Thursday, April 25, 2024
U.S. fighter jets and an airborne surveillance aircraft were scrambled minutes after an American Airlines 757 jetliner crashed into the Pentagon in a terrorist attack on the morning of Sept. 11, Gen. Richard Myers, the president's choice for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers today.
The House will begin considering tomorrow President Bush's request for additional funds for dealing with yesterday's terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) said today.
The House Rules Committee may vote today on the rule that will govern debate on the fiscal year 2002 defense authorization bill, a committee spokeswoman told InsideDefense.com.
In the aftermath of Tuesday's horrific terrorist attacks, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) said today that Senate Democrats and Republicans should reach quick agreement on issues such as missile defense and base closings and pass the fiscal year 2002 defense authorization bill or defer those arguments to a future date.
Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI), chairman of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, told InsideDefense.com today he would seek a waiver to the fiscal year 2002 congressional budget resolution preventing spending that takes money from the government's Medicare surplus.
Recognizing a vital link between its operating forces and protecting critical infrastructure, the Marine Corps is establishing a critical infrastructure protection (CIP) working group that will oversee all protection initiatives and develop a Marine Corps CIP strategic plan, according to an administrative message issued yesterday by Marine Corps headquarters.
Stating the Bush administration is not against multilateral arms control agreements as a national security tool, J.D. Crouch, the newly-appointed assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, told reporters today the administration is looking at how arms control deals can be valuable -- or not valuable -- in achieving national security policy.
Rep. John Spratt (D-SC), the ranking member on the House Budget Committee, said today the mid-year budget review issued this week by the Bush White House will not support the administration's plan to transform the military without force structure cuts.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said today the long-awaited Defense Planning Guidance Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will issue soon makes clear that U.S. forces will no longer be measured against the ability to fight two major wars nearly simultaneously.
The head of the Pentagon's missile defense program office said today that he expects more sophisticated countermeasures will be added to tests of the national missile defense system early next year following an October test that will be a replay of one held last month.
The Marine Corps will suspend the distribution of its common access cards, which allow Marines to enter secure buildings, log onto computers and access medical records, for up to seven months while it attempts to resolve several technical problems, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Jones said in an administrative message yesterday.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that he expects to issue his long-awaited Defense Planning Guidance to the services.
The Bush administration is putting together a new method for determining military readiness status that addresses all the capabilities of military combat units rather than only their ability to fight in a major theater war, the Pentagon's top personnel and readiness official said today.
Within the Bush administration's $8 billion budget request for missile defense efforts in fiscal year 2002 is a $4 million earmark that may prove vital to the administration's plans for developing a land, sea and space national missile defense.
Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said today he will pursue an aggressive and wide-ranging agenda in panel hearings this fall.
The Defense Department announced yesterday it has selected six foreign systems for consideration under the Foreign Comparative Test program, including a multi-bandwidth submarine antenna and a driver's vision enhancer the Army will consider.
The Navy announced today that retired Adm. Leighton Smith, the former commander-in-chief of Allied Forces Southern Europe, and retired Gen. Charles Wilhelm, the former chief of U.S. Southern Command, will co-chair a study team tasked with finding a suitable alternative to the Navy's training site on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico.
The United States could have an operational, albeit rudimentary, national missile defense system by calendar year 2004 based at a planned test facility at Ft. Greely, AK to defend against a ballistic missile launch by North Korea, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told a Senate committee today.
Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $53 million contract for the engineering and manufacturing development phase of an unmanned undersea vehicle that will detect diesel submarines and mine-laying craft, the Defense Department announced today.
The Bush administration's position that the United States and Russia should move beyond the constraints of the ABM Treaty, thus allowing the U.S. to test land-, sea- and space-based missile defenses, is in many ways a "no lose" proposition for Russia, President Bush's national security adviser Condoleeza Rice, said today.