The D Brief: IS missiles pose a problem; Has Army intel system been a bust?; Mark Lippert is a 'First Friend' and a bit more.

Ouch: Two soldiers take the top spots in the Marine Corps marathon Sunday. The WaPo: “…Competing in just his third 26.2-mile race, Army Spec. Samuel Kosgei took first place in the men’s race in 2 hours 22 minutes 12 seconds, and fellow Army Spec. Laban Sialo wasn’t far behind with a second-place finish of 2:23:48. Sialo was running in his first marathon…Meghan Curran, a 28-year-old Army captain who ran collegiately at West Point, also had a good experience running 26.2 miles for the first time, finishing first in the women’s division in 2:51:47.” More here.

Meantime, the U.S. and other aircrews flying over Iraq take notice: The Islamic State has a missile capability that poses peril. The U.S.-led effort in Iraq is being conducted largely by air. But enemy combatants operating on the ground are growing adept at shooting things down in the air, like an Iraqi helicopter recently. From the NYT’s Kirk Semple and Eric Schmitt on Page One this morning: “…The helicopter was one of several Iraqi military helicopters that the militants claim to have shot down this year, and the strongest evidence yet that Islamic State fighters in Iraq are using advanced surface-to-air missile systems that pose a serious threat to aircraft flown by Iraq and the American-led coalition.

“As the counteroffensive against the Islamic State enters a more aggressive phase in Iraq, allied airstrikes will also intensify. American officials say they fully expect that the push will bring out more proof of the jihadists’ antiaircraft abilities, with potentially serious consequences for how the Iraqis and their coalition partners wage their war.”

“…The United States has stationed about a half-dozen Apaches at Baghdad International Airport, but they have been used only rarely in the two-and-a-half-month-old aerial campaign against the Islamic State, in part because of worries about their vulnerability to ground fire and because of a lack of American search-and-rescue teams in Iraq that could respond to downed aircrews. The concerns also reflect the White House’s insistence on limiting the number of American troops in Iraq and their exposure to hostile fire.” More here.

On Friday, Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby appeared to have difficulty answering this question from a reporter: “Is CENTCOM deliberately spacing out its use of air power so that ground forces in Iraq and Syria can catch up when they are able to, even though it's going to take a lot longer than clearly the U.S. has the ability to deliver ordnance?”

Kirby: “I think what I can tell you with certainty is that the decisions that they make from the—from an airstrike perspective are—are done with a higher sense of utility…So they are tied very much to the ground efforts by the Iraqi security forces and the Kurds. And that—so that—that automatically forces you to be—to be self-limiting in terms of what you're hitting and when and how. I think there's this, you know—this notion that, you know, we're just—that, you know, we're just flying over Iraq, you know, hour by hour and just hitting at every pickup truck we see, and it's just not the case…On the ground, it's—there—it's a mixed picture. We've talked about that.” Full transcript here.

ICYMI: Dempsey’s and others’ roles in dragging Obama back into war. Politico’s Mark Perry late last week: BLUF: 'The president and secretary of state were poorly served by their own bureaucracies. When you need to be told that there’s a problem in Iraq by an Iraqi, there’s something wrong. The system is broken—and we need to find out why.'" More here.

A ‘wedge of Iranian influence’ is threatening a return of Sunni-Shiite violence in Baghdad, Paul D. Shinkman of U.S. News, here.

Also on the front pages: Ebola quarantines can be spent at home, NY, NJ governors are forced to agree. The NYT, here.

In Defense One: “Recognize that what we don’t know, could kill us.” The House oversight committee grilled the administration’s interagency response to Ebola last Friday. Defense One’s Molly O’Toole has this: “Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., accused members of the administration, particularly CDC Director Thomas Frieden, of misleading the American people about U.S. preparedness for an outbreak. ‘Recognize that what we don’t know, could kill us,’ Issa said… 'Ebola has never been in this Hemisphere before, and as we are learning those things, we are tightening up our procedures as quickly as possible,' [said Dr. Nicole Lurie, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services]."

The military is building isolation units to transport Ebola patients: “As more U.S. troops head to West Africa, the Pentagon is developing portable isolation units that can carry up to 12 Ebola patients for transport on military planes.” USA Today’s Greg Zoroya, here.

