A U.S..-led alliance has succeed in scattering and dividing Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi's forces after a weekend of demanding air attacks, Pentagon officials say, as well as American military establishment are moving to hand manager of the process to other countries.
Gadhafi is not an aim of the campaign, a senior military bureaucrat said Sunday, but he could not assurance the Libyan leader's security.
Navy vice Adm. William E. Gortney, staff executive for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news discussion there is no evidence civilians in Libya have been debilitated in the air assault, code named Odyssey Dawn. Gortney in addition said no allied planes have been lost and all pilots have returned in one piece from missions that used stealth B-2 bombers, jet fighters, in excess of 120 Tomahawk tour missiles and other high-tech weapons.
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Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, the No. 2 commandant in Afghanistan, said Tuesday that the United States and NATO could achieve incredible in the war even if Pakistan refused to shut down a lawless boundary refuge that militant use for staging attacks on forces across the boundary in Afghanistan.
In commentary that sought to make a virtue of a now-acknowledged reality, General Rodriguez, the NATO and American leader in charge of the day-to-day fighting in Afghanistan, said that while the United States stable to press Pakistan to root out the militants from their haven in the northwest tribal county of North Waziristan, the United States could still win militarily if the Pakistani Army did not act.
“That’s not a mission-stopper in my mind,” General Rodriguez told the media at a Pentagon session. He did not make available a designation of winning militarily.
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In a discovery of some of the most sensitive in sequence yet revealed by WikiLeaks, the website has put out a secretive cable listing sites worldwide that the U.S. deem critical to its national security. U.S. officials said the seep out amounts to giving a hit list to terrorists.
In the middle of the locations cited in the political cable from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton are undersea infrastructure lines, mines, antivenin factories and suppliers of food and built-up materials.
The Pentagon declined to observation Monday on the particulars of what it called "stolen" papers containing secret information. But a spokesman, Col. David Lapan, called the exposé "damaging" and said it gives valuable information to adversary.
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An extraordinarily broad consensus has formed that WikiLeaks' latest data dump is an ambassadorial disaster for the U.S. While there are debates over how the Obama Administration should act in reply, everyone agrees that the revelations have weakened America. But have they? I don't deny for a moment that many of the "wikicables" are powerfully uncomfortable, but the sum total of the output I have read is in fact quite comforting about the way Washington - or at least the State Department - works.First, there is little trickery. These leaks have been compared to the Pentagon papers. Which they are not. The Pentagon papers revealed that the U.S. engaged in a methodical campaign to deceive the world and the American people and that its private actions were often the opposite of its stated public policy. The WikiLeaks documents, by contrast, show Washington pursuing privately pretty much the policies it has uttered publicly. Whether on Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan or North Korea, the cables substantiate what we know to be U.S. distant policy.Full story
A Pentagon learn on gays in the military has determined that overturn the law known as "don't ask, don't tell" might cause some disturbance at first but would not make any widespread or long-lasting harms.The answer was confirmed by two people familiar with the findings. They spoke on form of anonymity since the results hadn't been publicly on the loose.The study found that 70 percent of troops supposed that repealing the law would have mixed, positive or no effect, while 30 percent predict negative cost. Opposition was strongest among fight troops, with 40 percent saying it was a bad idea. That numeral climbs to 46 percent among Marines.Full story
The Pentagon has sent a next aircraft carrier to support the troop increase in Afghanistan.The Navy says the USS Abraham Lincoln and the guided missile cruiser USS Cape St. George arrived in the area over the weekend. The Lincoln brings an airwing that can send an extra 60 aircraft into the war — adding to aircraft by now there and flying from the transporter the USS Harry S. Truman.A report from the 5th Fleet in Bahrain says Defense Secretary Robert Gates approved the sending of the second carrier to help partnership forces in Afghanistan and hold maritime security operations.The fleet's area of accountability includes the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea and areas off of the Horn of Africa where a number of nations help on anti-piracy operations.
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KABUL, Afghanistan – All 9 troops killed in the worst helicopter crash for the coalition in Afghanistan in 4 years were Americans, the Pentagon has confirmed without providing further information on why the aircraft carrying Navy special forces went down.NATO said there were no reports of enemy fire in a rugged area in the Daychopan district of Zabul province, where the crash took place on Tuesday. But Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Associated Press by telephone that insurgents shot down the helicopter.The Taliban often exaggerate their claims and sometimes take credit for accidents.The U.S. Defense Department released the identities of the troops late Wednesday, saying 4 were with the Navy special forces — 3 of them Navy SEALS — and the rest were soldiers.Fort Campbell spokesman Rick Rzepka said that the five soldiers were assigned to the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade.View Full Story
