US NATIONAL SECURITY (How Messed Up We Truly Are)

[Sean Osborne]

Bill Gertz new book is out.





Entitled "Enemies: How America's Foes Steal Our Vital Secrets--and How We Let It Happen" it is a must read if only to understand just how much of our intelligence capabilities have been compromised. It's also a scary read about foreign intelligence penetration of our Intelligence Community and our poor and dysfunctional counter-intelligence capabilities.

Here is something to whet your appetite and get you out to acquire the book. However, be forewarned: you will never see American national security in the same light again. DNI Negroponte has a very high priority smack dab in front of him here. No wonder 9/11 was possible and something worse will probably occur in the near future.

America is broken. Where's the handiman when you need him?


September 19, 2006, 5:51 a.m.

Enemies Within
Bill Gertz on our grave intel gaps.

An NRO Q&A


Bill Gertz is long-time defense and national-security reporter for the Washington Times. Today he is out with a new book, Enemies: How America’s Foes Steal Our Vital Secrets—and How We Let It Happen, about which he took some questions from NRO editor Kathryn Lopez.

Kathryn Jean Lopez: Most of us think Jack Bauer nowadays when we think of counterintelligence. Is there anything real about him?

Bill Gertz: Counterintelligence is the function of identifying and stopping foreign spies and terrorists. The fictional character Jack Bauer in TV’s “24” is a good example of the kind of counterterrorism specialist who often applies counterintelligence techniques to the problem of terrorism, something I advocate in Enemies, that needs to be done. Every terrorist attack is preceded by an intelligence operation and our counterterrorism agents need to get into that intelligence stream in order to stop the attacks before they take place.

Lopez: Briefly, who is Leandro Aragoncillo and why is he important?

Gertz: Leandro Aragoncillo was a spy for the Philippines who infiltrated the White House offices of Vice President Al Gore and Vice President Dick Cheney. He went on to get a job as an analyst at an FBI analytical unit in New Jersey and was caught by immigration agents after he tried to use his official status as an FBI employee to help one of his confederates in a spy ring that supplied U.S. secrets to Philippines opposition politicians.

The case showed that despite the extremely damaging spy case of FBI Agent Robert Hanssen, who spied for Russia, the FBI has not done enough to screen employees and limit their computer access to secrets.

Lopez: “Today, nearly 140 nations and some 35 known and suspected terrorist groups target the United States through espionage, according to intelligence officials,” you write. Is that exceptionally high for the world’s superpower?

Gertz: We are the main target because enemies of the United States want to obtain our most important secrets, which range from our military’s unique warfighting techniques, to advanced weaponry, to our economic and high-technology secrets. They also seek to influence our government and force it to adopt policies that are contrary to U.S. national interests, such as the unprecedented Chinese-influence operations that have resulted in naive and counterproductive policies toward China that seek to portray a nuclear armed Communist dictatorship as a non-threatening power. Terrorists also have targeted our military and intelligence services, seeking to learn valuable information that could be used to conduct terrorist attacks against us.

Unfortunately, we know very little about these enemies’ intelligence-gathering capabilities and unless we rapidly build-up our counterintelligence agencies, we are vulnerable to devastating losses.

Lopez: How significant a threat is China to our national security? Are we taking it seriously enough?

Gertz: China today represents the most serious long-term threat to our national security. Beijing is rapidly building up its military forces with one aim: To prepare to win a future military conflict against the United States. China’s intelligence services, both its Ministry of State Security (civilian) and Second Department of the People’s Liberation Army, known as 2 PLA, are the leading edge of a secret war by China against the United States. They are following the dictum of ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, who said he acme of skill is defeating your enemy without firing a shot. Unfortunately, China, through intelligence operations and related influence operations have fooled major portions of the U.S. government, from the White House National Security Council to the higher levels of the military services into believing that China poses not threat to the United States. The civilian part of the Pentagon alone among U.S. government agencies is taking the threat from China seriously and has begun quietly implementing a so-called “hedge strategy” that involves a build up of military forces in the Pacific and Asia that will better position the United States to deal with a China that in the future drops the facade of friendliness and openly declares its hostility. Our intelligence and security agencies remain woefully unprepared to deal with China’s intelligence assault, as I reveal in Enemies in the case of Katrina Leung, China’s mole in the FBI in Los Angeles, and in the case of Tai and Chi Mak, two brothers who passed valuable defense technology that has helped China’s military.

The chapter on the spies who got away reveals that either gross negligence or a Chinese spy in the highest levels of government, or both, can explain why so many recent Chinese spy cases were mishandled.

Lopez: You say that the best way to deal with North Korea is counterintelligence. Does that mean we’re doomed?

Gertz: No. The current U.S. policy toward North Korea has been announced as “diplomacy,” albeit a feckless effort to try and convince a radical Communist regime in Pyongyang to give up its nuclear-arms program. The diplomatic policy is doomed to failure but that does not mean that the only other option is to begin flying Tomahawks and dropping JDAMs on North Korea. The most effective middle ground between feckless diplomacy and heavy-handed military attacks is an effective, targeted program of regime change. The key to reaching this goal is to organize a major counterintelligence program that will target North Korean intelligence and government officials for recruitment. A targeted campaign would have the effect of creating opponents of the current regime within the power structure and to use those recruited agents to bring down the peaceful fall of the Pyongyang government and its replacement with a democratic regime. It will not be easy but it is the best option available.