The military’s fight against Ebola in pictures, in the WaPo, here.

Where are folks getting their info on Ebola? It’s called Wikipedia. But the NYT has the story, here.

Welcome to Monday’s edition of The D Brief, Defense One's new, first-read national security newsletter. We hope you'll stay with us, and if you like what you see and you want us to subscribe a friend or colleague, we're very happy to do that. Subscribe here or send us a holler at glubold@defenseone.com and we'll put you on the list. Whatever you do, we hope you'll follow us @glubold and @natsecwatson.

In Defense One: Europe’s “drone for peace” has taken to the skies above Ukraine. Defense One’s Patrick Tucker on the increasingly crowded former Soviet air space: “The unarmed drone from Austrian UAV manufacturer Schiebel is called the Camcopter S-100. It takes two operators, has an ISR ceiling of 18,000 feet in international standard atmosphere conditions and, with normal payloads, a six-hour endurance. The drone’s operators will be looking to verify that pro-Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine and Russia are acting in accordance with the Minsk Protocol, and specifically that ‘illegal military formations, military equipment, as well as militants and mercenaries’ leave Ukraine – all things that U.S. military and intelligence spyglasses have been monitoring already for months.”

The Army's $5 billion Distributed Common Ground System intel fusion project 'has so far been a bust.' Ken Dilanian for the AP: "The performance failures of the network have been well-documented, but less scrutiny has been devoted to the revolving door between defense companies that profit from the troubled intelligence system and the military commands that continue to fund it, records show... 'The Defense Department and the Army are not going with companies that have proven solutions,' said GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, a critic of DCGS-A who serves on the House Armed Services subcommittee on intelligence. 'What they are going with are people who know government and the government acquisition process.'" More here.

The Pentagon and Congress are closer to making a deal on easing acquisition restrictions, Reuters, here.

Who's Doing What today:  -Secretary of the Air Force Debbie James conducts "SecAF Tweet Chat -- Top 10 Life/Leadership Lessons at 2:30 p.m. (find her @SecAF23) …  Rear Adm. Stuart B. Munsch, commander, Submarine Group Seven "conducts executive engagement visit to North Dakota's Fargo and Bismarck… 9:30am Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Sgt. Maj. Bryan Battaglia, guest speaker at the Birdies for the Brave PGA golf event in Potomac, Maryland.

Also today:  Derek Chollet, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, is in Warsaw to meet counterparts with his Polish Ministry of Defense and talk NATO operations, bilateral military cooperation and other issues.

"Our security partnership with Poland is strong, and I look forward to exploring ways we can continue to enhance our defense cooperation," Chollet said in a statement to D Brief about the trip. “The United States remains resolute in our commitment to our collective defense. Polish and American service members have served together in Afghanistan, participated in multilateral exercises, and now train together at Lask Air Base. We'll continue to build interoperability and‎ enhance our capabilities as NATO allies, as well as continue the discussion on ways we can work together to fight [the Islamic State].”

Chollet will travel to Latvia later this week.

Here’s why the military should eat local, buy local: soldiers would be healthier and farmers would flourish… on the NYT op-ed pages this morning, here.

Mark Lippert is a “First Friend.” Obama stopped by Lippert’s swearing in. Chuck Hagel’s former chief of staff Mark Lippert is finally headed to Seoul’s Habib House, where he’ll serve as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Korea. At his swearing in with John Kerry at State on Friday, Lippert’s old boss, President Barack Obama, stopped by by surprise, just after Lippert had taken the oath of office, we’re told. Obama, at State for other meetings, including Bill Burns’ retirement, congratulated Lippert and then made a joke about his basketball skills. On Friday evening, Hagel spoke at a going away party for Lippert hosted by the ROK Ambassador to the U.S. at which Hagel said there was no one more ready for the job than Lippert. That’s true. Lippert, long an Asia expert, has been itching for months to be confirmed and sworn in. Lippert’s replacement on the third deck of the Pentagon is Rexon Ryu.

In a video, the Ottawa gunman spoke of political motives, the NYT, here.

The Atlantic’s David Frum delves into Canada’s history of extremism and the takeaways from last week’s violence there. Read that, in Defense One, here.

