National Security: National Security, Pentagon & Defense Department News - The Washington Post

U.S. acknowledges killing of four U.S. citizens in counterterrorism operations

Karen DeYoung, Peter Finn — Thu, 23 May 2013 01:20:00 GMT

The Obama administration acknowledged Wednesday that it has killed four Americans in overseas counterterrorism operations since 2009, the first time it has publicly taken responsibility for the deaths.

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Man tied to Boston bombing suspect killed in confrontation with FBI, other law enforcement

Sari Horwitz, Jenna Johnson — Thu, 23 May 2013 00:47:00 GMT

A Chechen man linked to one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects was fatally shot early Wednesday in an unusual encounter with the FBI and other law enforcement officers in his apartment in Orlando.

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Senate Foreign Relations panel tries to make move on Syria, but that’s a misuse of its power

Walter Pincus — Wed, 22 May 2013 23:01:48 GMT

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has injected itself into U.S. foreign policy making regarding Syria.

It’s not the first time lawmakers have moved to pressure a president to take a momentous step that could involve U.S. lives and treasure.

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Judge apologizes for lack of transparency in James Rosen leak probe

Wed, 22 May 2013 21:37:00 GMT

The chief judge of the District’s federal court issued an unusual order Wednesday, apologizing to the public and the media for not making certain court documents widely available online.

The gesture of transparency by U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth comes at a time when the Obama administration is under scrutiny for an unprecedented number of leak investigations, including one showing that the Justice Department had secretly probed the news-gathering activities of Fox News reporter James Rosen.

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Group wants special court to release ruling on unlawful U.S. surveillance

Ellen Nakashima — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:02:00 GMT

A civil liberties group is set to file a motion Thursday asking a special federal court to allow the release of a classified opinion that found the government engaged in unlawful surveillance on Americans.

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Iran paves over suspected nuclear-related testing site despite U.N. protests

Joby Warrick — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:10:46 GMT

Iran has begun paving over a former military site where its scientists are suspected to have conducted nuclear-weapons-related experiments, according to a new U.N. report, a move that could doom efforts to reconstruct a critical part of Iran’s nuclear history.

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President Obama says journalists should not be prosecuted for soliciting information

Ann E. Marimow, Scott Wilson — Wed, 22 May 2013 00:29:00 GMT

President Obama told advisers this week that he is not interested in prosecuting reporters for soliciting information from government officials, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday.

“If you’re asking me whether the president believes that journalists should be prosecuted for doing their jobs, the answer is no,” Carney said in his daily briefing.

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Army general suspended after fight with mistress

Ernesto Londoño — Tue, 21 May 2013 23:21:29 GMT

An Army brigadier general who commanded a South Carolina post has been suspended for allegedly having a physical altercation with a mistress, officials said Tuesday.

Brig. Gen. Bryan T. Roberts, the top commander at Fort Jackson, is the latest in a string of senior military officials who have come under investigation for alleged misconduct. The case comes amid an outcry from lawmakers and other critics who say the Pentagon is failing to address pervasive sexual harassment and assault in the ranks.

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Parts of Bradley Manning trial to be closed to public

Julie Tate — Tue, 21 May 2013 20:51:00 GMT

The judge in the court-martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning said Tuesday that she will close portions of the trial to the public to protect classified material, a ruling that is likely to frustrate civil liberties groups that have alleged the case is being shrouded in secrecy.

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Bin Laden burial pictures will stay secret

Ann E. Marimow — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:50:00 GMT

Photos of American military personnel burying Osama bin Laden at sea will remain classified, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sided with the government in finding that the release of postmortem images of the al-Qaeda leader could cause “exceptionally grave harm” to Americans.

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Fine Print: The press and national security

Walter Pincus — Tue, 21 May 2013 00:05:00 GMT

Whoever provided the initial leak to the Associated Press in April 2012 not only broke the law but caused the abrupt end to a secret, joint U.S./Saudi/British operation in Yemen that offered valuable intelligence against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

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Justice IG criticizes former U.S. attorney for leak to Fox News in ‘Fast and Furious’ scandal

Sari Horwitz — Mon, 20 May 2013 22:15:00 GMT

The Justice Department inspector general said Monday that the former U.S. attorney in Phoenix retaliated against the main whistleblower in a botched federal gun operation by leaking information to a television producer that was meant to harm the whistleblower’s credibility.

