Pentagon
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The Pentagon is teaming with the Office of Personnel Management for a review of the National Security Personnel System. Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn and OPM\'s new director, John Berry, will ask the Defense Review Board to set up a task force to look at NSPS. DoD has held off on converting military organizations to the new pay system pending the review. NSPS currently covers more than 200 thousand Pentagon staffers. I\'m Max Cacas.
May 18, 2009 -
Some predicted it would happen and it did. President Barack Obama says the detainee abuse photos he wants to prevent from being released are \"not really sensational\", but at the same time they could put U.S. troops at risk. So he\'s directed White House lawyers to fight the court-ordered release of the photos. He says he won\'t stand for abuse of prisoners. Just recently, White House said it would release the photos, citing little chance of defeating an ACLU challenge to have them released.
May 13, 2009 -
May 13, 2009 Stephen W. Warren, VA\'s acting CIO (and acting assistant secretary for information & technology) and Gail Graham, VA\'s deputy chief officer for health information management, talk about updating VA\'s health records system, and integrating it with the Pentagon\'s system.
May 13, 2009 -
Dissatisfaction with progress in Afghanistan has cost General David McKiernan his job there. SECDEF Robert Gates said \"new leadership\" is required. He said the situation requires \"fresh thinking and fresh eyes.\" So he\'s assigned Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal to replace him. McChrystal is a former commander of special operations forces at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Right now, he\'s director of the U.S. military Joint Staff.
May 11, 2009 -
The Associated Press is reporting the top U.S. general in Iraq is hedging his bets about whether U.S. combat troops will pull out of the volatile city of Mosul on schedule next month. Gen. Raymond Odierno says U.S. and Iraqi forces are in the midst of a neighborhood-by-neighborhood sweep of Mosul ahead of a June 30 deadline to hand over security for the city to Iraqi forces.
May 10, 2009 -
The Defense Department’s goal of developing enterprise-wide back-office services for pay, personnel or even contracting may be coming to an end, reports Federal News Radio’s Jason Miller. DoD set up the Business Transformation Agency in…
May 06, 2009 -
Hundreds of Army public affairs officers from around the world are in the area this week. They\'re attending the Army Worldwide Public Affairs Symposium. The goal is to learn how to better promote the Army. And many of the attendees we\'re doing just that --promoting their home-bases, while interacting with the media . \"We train all of the army intelligence solider airmen, sailors, marines and coast guardsmen in a variety of intelligence specialties\" says Tanya Linton from Ft. Huachuca Arizona. That training includes the joint weapons intelligence course --\"which is basically battlefield forensics. We can look at the site of an explosion and track it back to the bomb makers,\" adds Linton.
May 05, 2009 -
The chairman of the joint chiefs says China\'s build of air, sea and miltiary power, which is fueled by it\'s strong economy looks to be aimed at the United States. Admiral Mike Mullen said China has the right to meet it\'s security needs but he\'s concerned the build up might require the U.S. to work with it\'s Pacific allies to respond. Mullen told the Navy League China\'s developing maritime resources that appear to be targeted at the U.S.
May 04, 2009 -
This Thursday Defense Secretary Robert Gates will release the Pentagon’s FY 2010 budget. Secretary Gates has talked about what priorities the budget will contain. The Senate Armed Services Committee called two experts on every aspect…
May 04, 2009 -
Prosecutors have dismissed all charges against two former pro-Israel lobbyists accused of disclosing U.S. defense secrets, ending a four-year legal saga. During that time former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Bush administration supporters had to take the witness stand. At the heart of Keith Weissman\'s and Steven Rosen\'s case was the question of whether secret negotiations and discussions between government officials, lobbyists and reporters are legal.
May 04, 2009 -
United States must do more to help Afghanistan battle the corruption undermining critical programs to rebuild the war-torn country, a top government watchdog The Associated Press reports. According to the AP, Arnold Fields, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said Afghan officials have made repeated pleas for assistance in ensuring the billions of dollars in international aid they\'re receiving are spent properly. Yet graft and fraud remain significant problems even as more U.S. tax dollars flow into the country.
April 30, 2009 -
Now that the World Health Organization has confirmed the entire globe is on the brink of a H1/N1 pandemic. The military will play a role in dealing with it. A Pentagon spokesperson indicates the Health and Human Services department and Centers for Disease Control are spearheading the effort right now and have not necessarily asked the military for help. But if and when the request comes, a variety of options may be on the table. Including systems used to track infectious diseases and possible logistic help for medicine delivery.
April 29, 2009 -
President Obama’s dream of a nuclear free future and goal of “global zero” or total eradication of nuclear weapons may need to wait for a while. The military is looking a maintaing it’s automatic weapons…
April 27, 2009 -
The Associated Press] says Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday told Marines being deployed to Afghanistan that a U.S. victory there would look similar to progress in Iraq, but he cautioned that more civilians with skills beyond the battlefield will be needed, The Obama administration has called up 17,000 more troops to supplement the 38,000 American troops already fighting a resurgence of the Taliban. It said last month it would send several hundred citizens, from agronomists to economists, to work on reconstruction and development issues as part of the military\'s counterinsurgency campaign.
April 24, 2009 -
A hiccup in Iraq. \"We\'re supposed to have all combat forces out of the cities by June,\" says U.S. military spokesman General David Perkins. But the before that can happen, Al Qaida has to be dealt with. Perkins says \"We have said before, for al Qaida to win they have to take Baghdad, but in order to win they have to hold on to Mosul.\" They are still holding on in Mosul. Perkins says to bring the conflict to an end, Iraq\'s neighbors, particularly Syria, are going to have to stop allowing foreign fighters to come into Iraq.
April 23, 2009