Slew of NDAA Amendments Expected on Nukes, Afghanistan, Iran, Drones, Etc.

The full U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to begin debate of the House Armed Services Committee-passed 2014 defense authorization on Wednesday afternoon. With a long list of amendments expected, the expectation on Capitol Hill is the chamber’s work on the legislation will stretch into Friday. As usual, the floor process will be a long…

Task Force: Killer Drone

  If there’s one thing that Washington D.C. loves, it’s a good Task Force. To that end, the Stimson Center announced last week that former CENTCOM chief (Ret.) Gen. John Abizaid will head up a new Task Force looking at US drone policy. The 15-month study “will bring together legal, national security, political and military…

Drop That Budget Ax Or the Zebra Gets It

The above image caught the Intercepts staff off guard, eliciting furrowed brows and a few chuckles. It reminded this correspondent of something out of the Showtime comedy series “House of Lies,” in which eccentric advertising/marketing consultants take the art of spin to new levels in the pursuit of their clients’ goals. The image is the…

And the (Drone) War Drums Beat On

President Barack Obama last week told the world he intends to scale back his armed drone program. Well, try telling that to a handful of alleged al-Qaida operatives who, apparently until Wednesday, resided in northwest Pakistan. The Obama administration green-lighted a drone strike in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region that one think tank says killed between…

Previewing Obama’s New Drone-Strike Policy: ‘A Dial, Not A Switch’

President Barack Obama is slated to deliver what even his top aides are billing as a landmark counterterrorism speech, with the commander in chief expected to announce his administration will tighten the targeting rules governing drone aircraft strikes. Attorney General Eric Holder, in a letter sent to lawmakers this week, stated the new CT policy…

A Turf War Over Obama’s Drone War

As the Obama administration carries out its drone war on al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen, a senior lawmaker on Thursday fired the latest shot in a simmering Capitol Hill turf war over which committees will oversee the program. House Armed Services Committee Vice Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, is pushing legislation that would…

CORRECTED: The Road to Military Intervention in Syria Runs Through…the CVC?

The Obama administration is sending two senior officials to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to brief Senate Armed Services Committee members in a classified session on the situation in Syria. Notably, the briefers are both senior Pentagon officials. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy James Miller and Army Lt. Gen. Terry Wolf, director of the Joint Staff’s strategic…

Red Line? Obama Remains Unconvinced Syria’s Assad Ordered Chemical Attack

Did Syrian President Bashar al-Assad order his forces to use chemical weapons? U.S. President Barack Obama doesn’t know. And until he’s sure, it’s unlikely American forces will intervene in that nation’s civil war. When it comes to chemical weapons, Obama told reporters during a White House briefing, that because those arms can kill so many…

CRS: Military Likely to Get Some Intel Community Tools, Missions

The Defense Department stands to benefit from changes at the Central Intelligence Agency that likely will be driven by budget cuts and operational needs, says the Congressional Research Service. In a report dated April 23 and released by the Federation of American Scientists, CRS predicts “a new set of intelligence challenges resulting from budgetary realities and from second-order…