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Kerry: Diplomats need to be ‘outdoors’ to do their jobs

Mon, 20 May 2013 19:44:00 GMT

Secretary of State John F. Kerry sought Monday to reassure the nation’s diplomats that security concerns surrounding last year’s attack on a temporary U.S. post in Benghazi, Libya, will not translate into new restrictions on their ability to do their jobs.

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Chinese hackers who breached Google gained access to sensitive data, U.S. officials say

Ellen Nakashima — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:17:00 GMT

Chinese hackers who breached Google’s servers several years ago gained access to a sensitive database with years’ worth of information about U.S. surveillance targets, according to current and former government officials.

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Burma’s Thein Sein says military ‘will always have a special place’ in government

Anne Gearan — Mon, 20 May 2013 00:57:21 GMT

The military that ran Burma for decades will continue to play a major role in the country, the former Burmese general who has presided over the transformation of a nation that only three years ago was considered one of the world’s most repressive said Sunday.

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Military leaders open to power shift in sexual-assault investigations

Craig Whitlock — Fri, 17 May 2013 22:18:00 GMT

Two senior military officers said for the first time Friday that they were “open” to proposed legislation that would overhaul military law in response to an epidemic of sexual assaults, acknowledging that victims lack faith in commanders to handle the problem.

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Policy on drone strike authorization doesn’t need to change, Defense official says

Karen DeYoung — Fri, 17 May 2013 00:32:21 GMT

A senior Defense Department official said Thursday that the Pentagon sees no need to change the broad congressional authorization under which the military conducts lethal drone strikes against terrorist targets and estimated that the war with al-Qaeda could continue for up to two decades.

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Obama deplores sex crimes in military, says there’s ‘no silver bullet’

Craig Whitlock — Fri, 17 May 2013 00:15:00 GMT

President Obama summoned the Pentagon’s leadership to the White House on Thursday for a crisis meeting about sexual assault in the armed forces, but the commander in chief said that “there’s no silver bullet to solving this problem.”

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Terrorists given new identities allowed to board commercial flights, watchdog finds

Greg Miller — Thu, 16 May 2013 20:43:00 GMT

An investigation of the Justice Department’s witness protection program uncovered glaring security problems that allowed terrorists who had been given new identities after cooperating with U.S. prosecutors to board commercial flights in the United States.

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Obama calls on Congress to fully fund his State Department budget request

Karen DeYoung — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:00:00 GMT

President Obama on Thursday called on Congress to fully fund his State Department budget request, saying “we’re going to need Congress as a partner” to help protect Americans serving overseas.

The comments, made during a news conference with visiting Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came as the administration tries to shift lawmakers’ focus from mistakes surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, to actions the administration is taking to prevent future incidents.

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Mueller defends FBI in Boston bombing, but acknowledges slip-up on suspect’s travel

Douglas Frantz — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:09:00 GMT

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III on Thursday defended the bureau’s handling of a Russian warning about a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing in the months before the attack.

Mueller told a Senate subcommittee that an FBI investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev initiated in March 2011 after a tip from Russian authorities found that Tsarnaev posed no terrorist threat. He said two later attempts to obtain more information from the Russians got no response, and the case was closed.

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Some in Congress want changes in military law as a result of sex scandals

Craig Whitlock — Thu, 16 May 2013 00:53:00 GMT

Members of Congress said they are so angry about the crescendo of sex-crime scandals in the armed forces that they are considering fundamental changes to military law and other measures that the Pentagon has resisted for years.

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Military sexual assault crisis cuts deep

Walter Pincus — Thu, 16 May 2013 00:39:00 GMT

The Joint Chiefs of Staff are preparing for a battle on Capitol Hill, but they’ll be playing defense.

The growing crisis of military sexual assaults and the failure to deal seriously with the issue over the past decade are going to lead to legislation that threatens to break the chain of command.

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Lawmakers push White House to tighten pressure on Iran

Joby Warrick — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:12:00 GMT

Congressional leaders prodded the Obama administration Wednesday to tighten the squeeze on Iran’s economy, saying that even last year’s dramatic sanctions against Iranian banks and oil companies weren’t enough to stop the Islamic republic’s nuclear advances.

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U.N. ‘strongly’ condemns Syrian government attacks on civilians

Colum Lynch — Wed, 15 May 2013 18:28:00 GMT

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. General Assembly “strongly” condemned the Syrian government Wednesday for its “indiscriminate” shelling and bombing of civilians and “widespread and systematic” human rights violations in a conflict that has dragged on for more than two years and left more than 70,000 people dead.

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