The D Brief: 12 dead in Paris; U.S. trainers to flow into Iraq; Pentagon Correspondents rejoice; Kirby: we don’t count every nose we shwack; And a bit more.

Breaking: Twelve people shot dead in Paris in what officials term a terrorist attack against a satirical publication that had been condemned by Muslims. AP, here.

CENTCOM officials have dismissed 13 civilian casualty allegations from their air campaign over Iraq and Syria; two have been deemed credible enough to investigate, while another three are still pending. AP’s Bob Burns and Lolita Baldor: “[Air Force Col. Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command] said the two cases being investigated arose from internal reviews of airstrikes, ‘not the result of allegations received from outside’ the Defense Department… Ryder did not explain in detail why 13 of the 18 allegations were determined to be not credible. He said a source is generally deemed credible if it provides verifiable information such as photographs or other documentation.” More here.

Meantime, the Pentagon is sending hundreds of U.S. troops into Iraq over the next several weeks as part of its mission to train Iraqis.  Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said Tuesday that the U.S. would be sending additional troops to Iraq over the next six weeks as part of the training mission that already authorized up to 3,100 American troops. Of those, there are already about 2,150 U.S. troops in Iraq today, including about 300 at al Asad airbase in Anbar Province and about 100 at Camp Taji north of Baghdad.

Many more U.S. troops are headed to Iraq as part of this deployment, but it could be as many as 1,000 since any more troops would require an additional authorization of troops beyond the 3,100 already authorized. Troops are preparing to stand up training sites at two other locations in Iraq over the next several weeks, one in Irbil and another in Besimaya, just outside Baghdad.

And, U.S. training for Syria’s moderate rebels, by DoD, begins in March. U.S. military planners will likely begin to stand up their efforts to train moderate Syrian rebels at three sites: in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. Once that gets up and running, the current plan is to train a total of 5,400 Syrian rebel forces, annually, across all three training sites. Pentagon officials said they did not yet know the size of the U.S. force that would be required to train Syrian moderate forces as that effort remains in its planning stages. Read Lubold's story here.

Meantime, the U.S. military’s training for Iraqis is just six weeks long and even Pentagon officials privately concede that it’s not enough. Nancy Youssef, in her debut piece for The Daily Beast: “… “’Of course it is not enough. This is a confidence builder,’ a senior defense official told The Daily Beast. Figuring how to train Iraqi forces has dogged the United States since the 2003 invasion. Where the U.S. once sought to train several divisions worth, the latest effort is for just 3,000 troops. Where the U.S. once depended on its own forces to determine who was military material, this time the Iraqis will decide. And when the Iraqis graduate from their brief instructional program, it’s unclear what kind of weapons to provide future Iraqi soldiers. More here.

Speaking of which, the U.S. has already donated about $300 million in equipment to the Iraqis in 2014, and now it’s going to give them more Humvees and tanks. Defense News’ Paul McLeary, here.

Does the war against ISIS need a more unified command structure? Marine Judge Advocate Lt. Col. James Weirick, writing in Task and Purpose, says the difficulty in answering the question of who’s ultimately in charge could be hamstringing the U.S. effort there. Read that here.

Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby, to a question at the briefing yesterday on how many militants have been killed by U.S. airstrikes, and the contraints faced by the U.S. to assess the battlefield: “We don't have the ability to count every nose that we shwack.”

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“The military may be fighting a war. Or wars. But we, as a country, are not.” CFR’s Gayle Tzemach Lemmon writing in Defense One says the critically-acclaimed film “American Sniper” betrays a nationwide lack of concern for the direction and purpose of its troops over more than a decade of non-stop war. “Talk to American soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and their families and it is the same story: they notice that precious few people at home feel that we are a country at war. Part of the reason may be because, officially, we are not… It is time we grappled with America’s actual wars and their real-time, life and death consequences, once again with as much dedication as we line up to watch them play out on the big screen.”