Lopez: You have an entire chapter on Cuba — can Cuba really be a big threat (to more than the Cuban people), all things considered?

Gertz: My chapter on Cuba’s mole in the Pentagon is a detailed look at the little-known spy case of Ana Montes, one of the most senior intelligence analysts in the U.S. government who provided vast amounts of classified information to Cuba, whose government in turn then sold or traded those secrets to Russia and China. Montes was an ideological spy for Cuba who worked within the Defense Intelligence Agency and ultimately became the most important U.S. intelligence analyst in the entire government. She spied at first to oppose U.S. policy that supported the anti-Communist contra rebels in Nicaragua because Montes supported the Communist Sandinistas. She later switched her allegiance to Cuba after the Sandinistas were ousted in elections.

Cuba remains a threat because it is spreading its anti-Americanism throughout the region and is now deeply involved in backing the leftist government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, which could cause tremendous harm to U.S. national security by virtue of its oil exports to the United States. Chavez has invited Cuban intelligence and security police into the country in large numbers.

Lopez: How much of a problem for intelligence has media disclosures on that NSA surveillance program and other top-secret operations been?

Gertz: Electronic intelligence by its nature has a limited shelf life as targets are constantly identifying NSA electronic surveillance and shutting it down. It is a constant challenge for NSA to find new links for eavesdropping and certainly media disclosures have limited NSA’s ability to gather intelligence. That said, foreign governments and terrorists organizations know very well that all electronic signals they use to communicate are subject to monitoring so that it would be overstating the case to say we have been crippled by media disclosures. The problem for U.S. intelligence today is an over reliance on electronic eavesdropping and photographic intelligence, and a dramatic lack of human intelligence-gathering. As one intelligence official put it: “The problem with the CIA can be summed up in two words: “No spies.” Our intelligence agencies currently lack any inside sources in the places where we need them most: North Korea, China, Iran, Syria and other places. Thus the government has been forced to rely too much on its formidable electronic eavesdropping capabilities.

Lopez: What makes you so sure you have the full counterintelligence picture?

Gertz: I have interviewed scores of U.S. intelligence and counterintelligence officials and I have been writing and reporting on these issues for over 20 years. I feel very confident that the portrait I paint of a broken counterintelligence system is accurate and full. But the nature of intelligence is that it is secret and there is probably much more that we don’t know about. Just since the publication of Enemies I was able to learn about another spy for China inside the U.S. military who managed to get away without prosecution.

Lopez: What practical things can Congress do? Would they?

Gertz: Unfortunately, the problem of foreign spies and weaknesses in U.S. counterintelligence have been studied by numerous commissions, both administration and congressional, over the years, usually as a result of some of the recent extremely damaging spy cases. Nothing seems to change and bureaucrats in the intelligence community resist needed reforms.

The latest effort was the so-called WMD commission, which called for fixing the broken counterintelligence system.

I recommend creating new joint White House-Congressional panel that would focus exclusively on the counterintelligence failures of recent years and make practical recommendations for fixing the problems.

The problem has been that the CIA is averse to tough counterintelligence, viewing it as an impediment to their offensive spying efforts. The FBI continues to view counterintelligence from a law enforcement perspective, which means that instead of exploiting spy cases for counterintelligence operations against the enemies, they tend to first focus on “putting the cuffs” on spies, when that should only be one option. The better course of action is to find the spies and then turn them to our strategic advantage.

Lopez: Your book is, ultimately, about how bad our intelligence is. Has it gotten any better in the wake of 9/11? What can be done?

Gertz: Enemies in some ways is a follow-up to my 2003 book Breakdown, on the intelligence failures related to the September 11 attacks, but with a special emphasis on counterintelligence, that is, the failures of counterintelligence agencies and the need to fix the problem so that we can defend our nation from spies, saboteurs and terrorists.

U.S. intelligence agencies remain mired in what I call crushing bureaucratization — the loss of focus on national, strategic goals and the overemphasis on protecting bureaucratic turf, budgets and personnel. The problem is seriously undermining our national security.

The intelligence community is bloated, with too many agencies doing to many of the same things. Restructuring is needed to upgrade our intelligence services to the 21st Century. While some reform has been carried out, there is so much more that needs to be done. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in my view, has become another layer of bureaucracy on the overly bureaucratic system. It turns out that what the intelligence community didn’t need was a czar who could make all well.

We need smaller agencies with better people and radically different operating methods and procedures.

[Sean Osborne]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...e2151021.shtml
Serious Security Breach At Los Alamos
Nov. 3, 2006
The recent security breach at Los Alamos National Laboratory was very serious, with sensitive materials being taken out of the facility — possibly including information on how to deactivate locks on nuclear weapons, officials tell CBS News.

Officials say there is no evidence the information taken from Los Alamos was sold or transferred to anybody else, but there is no way to be sure right now.

As CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson was first to report, secret documents apparently taken from the lab were found during a drug raid at a Los Alamos-area homelast month. The FBI was called in to investigate.