“Jeb ’45??” Jeb Bush, totally still leaving the possibility of running in ’16 on the table, the NYT, here.

Pro Tip for vets: Watch the mil slang in job interviews. Here’s one worth bringing back from June by Task and Purpose’s Jeff Boss: “What you don’t want to do is give an interviewer any reason to say ‘no,’ especially if they believe that you aren’t a cultural fit. So here are nine sayings to avoid while testing the waters of a new career.” Things to avoid: “Roger that. Latrine. Execute. Enemy. Target. And, of course: Sergeant… Remember, at the end of the day you want to speak to four things—the situation, the challenge, efforts applied, and results achieved because of your efforts—in a language commonly shared.” More of that spot-on post-military career advice here.   

The ‘futuristic’ Gerald R. Ford is turning out to be a pretty cozy carrier. Lance M. Bacon for Navy Times, here.

End of an era: U.S. and British bases in Helmand, to include the massive Camp Leatherneck, now a “ghost town,” are transferred to the Afghans. As the U.S. prepares to end official combat operations in Afghanistan by the end of the year, the transfer of bases continues even as senior officers in the military and around government question if, in light of what has happened in Iraq, if turning the light out on Afghanistan remains wise. Still, the massive bases that have characterized the U.S. presence in Afghanistan have to be shut down and turned over. The WSJ’s Margherita Stancati: “The U.S.-led military coalition officially ended combat operations in Afghanistan’s volatile Helmand province Sunday, an event marked with the ceremonial handover of a sprawling desert base to the Afghan army. U.S. and British troops played their national anthems and lowered their flags Sunday, leaving the tricolor Afghan flag to fly on its own over the joint base of Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion. The base is the largest installation the coalition has transferred to Afghan forces as it winds down the current combat mission, which ends Dec. 31.

Don’t let the gate hit you in the butt: “We’ll be missing our friends, but we are happy they are going home,” [Afghan] Gen. Karimi said at the ceremony. Read the rest here.

But SIGAR won’t yet be out of a job. The WaPo’s Tim Craig in Kabul: “Senate Democrats plan to keep supporting Afghanistan’s reconstruction but the spending must be linked to human rights reforms and closer scrutiny of whether the country can maintain its new programs and buildings, says a congressional report due to be released Monday. The report, compiled by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democratic majority staff, is designed to be a road map for Afghan leaders eager to keep billions of dollars in U.S. assistance flowing into the country.” More here.

But on countering opium production in Afghanistan, where did the policy go wrong? Citing the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime and other agencies, the NYT’s editorial board this morning: “…The value of last year’s yield was $3 billion, up from $2 billion in 2012, a 50 percent increase in a single year. One province, Nangarhar, was declared “poppy-free” by the United Nations in 2008, but between 2012 and 2013, it had a fourfold increase in production.

“…one early order of business is to figure out where the counternarcotics strategy went wrong — why so much investment over the years has produced so little. An honest evaluation is a necessary first step to constructing a strategy that works and gives the new government a realistic shot at a building a productive economy and a stable nation.” Read the rest of this here.

Three females had to leave the Marine’s infantry officer course after falling out on long, grueling hikes. Anna Mulrine for the CS Monitor: “…Their fellow classmates, too, were ‘bummed out’ by the news, he adds... ‘Everyone is bummed out and feels bad, but there’s also the dynamic that the shared stress only gets worse if everyone can’t carry their weight.’” More here.

James Foley’s death may have been delayed if the U.S. had in place a task force for negotiating hostage releases with terrorists, his parents say. Here’s National Journal's Matt Vasilogambros writing in Defense One: “The Foleys were clearly frustrated with how the U.S. government treated them during the whole process—from their son’s abduction to his execution. They were left out of the loop, they say... 'I don’t think that we as intelligent adults couldn’t have handled some of that information. Not that it would have changed the outcome, but it would have helped some of the anxiety, the angst that we were feeling as we went down the road, because we had nothing to hold our hat on. We had to trust, and we did, and we did, and we did. But after a year, we were no further along.'”

An exhaustive account of the cruelty of ISIS toward their hostages, including Foley and Steven Sotloff, is detailed by Rukmini Callimachi for NYT, here.