This morning at the Pentagon, Col. Steve Warren, the head of the Pentagon’s press office, will officially unveil, once again, “Correspondents’ Corridor.” The Pentagon is one of the rare government buildings in which credentialed press can roam relatively freely, and indeed there has always been a pressroom where reporters work (it ain’t pretty, but still). That pressroom, and the Pentagon’s massive press office, has moved around the building over the years but until 2012, there had always been what was known as “Correspondent’s Corridor,” with pictures of Ernie Pyle and the Dan Rather in Vietnam and the like, which was designated as such by Defense Secretary Marvin Laird in 1972 to honor “a free and strong American press.” The wall on the corridor also displayed - somewhat oddly, somewhat graciously - pictures of each of the reporters currently covering the building. But in 2012, a massive, $90,000 redesign of the area on the Pentagon’s E-Ring was ordered and “Correspondents’ Corridor” became, blandly, “OSD Public Affairs.” Criticism, from reporters and from former Pentagon officials loudly decried the change.

Veteran Time magazine reporter Mark Thompson at the time: “…Old newspaper front pages and magazine covers displayed on its walls have been replaced with newer versions. The press, which used to have prime real estate along the E-ring – with outside windows! – was pushed toward the interior awhile back. So perhaps it’s only fitting that the corridor be renamed in honor of the spinners instead of the spun.”

But that’s all changing again this morning. Warren will use jinormous scissors to cut the ribbon on a new Correspondents’ Corridor sign that officially designates the D-Ring corridor that actually serves as the area where reporters work. Pictures of journalists working in warzones and covering the Defense Department that have adorned the walls since 2012, will all be updated. Indeed, it’s a new day in America, er, at least at the Pentagon.

Col. Steve Warren, to The D Brief on why this is important: "The press corps is an important part of national defense. We rely on the press to help us explain our policies and activities to America and to the world. Formally designating a correspondents' corridor is a small act that I hope will help show the large impact a free press has on our nation."

Backstory: Warren ordered the sign for the corridor, which we’re told was not expensive, a whopping 18 months ago, but it took this long for the DoD acquisition folks to get it done. Where’s Chuck Hagel’s “Better Buying 4.0?”

Just a few short years ago, the ODNI was shaping up to be a redundant position drawn into petty turf wars with Langley and Fort Meade. But James Clapper has since given the post some direction and purpose, former CIA-er Aki Peritz writes in the online intelligence and natsec blog Overt Action, here.

33 dead in Yemen after a suicide bomber attacks a police enrollment event. AP, here.

What the Air Force needs is more drone pilots. After the story earlier this week in The Daily Beast about the Air Force general worrying about drone operations reaching the breaking point, there’s this story in Qartz – picked up by Defense One – about how the Air Force needs to hire more drone pilots. Read that bit here.

A Navy commander becomes the highest-ranking official to plead guilty to bribery in the “Fat Leonard” case. AP: “…Jose Luis Sanchez, 42… faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison when he is sentenced March 27. Sanchez was charged with accepting bribes for steering Navy ships to Leonard Glenn Francis, chief executive of a Singapore-based company that provided services to vessels at ports. Francis, known in military circles as ‘Fat Leonard,’ and his company Glenn Defense Marine Asia Ltd., or GDMA, serviced Navy ships for 25 years. Prosecutors say he bought information that allowed his company to overbill the Navy for port services in Asia by at least $20 million since 2009.” More here.

There was a shooting at the VA hospital in El Paso and both the suspect and another individual are dead. From the AP: “Fort Bliss Maj. Gen. Stephen M. Twitty [Fort Bliss is nearby] said the shooting happened at the El Paso Veterans Affairs Health Care System's clinic, which is in a complex that includes the William Beaumont Army Medical Center. The entire complex was locked down Tuesday as authorities responded to the shooting.

Twitty: “The alleged shooter is dead, and we have one casualty. That casualty is deceased. All other VA patients and staff are safe…Everything is under control and there is no immediate threat to Fort Bliss or the local community.” Read the rest here.

Meantime, why isn’t Obama going to visit the Phoenix VA while he’s in town? The Concerned Veterans for America want to know why President Barack Obama, who will be in Phoenix on Thursday speaking at a school about a mile from the Phoenix VA hospital that became an icon for problems within the veterans healthcare system, won’t visit the hospital.