(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/24/national/main2122004.shtml)
Multiple sources now tellCBS News that the material includes sensitive weapons-design data. A federal official who has been briefed on the issue said at least three USB thumb-drives were involved. Those small storage drives contained 408 separate classified documents ranging in importance from Secret National Security Information (pertaining to intelligence) to Secret Restricted Data (pertaining to nuclear weapons).

All of the information came from the classified document video media vault inside the Lab. Federal officials also found 228 pages — printed front and back — of classified documents in the drug trailer during their investigation.

The woman believed to have taken the information — the owner of the trailer — worked in three classified vault rooms across Los Alamos:

• • Safeguards and Security (relating to strategic nuclear material control and accountability)
  • X-Division (top secret)
  • Physics P-Division.

The woman had top secret "Q-clearance" with access to all the U.S. underground nuclear test data. Additionally, she had "Sigma 15" clearance, which allows her access to info on how to deactivate locks on nuclear weapons.

For example, if a terrorist steals an American nuclear weapon, he could not detonate it due to the special access controls. This woman is authorized to read the reports that tell how to get around those safety controls.

Only the FBI will be able to tell for sure what's on the thumb drives, but British security officials are worried that design plans for Trident nuclear weapons are among the stolen documents. They are making inquiries of U.S. officials. Britain used to test its nuclear weapons in the United States, and data on those tests may have been held at Los Alamos.
Los Alamos has a history of high-profile security problems in the past decade, with the most notable the case of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee. After years of accusations, Lee pleaded guilty in a plea bargain to one count of mishandling nuclear secrets at the lab.

In 2004, the lab was essentially shut down after an inventory showed that two computer disks containing nuclear secrets were missing. A year later the lab concluded that it was just a mistake and the disks never existed
(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/27/tech/main614068.shtml).

But the incident highlighted sloppy inventory control and security failures at the nuclear weapons lab. The Energy Department then began moving toward a five-year program to create a so-called diskless environment at Los Alamos to prevent any classified material being carried outside the lab.

[American Patriot]

The woman had top secret "Q-clearance" with access to all the lace w:st="on">U.S.lace> underground nuclear test data. Additionally, she had "Sigma 15" clearance, which allows her access to info on how to deactivate locks on nuclear weapons.

No, that's bullshit. the part about what a "Q-clearance" is. That's a designation used by DOE, not DOD. A "Q" does NOT give her "on all underground nuclear test data".....

duh. What a lot of morons out there.

[Sean Osborne]

---

Hollow Military 2.0
By Gary J. Schmitt
AEI.org | November 6, 2006

The defense budget has grown appreciably since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But too little of the increase has gone to purchase new equipment or to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps. The result has been a “hollow buildup” that makes it increasingly difficult for the U.S. military to carry out its part of ’s national security strategy.

Unprecedented. In August 2006, General Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, refused to submit an Army budget proposal for fiscal year (FY) 2008 to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The Air Force and Navy heads met the August 15 deadline, but General Schoomaker, limited to a $114 billion budget top line by the Pentagon’s civilian leadership, simply said no. The Army was seeking a top line of $138 billion. As he explained in a speech at the National Press Club shortly thereafter: “There is no sense in submitting a budget that we cannot execute . . . a broken budget.”[1] For the first time in anyone’s memory, a service chief was allowed to ignore a secretary of defense’s budget guidance and appeal directly to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for relief.[2]

But a one-time bump in the Army’s budget will not cure what ails it. The logjam of tanks and other military vehicles and helicopters is massive. Some 2,000 tanks, M2 Bradley fighting vehicles, and Humvees await repairs at various Army depots. To begin to address this problem, the Army requested and received a supplemental of $17 billion this year to repair and replace vehicles worn out or destroyed in Iraq and . It believes it will need an extra $13 billion next year and similar amounts for the following years just to stay on top of the problem.[3] As Army officials explained to Congress last year, the service was already $50 billion short in equipment before the terrorist attacks of September 11, and with the wars the equipment deficit has only grown worse.[4]

Equally significant, the men and women of the Army are exhausted. We are now in the sixth year of the global War on Terror. Sustaining operations in Afghanistan, , and around the world has come at a high cost. It is increasingly difficult to keep 150,000 soldiers in the field, fighting year after year, with an active duty force of some 500,000--and not wear out that force. By not expanding the Army’s numbers significantly, the Pentagon now has on its hands a force whose overall readiness is faltering. Faced with continual rotations into and out of the theaters of conflict, the Army reportedly has no more than 10,000 soldiers who are not currently deployed and who are at the level of readiness necessary to handle a new military crisis should one occur.
Although the Army (and to a lesser extent the Marine Corps) has borne the brunt of the recent wars, both the Air Force and Navy face significant budget woes as well.[5] In the case of the Air Force, its fleet of last-generation fighters and fighter bombers is showing its age through increased metal fatigue. The refueling tankers, which give those short-range fighters the “legs” necessary to sustain operations over distant targets, are now three times the average age of compa-rable commercial jets now flying. Its bomber fleet is old and so numerically small--there are fewer than 200--that it would be hard-pressed to sustain operations over a prolonged period against a major military power. According to Air Force chief of staff General T. Michael Moseley, his service is at least $20 billion short of funds for this year and for each succeeding year.
Of all the services, the Navy seems the least stressed. Yet it too faces major budgetary pressures in the years ahead. The “600-ship” Navy of the 1980s dropped to less than 400 ships by 1995, the smallest battle fleet since before World War II. And it has continued to shrink, falling through the 300-ship benchmark in 2003 on its way to a floor of some 280 ships. The Navy hopes to turn that trend around and rebuild the fleet to 313 ships, a size that it believes is necessary to handle possible major military contingencies--such as a North Korean invasion of South Korea or a Chinese attack against Taiwan--while at the same time carrying out its other global responsibilities.
But even the Navy anticipates a flat service budget in the years ahead. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Navy is underestimating its planned shipbuilding costs by as much as $5 billion per year over the next three decades. The Navy’s modest goal of a 313-ship fleet is based on optimistic assumptions by the Navy. Among the more problematic of these assumptions are that Navy personnel costs will remain flat; that fleet operations and maintenance costs will not rise; that the target costs for building new ships across every ship class will be accurate; and that the Navy’s own major aviation procurement plans over the next two decades will not balloon in cost and, in turn, reduce available funds for shipbuilding. The Navy might have better luck playing the slots in than in betting that each of these assumptions will come up aces.[6]

