more capable of accommodating mixed-gender crews because they have more room than the cramped attack submarines." More here.