CVA’s Pete Hegseth, in a statement: “In his final two years in office, and with his legacy on the line, we urge President Obama to make VA reform a priority — and embrace real reforms that ensure our veterans receive the quality and timely health care they deserve. He should start by taking a 1-mile detour and visiting the scandal-plagued VA hospital in Phoenix. By visiting the VA hospital in Phoenix, and meeting with the veterans, employees and whistleblowers of the facility that were at the epicenter of a national scandal, President Obama would send the long-overdue signal that he is willing to take this issue head on.” More here.

Fox’s Ed Henry quizzing the White House’s Josh Earnest about same, yesterday at the briefing, here.

With Obama meeting Mexico’s president this week, Enrique Peña Nieto’s ballooning security concerns are conspicuously off the official agenda. Defense One’s Molly O’Toole with more: “Beyond close economic ties, Obama needs Peña Nieto’s cooperation on counternarcotics, immigration and Cuba. At home, however, Peña Nieto faces accusations of corruption and human rights abuses committed by his security forces, which Human Rights Watch and other groups say undermine the extensive U.S.-Mexico security partnership.

“While the U.S. recognizes its shared responsibility in Mexico’s security problems, [Daniel Wilkinson, Americas managing editor at Human Rights Watch] said, ‘What the Obama administration — like the Bush administration before it — has been entirely silent about is the terrible human rights record of the police and military security forces the U.S. supports and cooperates with… But if you don’t address the central problem, which is impunity, it’s hard to make any progress.”

Retired Lt. Col. Dan Bolger’s critique of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in his book “Why We Lost” overlooks certain marginal but key concerns like the Abu Ghraib scandal and the Robert Bales massacre in Afghanistan to the detriment of his larger dissent, argues CNA Corporation’s Carter Malkasian, writing for WaPo: “Bolger rarely speaks of responsibility. Those who tried to protect innocents are criticized. Afghan objections to civilian casualties, night raids, entry into mosques and Koran burnings are portrayed as questionable...

“Here Bolger is on thin ice. I spent nearly two years in the Afghan countryside, seeing Afghan villagers daily. Civilian casualties, entry into homes and Koran burnings upset average Afghans. The most hardened Afghan commanders, who hate the Taliban remorselessly, have lectured me on how civilian casualties and entering homes at night cause innocent Afghans to turn to the Taliban... Rather than write off atrocities as inevitable, Americans should remember and emulate the moral discipline of these soldiers and Marines who upheld our highest standards.” More here.

The gains of women in Afghanistan are in jeopardy as U.S. troops leave the country. USA Today’s Jim Michaels, here.

Applying the “law of armed conflict” to offensive cyber operations (like the Sony hack) presents all sorts of problems in calling such attacks an “act of war.” And this may very well shift as our knowledge of cyber attacks increases in the future. Michael Schmitt, Director of the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College, writing in Just Security: “Today, no serious international law expert questions the full applicability of [IHL, or international humanitarian law, also known as the “law of armed conflict”] to cyber operations… Assertions that IHL does not apply to cyber operations during an armed conflict are counter-normative. They also threaten to shake the very foundations of IHL since failure to observe its rules with respect to cyber operations risks bleeding over into kinetic operations, diminishes the effect of reciprocity on compliance with the IHL, and fuels contempt for the law. Plus, ignoring IHL simply runs counter to the national interests of any rational State, for to claim that IHL does not penetrate cyber space is to open the door to the unrestricted cyber targeting of one’s own civilian population.” More here.

Meantime, wanna know what a shutdown of Homeland Security would look like if Republicans got their way? National Journal’s Rachel Roubein: “…It’s likely that the majority of DHS employees would still go to work. And the main agency tasked with overseeing the program in question, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, is funded through fees rather than appropriations legislation. It’s not clear that GOP leaders will have much leverage. Aside from the potential political fallout if the department runs out of cash, it turns out that a DHS “shutdown” might be one in name only, and Obama’s executive order might well proceed as planned.” Read the rest of that bit here.