The problems described above may be surprising to most Americans, given that the defense budget has grown appreciably since the September 11 attacks. Recently, President George W. Bush signed the 2007 Defense Authorization bill, which provides some $463 billion for the Pentagon and an additional $70 billion, for ongoing costs related to the fighting in Iraq and . The will now be spending more than half a trillion dollars on its military in the year ahead. That is a lot of money by any account.
Yet as Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments has noted, America’s military buildup has been “a hollow buildup,” filled largely with funds for operations, maintenance, readiness, and health care--but not for the acquisition of new military systems or added manpower.[7] To be sure, between FY 2000 and FY 2006, spending for planes, ships, and systems increased from $55 billion to $78 billion, and the Army’s end strength was bumped up by 30,000 troops. Nevertheless, these increases are inad-equate given the needs of the military, the wear and tear of war on both men and materiel, and the set of global responsibilities placed on the American military by existing treaty obligations and the strategic policies of the last two presidents.
How Did We Get Here?

The collapse of the Soviet Union inevitably gave rise to calls to cut ’s Cold War force structure. Throughout the 1990s, that is precisely what happened. But these cuts were based on the mistaken premise that the active duty forces of the early 1990s were the same forces with which the United States would have gone to war against the In reality, America’s active duty forces were stationed around the world to buy time until the United States and its allies could muster the additional hundreds of thousands of reserve troops needed to wage the actual war. The force of the early 1990s was, in effect, America’s global placeholder, deterring threats in key regions of the world and reassuring allied states that the would be there should a conflict erupt. Yet these tasks remain. The decision to cut U.S. forces since then has made it increasingly difficult to provide this necessary global presence, especially when combined with the fact that the American military has been asked to take on mission after mission (Panama, the first Gulf War, the Balkans, Haiti, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq) since the Cold War’s end.[8]
As a nation, we could have said no to all or most of those missions. Yet one of the most striking facts of the post-Cold War era has been that both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush took office determined to have play a less active day-to-day role on the world stage. Clinton left and Bush will leave office having accepted the same basic fact of international life: in the absence of an effective system of global governance, the will inevitably be left with the primary responsibility for keeping the peace. Moreover, doing so means that we will also be in the cross hairs of those whose agendas we frustrate by playing that role, requiring in turn a commitment on our part to deter and, if necessary, confront them militarily. In short, while many have suggested that the United States undertake fewer overseas commitments, the logic of the international system is such that no administration--Democratic or Republican--has seen fit to stem the demand for U.S. forces. Unlike the title of the old Broadway play, Stop the World--I Want to Get Off, the cannot just withdraw.

When it comes to providing adequate resources for our military, however, we seem to act as though we can. Beginning in the early 1990s, dug a hole for the military from which the services have yet to climb out. Comparing the final defense plan put forward by the George H. W. Bush administration in 1992 for the Future Years Defense Program with what the Clinton administration actually spent over those years, the net reduction totals $162 billion. Although Congress added $50 billion to the administration’s requests through budget amendments and supplemental spending bills, most of the additions went to cover shortfalls in operations and readiness. These added funds did not “buy back” the administration’s deferred procurement of weapons and its cuts in active duty personnel. Indeed, the Clinton administration’s last budget (FY 2001) was the first to fulfill its own stated goal of providing $60 billion for new equipment and systems--a goal that had been set years before.[9] In other words, even by the Clinton Pentagon’s own measure, the procurement deficit was approaching $70 billion.[10] Others placed the figure considerably higher. For example, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had put the bottom-line figure for procurement at $75 billion a year.[11] In 2000, the CBO was arguing that some $90 billion was needed annually just to maintain a steady rate of procurement for the forces then in place.[12]

Given the Bush team’s campaign rhetoric in 2000 that “help [was] on the way” for the military, one might have expected the Bush administration to have substantially increased procurement spending. It has not. If the CBO estimate is taken as a baseline, the shortfall in spending from the Bush years now totals an additional $100 billion. And, for FY 2007, the defense procurement budget remains at just over $84 billion, below the $90 billion target suggested by the CBO. When inflation is taken into account, the shortfall is even larger in real terms.

