Al Qaeda terrorists based in Afghanistan were assembling components to begin a biological weapons program and Iraq is assumed to have ongoing weapons of mass destruction programs, a senior Pentagon official said today.
Thursday, May 16, 2024
Thursday, May 16, 2024
Key Issues USAF depot plan LSM design FLRAA program schedule
Al Qaeda terrorists based in Afghanistan were assembling components to begin a biological weapons program and Iraq is assumed to have ongoing weapons of mass destruction programs, a senior Pentagon official said today.
Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim today warned that the Defense Department is precariously close to running out of money, adding that DOD operations will begin to shut down unless the $14 billion fiscal year 2002 supplemental is approved before Congress' August recess.
Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Rick Santorum (R-PA) this week urged Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), chairman of the Appropriations defense subcommittee, to support devoting 3 percent of the Pentagon budget to science and technology programs.
The post of NATO's Atlantic commander will remain empty from October through the summer of 2003, when the alliance completes a study on the future of the position, a NATO spokesman said today.
The Defense Department yesterday announced that Army Gen. William Kernan will be released of his duties as NATO's Atlantic commander when the new Unified Command Plan takes effect Oct. 1.
A coalition reconnaissance team patrolling Afghanistan earlier this week discovered a 15-ton al Qaeda or Taliban weapons cache that included anti-aircraft weapons, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, Joint Staff operations director, said today.
The Bush administration has proposed legislation to create a new under secretary of defense for intelligence, a position the Defense Department leadership feels will enable better coordination of military intelligence and allow DOD personnel to act faster on intelligence information, a senior official told Congress today.
The Defense Department should align the National Guard more closely with its homeland defense mission, a move that would require DOD to alter its planning assumptions and make active-duty forces less dependent on Guard support, Heritage Foundation officials said today.
The Energy Department said yesterday it is working to improve nuclear weapons laboratory security by implementing most of the recommendations advanced in a new report that sharply criticizes DOE's policies.
The Air Force has embarked on a multi-pronged effort to improve its precision targeting capabilities and has been tasked by Pentagon acquisition chief Pete Aldridge to be executive agent for a decade-long, billion-dollar precision engagement improvement plan, according to documents and officials.
NATO's defense ministers earlier this month agreed to prepare a plan to improve alliance capabilities in a handful of high-profile areas that currently suffer from military shortfalls, senior administration officials testified this week.
The Air Force has determined the pilot of a New Jersey Air National Guard F-16 that crashed in January made several mistakes resulting in "spatial disorientation" before he safely ejected from his aircraft -- a sequence of events deemed more likely because the pilot only flew twice in the previous 60 days because he was busy with Operation Noble Eagle requirements.
A prominent defense think tank has determined the Air Force would likely save $20 billion by purchasing new Boeing refueling tankers instead of leasing 100 of them for 10 years to replace aging KC-135s.
Nearly three years would be needed to perform a new underground nuclear test if the president decided to order one, a time frame the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration said yesterday should be shortened to ensure "responsible stewardship."
A senior administration official yesterday said "there are probably hundreds" of strategic targets such as command and control centers and weapons of mass destruction stockpiles that the United States cannot destroy because they are housed in hardened or deeply buried facilities.
ATLANTIC CITY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, NJ --The pilots primarily responsible for flying combat air patrols over New York and Washington face a long-term training backlog as their homeland defense mission preempted months of flying normally devoted to training for conventional combat missions, according to officials here at the New Jersey Air National Guard.
The inability of the Defense Department to accurately predict the costs of its major acquisition programs is the dominant factor in rising defense modernization costs, far outpacing cost growth resulting from factors such as schedule and engineering changes, defense budget documents show.
The Joint Strike Fighter program's $220 billion price tag is roughly equal to the cost to complete the next six largest DOD acquisition programs combined, according to defense budget documents.
NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER, MD -- The V-22 Osprey returned to flight today, 17 months after the program was grounded following two deadly crashes in 2000.
The Defense Department is planning its next-generation military satellite communications architecture under the assumption that an ongoing study will validate laser communications as the solution to longstanding bandwidth concerns, according to officials and documents.