Nor has there been much relief on the personnel front. From 1989 to 1999, military end strength was cut from 2.1 million to 1.4 million. For the Army in particular, this meant a dramatic reduction in the number of divisions--from eighteen to ten. As early as 1997, the House Armed Services Committee reported that the Army was being worn down by repeated deployments and that readiness levels were low and getting lower. Factor in two major wars, stabilization, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency operations, and the marginal increase in Army manpower (approximately 30,000) in recent years is little more than a Band-Aid for what ails ’s ground forces.
When the military became an all-volunteer force, the undertook an implicit contract with those signing up for military service. In exchange for a young man or woman’s commitment to serve and fight for the nation, the country would provide him or her with decent pay and a chance to raise a family in an American middle-class lifestyle. Military pay and benefits have largely kept up with this promise. But with the size of the present active-duty force and repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, we have created a situation in which military families--especially those in the Army and the Marines--are being pulled apart as husbands, wives, and parents are constantly rotated into and out of the theaters of war. To maintain a force of 150,000 in Iraq and Afghanistan requires a base force larger than today’s if we expect to keep readiness levels adequate, train and educate officers, and not exhaust the men and women who are putting their lives on the line.
The Five Percent Solution
If the government’s projected budgets hold true, these problems will only get worse. According to OMB budget tables, defense spending is expected to decline from 4.1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2006 to 3.1 percent by 2011.[13] Yet because of deferments in procurement from the early 1990s on, there is a planned wave of new systems and platforms coming on line in the years ahead to replace and upgrade worn-out and outdated equipment. This “procurement bow wave” cannot possibly be met under current spending plans.[14] If the Pentagon’s budget is not increased, it is inevitable that the American military will shrink in terms of both materiel and manpower. And, in turn, the gap between what our national security strategy calls for and what the men and women of the military are able to provide will continue to grow.[15]
Although the defense budget has increased, the non-war budget (which excludes the supplemental appropriations passed each year to pay for operations in Iraq and has grown by only 22 percent when adjusted for inflation.[16] The Pentagon is not breaking the nation’s bank. On the contrary, as a share of both the economy and the federal budget, military spending has been declining. In FY 1991, for example, defense expenditures accounted for over 20 percent of federal outlays; in FY 2011, they are expected to account for just 16 percent.
Despite the fact that the country is at war, defense spending as a percentage of the national economy remains low relative to any set of years since World War II. Hence, as AEI visiting scholar Lawrence Lindsey, the former chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, has noted, the economy is more than able to handle what needs to be spent on defense. That cost, moreover, like any investment, should be calculated based on the benefits it secures: success in Iraq, the defeat of the global jihadists, and deterrence of other hostile states would be an immense return on money spent.[17] Dedicating 5 percent of the country’s GDP--a nickel on the dollar--to defense is a wise investment.
Winning in Iraq and Afghanistan, winning the global War on Terror, having the arms and men to react to a new crisis--be it with Iran, North Korea, or an imploding Pakistan--and preparing the military to hedge against a rising China are all tasks that the United States and its military will face in coming years. Attempting to carry out those missions within planned defense budgets is a recipe for failure--and one potentially far more costly than the increased spending necessary to tackle each of these missions effectively.
Gary J. Schmitt (gschmitt@aei.org) is a resident scholar and the director of the Program on Advanced Strategic Studies at AEI. This National Security Outlook is adapted from an introductory essay entitled "Numbers Matter" in a forthcoming AEI Press book on defense needs, edited by Thomas Donnelly and Mr. Schmitt.
AEI research assistant Rebecca Weissburg and editorial assistant Evan Sparks worked with Mr. Schmitt to edit and produce this National Security Outlook.



Notes
1. Cited in Peter Spiegel, “Army Warns Rumsfeld It’s Billions Short,” Los Angeles Times, September 25, 2006.

2. Thom Shanker and David S. Cloud, “Rumsfeld Shift Lets Army Seek Larger Budget,” New York Times, October 8, 2006. According to news reports, the Army’s appeal to the OMB to increase its budget for next year has not panned out. (David S. Cloud, “White House Is Trimming Army Budget for Next Year, Officials Say,” New York Times, October 28, 2006).

3. Fred Kaplan, “How Bush Wrecked the Army,” Slate, September 25, 2006, available at www.slate.com/id/2150337 (accessed October 24, 2006); and “Army Gets $17B to Reset Equipment,” Defense News, October 9, 2006.

4. Thom Shanker and Davis S. Cloud, “Rumsfeld Shift Lets Army Seek Larger Budget.”

5. Loren B. Thompson, “An Aging Air Force Struggles to Keep Its Edge,” Lexington Institute Issues Brief, October 11, 2006, available at http://lexingtoninstitute.org/1000.shtml (accessed October 24, 2006); “U.S. Military Services Talk Budget Directly with OMB,” Defense News, September 18, 2006; and “USAF Secretary Polishes Sales Pitch,” Defense News, September 18, 2006.

6. Robert O. Work, “Numbers and Capabilities: Building a Navy for the 21st Century,” chapter in a forthcoming AEI Press book on defense needs, edited by Thomas Donnelly and Gary J. Schmitt.

7. Cited in Dave Ahearn, “Weapons Systems Seem Unaffordable in Coming Years,” Defense Today, February 22, 2006.

8. Even before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military was busy. As the House Armed Services Committee noted in the report accompanying the Defense Authorization Act for FY 2001, “The U.S. armed forces were employed overseas more times in the past decade than in the previous forty-five years. Since 1989, the Army has participated in thirty-five major deployments.” (House Committee on Armed Services, Report on H.R. 4205, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001, 106th Cong., 2nd sess., 2001, H. Rep. 106-616, 12, available at http://armedservices.house.gov/billsandreports/106thcongress/hr4205committeereport.pdf [accessed October 24, 2006].)

9. Bradley Graham, “Pentagon Leaders Urge Accelerated 50 Percent Boost in Procurement,” Washington Post, November 11, 1995.

10. In testimony before Congress prior to stepping down from his position as deputy secretary of defense, John Hamre noted: “Even though [the Clinton administration] got to $60 billion in [its] modernization budget, we’re still not really making up for the hole that we dug for ourselves during . . . the second half of the ’80s and the ’90s.” (House Committee on Armed Services, Report on H.R. 4205, 15.)

11. See Anthony H. Cordesman, Trends in U.S. Defense Spending: The Size of Funding, Procurement, and Readiness Problems Washington, DC: Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2000), 7, available at www.csis.org/index.php?option=com_csis_pubs&task=view&id=1668 (accessed October 24, 2006). For a direr estimate of the procurement budget problems, see Daniel Gouré and Jeffrey M. Ranney, Averting the Defense Train Wreck in the New Millennium (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1999).

12. Congressional Budget Office, Budgeting for Defense: Maintaining Today’s Forces, September 2000, summary, available at www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=2398&sequence=1 (accessed October 24, 2006).

13. Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2007: Historical Tables Washington, DCwww.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy07/pdf/hist.pdf (accessed October 24, 2006).

14. Congressional Budget Office, The Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans and Alternatives: Summary Update for Fiscal Year 2006, October 2005, available at www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/67xx/doc6786/10-17-LT_Defense.pdf (accessed October 24, 2006); Congressional Budget Office, The Long-Term Implications of Current Defense Plans and Alternatives: Detailed Update for Fiscal Year 2006, January 2006, available at www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/70xx/doc7004/01-06-DPRDetailedUpdate.pdf (accessed October 24, 2006); Dave Ahearn, “Procurement Crunch Won’t Be Averted by Ending Tax Cuts,” Defense Today, February 2, 2006; Richard Mullen, “Analysts See Gaps between Budget, QDR [Quadrennial Defense Review],” Defense Today, February 10, 2006; and Dave Ahearn, “Weapons Systems Seem Unaffordable in Coming Years.”

15. National Security Council, The National Security Strategy of the United States Washington, DC: The White House, 2002 and 2006), available at www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006/ (accessed October 24, 2006).

16. Stephen Daggett, Defense Budget: Long-Term Challenges for FY 2006 and Beyond, report prepared for the Congressional Research Service, April 20, 2005.

17. Lawrence B. Lindsey, “National Security Report Card” (conference presentation, Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, April 21, 2006).

[Sean Osborne]

No, that's bullshit. the part about what a "Q-clearance" is. That's a designation used by DOE, not DOD. A "Q" does NOT give her "on all underground nuclear test data".....

duh. What a lot of morons out there.

Whoa... Hold on a sec, Rick, the security clearance data is not BS.

The security clearance information in the report is absolutely correct.

Los Alamos National Laboratory is a part of the nationwide group of Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories and technology centers.

See here: (Number 8 counting from the top down)

http://www.energy.gov/organization/labs-techcenters.htm

Clicking the LANL link will take you here:

http://www.lanl.gov/

Cursor " ABOUT LANAL " and click on " ORGANIZATION " will take you here:

http://www.lanl.gov/organization/

Where you'll see these words:

As one of the U.S. Department of Energy's multi-program, multi-disciplinary research laboratories, Los Alamos thrives on having the best people doing the best science to solve problems of global importance.

Los Alamos uses, or I should say, is supposed to adhere to the DOE's systems of security safeguards - including clearances.

This is a DOE security breach ... NOT a DOD security breach.

[Ryan Ruck]

Sean,
Great minds think alike! Thanks for posting that above article. I had it in my batch to post but you beat me to it!

It is a disturbing trend...

[American Patriot]

Whoa... Hold on a sec, Rick, the security clearance data is not BS.

The security clearance information in the report is absolutely correct.

It's bullshit.

Sorry Sean, this time you're completely incorrect to assume that article is right.

No, a "Q clearance" does NOT give her "access on all underground nuclear test data".

NO NO NO. Doesn't do any such thing.

A "Q" clearance is exactly the same as a TS clearance. Period. Nothing SPECIAL about it. I know this for a fact and I am VERY familiar with the site links you posted. Since you guys don't really know what I DO for a living we will leave it at that. Suffice it to say that if what you said were "true" then *I* would have "access to all underground nuclear test data". I don't.

I'm not going to argue this one in public, your sources are wrong, and misinterperting exactly what "clearance" means. Sorry. Wrong. Wrong Wrong.

[American Patriot]

Let me clarify something.

I DO know what I am talking about when it comes to both dod and doe clearances.

I also know that what you have access to is NOT wholly dependent upon the clearance level. For example if you have a TS or a Q clearance.... this does NOT mean you automatically have access to anything at that level.

You MUST have the clearance.

And you MUST have "A NEED TO KNOW".

Those two things go hand-in-hand and you can't assume because someone had clearance means they had access.

There perhaps might have been a need-to-know for this woman to have access to that data (or whomever is involved), but reporting that "because she had a Q she had access to this or that" is NOT FACTUAL REPORTING.

Sorry. There's more to the story, certainly.

But I want this clarified... JUST because someone has a clearance to some level, does NOT automatically give them ACCESS to anything or everything.

Period.

[American Patriot]

The woman had top secret "Q-clearance" with access to all the U.S. underground nuclear test data. Additionally, she had "Sigma 15" clearance, which allows her access to info on how to deactivate locks on nuclear weapons.

For example, if a terrorist steals an American nuclear weapon, he could not detonate it due to the special access controls. This woman is authorized to read the reports that tell how to get around those safety controls.

Let me go through this carefully.....

1) She had a Q clearance.
2) She HAD access to all the data.
3) She has a sigma 15 clearance (that's basically a type of caveat, related to the data below):

A. Critical Nuclear Weapon Design Information (CNWDI) is a U.S. Department of Defense category of TOP SECRET Restricted Data or SECRET Restricted Data that reveals the theory of operation or design of the components of a nuclear weapon. Access to CNWDI is supposed to be kept to the minimum number of individuals needed.

To ASSUME however that just BECAUSE someone has a "Q" clearance and that automatically gives her access is incorrect.

Sean, I don't care if it is DOE or DOD, I'm familiar with both, am cleared in both venues and I deal with this sort of thing. So... let's NOT assume that because someone HAS a clearance she is automatically authorized.

I'm coming down on this for a very important reason and you know what it is I think....

Over the course of several years I have dealt quite intimately with some of the Conspiracy Theorists out there on the internet.

One of their MAIN attacks used to make others look bad is a blanket statement... "You had clearance so you MUST know"... I've even had that line used AGAINST me.

It's a conspiracy theorist's wet-dream to be able to prove something that a person can't acknowledge or deny based on a clearance... you all know the FAMOUS "I can neither confirm nor deny" statement, I know. Well, I can neither confirm nor deny any allegations or suspicions where classified material is involved.

That means that people who gave that information to the reporter are:

1) Out of line
2) Don't KNOW what they are talking about
3) Gave information to the media that SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN GIVEN
4) Liars

Either way, that information most definately should NOT have been in the hands of reporters in any way, shape or form.

[Sean Osborne]

It's bullshit.

Sorry Sean, this time you're completely incorrect to assume that article is right.

You missed my point completely.

Where in that article is the DoD referenced at all?

The fact is the DoD is not referenced... the DoE is explicitly referenced because they're reporting on a breach of security at LANL.

That was my point.

YOU brought up the DOD issue -

No, that's bullshit. the part about what a "Q-clearance" is. That's a designation used by DOE, not DOD.

MY point was to highlight that the DOD had nothing to do with the report.

That's all. I do know what I am talking about, and YOU somehow completely misinterpreted my post.

Period.

[Sean Osborne]

Sean,
Great minds think alike! Thanks for posting that above article. I had it in my batch to post but you beat me to it!

It is a disturbing trend...

Ryan,

With the results of the mid-term elections now in, none of those items requiring immediate attention will be fixed.

We are in very deep doo-doo. A huge crisis looms dead ahead. I'll share my thoughts in what I just sent to a friend in the form of an email.

We got into it some deep doo-doo overnight. And it's likely even worse than what I am about to say because of some things we've not paid attention to or took for granted because of the (now extinct) Republican majority in Congress.

I believe POTUS will execute as best he can over the next two years, but his ability to robustly do so will end with FY07. This means that at best POTUS has just 11 months to win in Iraq' stymie Iran and North Korea. Venezuela, Cuba and Islamofascism in Latin Armerica will not get the attention they deserve.

With both the House and Senate in Democrat hands the GWOT will very likely be de-funded, and the deployed troops will be forced to return home before becoming mission complete; our broken and hollow military will not be repaired, and probably become even more broken, hollow and ill-equipped. These were Democrat campaign promises they are certain to keep.

Our enemies will make an acute note of this. I am also doubting the Euro/NATO ability to complete the mission in Afghanistan.

Even worse, our coming retreat from the heart of islamofascism will come at the worst possible time because a major war involving Iran, Syria and Hezbollah against Israel is imminent, and it has every chance of going nuclear at some point because Israel will have to fend for itself.

The American voters, albeit by slim margins, have given the islamofascists exactly what they wanted and they did not have to get us running like Spaniards by detonating a single bomb. Yes, I think we are in deep doo-doo and I did not even have to mention the name Al Qaeda.

And let me back up a little... The 11 months I mentioned above is just from looking at the fiscal monies already in the pipe for 07. The actual time is much shorter.
Remember the $94.5 billion "emergency" supplemental bill that was hung up this past summer with a Republican majority in Congress? Itnearly screwed the war effort as well as the rear eschelon warfighter support base. It is my understanding that money will be exhausted in about 4 or 5 months.

And there's a whole slew of the Rumsfeld-Pentagon BRAC moves which need funding to execute as required by law. Because of the war most of those moves are un-funded, so I am told.


Here comes the literal bottom line --- the national debt was intentionally raised this year by $3.67 trillion to $9.62 trillion so that we could afford this war. As of this morning the national debt is just about $8.7 trillion and climbing at a rate of $2.14 billion per day. National debt headroom is now less than $1 trillion. A major financial crisis lies dead ahead.

And Democrats now have control of the bank and the ability to raise taxes.

Damn. I'm in a really, really foul mood today. Just pissed-off deluxe.

[frankrm]

Perfect set up. Attack soon and you have a house divided. Instead of focusing on the attacker the Democrats will blame the Republicans and visa versa. The idea is to have us fight one another and have internal disintigration. A economic hit followed by a major strike would blow the entitlements programs that will futher civil rebellion. From grey to pink to red. Easy pickins.

[Sean Osborne]

Make no mistake... all this talk of bipartisanship from Pelosi and the other radical leftist democrats is absolute garbage, and as soon as they are able they will attempt to get Rumsfled charged with war crimes and Bush impeached. We are really in some deep doo-doo now.

[Backstop]

We ELECTED some of our worst enemies. I'm almost convinced we lost because some Conservatives voted 3rd Party. If they voted that to teach the Reps a lesson, shame on them. Their votes allowed the Dems to win.

Frankly, the last few elections were voted to keep people out of office, rather than put people there. You know, the lesser of 2 evils deal.

This has been beaten to death over at ARFCOM, but I gotta tell you - I also think we're in deep shit.

Pelosi et al stop funding the GWOT, the troops come home, the mil manpower gets cut, then WHAMO! we get nailed by the islamoterrorists.

I know some of you remember the mil manpower cuts of the 80's...

And then there's 'the 2nd doesn't really apply to individuals' issue. They will enact another ban - but I think it'll be much stricter than previously.

Good Lord, we are really in trouble.

[Sean Osborne]

Backstop...

And what do you think will happen to 2nd Amendment gun rights with these leftists in majority control of both the House and Senate? During the Clinton era only a Republican majority kept them in check. Now they're back with a lame duck President and a questionable Supreme Court.

[Backstop]

We're gonna lose Sean - and lose big time.

They'll trample the Constitution like illegal aliens trample the American flag.

And what bothers me most about this entire situation is that we're powerless. I despise that position. What can we do? Riot? Throw the 'tea' overboard? Tar and feather? The reality is all we can - and will do - is bend over.

The Houses will do what they're programmed to do. The Reps may do some kicking and screaming - but in the end President Bush and/or his replacement will sign.

The Guest Worker Prog and are HUGE issues. They will change this nation forever.

And I haven't heard one person anywhere mention John Bolton. Once his tour is over at the UN, who will be his replacement? The Dems didn't like/want him - so will they install an individual who will act more in line with the UN's policies - specifically the UN Gun Ban?



EDIT:

Forgot - heard Bill Bennett this morning say that 'Robert Gates wouldn't allow me to do some things when I was drug czar.'

I got the impression he thought Robert Gates was soft.

I saw Robert Gates speak yesterday - he just didn't seem to project himself.

[Malsua]

Man, I can't think of anything positive to say. Bush is an ASSHOLE. He's going to sign that god damn alien amnesty. He's going to bend over and let Nancy Pelosi shove a rubber fist up his Anus and make him parrot her words.

It's over Johnny. Protect your own and keep your head down.

[American Patriot]

You missed my point completely.

Where in that article is the DoD referenced at all?

The fact is the DoD is not referenced... the DoE is explicitly referenced because they're reporting on a breach of security at LANL.

No, I didn't miss the point, and I didn't bring up a DOD issue, I said "Q" is a DOE designation, not DOD. I went on to clarify that Q is nothing more than a TS clearance with a "fancy" name.

I'm not arguing any points here, except to say that when people are given certain information in the media someone needs to be held responsible for giving that information out.

The material you posted before came from an article where at least one classified item was mentioned.

[American Patriot]

And what do you think will happen to 2nd Amendment gun rights with these leftists in majority control of both the House and Senate? During the Clinton era only a Republican majority kept them in check. Now they're back with a lame duck President and a questionable Supreme Court.

They won't be able to pass a bill, if the boss Vetos it. Secondly, no one has a 2/3s majority it appears to me -- which means that if he vetos something, they can't override. If they can't override, gridlock.

Pelosi is a piece of shit, along with all her leftist, anti-gun friends, Cindy Shehan, Michael Moore and others like them.

They are pro-communist all the way, they LIKE Hugo Chavez, Castro, and that sonofabitch Ortega -- whom I'd personally like to shoot myself.

Yep, I said it. If he'd had raised his ugly head in the 1970s' I'd have blown it off. His communist forces tried to kill me more than once, along with other people -- AMERICANS and others, and he needs to NOT be back in office.

I heard Jimma Carter was shaking his hand a couple of days ago again....


Well, don't give up folks. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

[Sean Osborne]

If they can't override, gridlock.

Rick,

There it is, you said it, and exactly what you said gets to the heart of the issue as I am seeing it.

How does this nation fight a war for its survival in a political gridlock environment?

Moreover, knowing their extremist political agenda, and whom they truly favor, and the expectation that the political process will be further encumbered with "war crimes" and all manner of political witch-hunting to further their agenda...

How does this nation concurrently and effectively fight an existential war for its survival?