Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

The New York Times
By Elisabeth Bumiller
November 4, 2009

WASHINGTON — The nation’s top military officer said Wednesday that he expected the Pentagon to ask Congress in the next few months for emergency financing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, even though President Obama has pledged to end the Bush administration practice of paying for the conflicts with so-called supplemental funds that are outside the normal Defense Department budget.

The financing would be on top of the $130 billion that Congress authorized for the wars just last month.

Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who is chairman of the House appropriations defense subcommittee, cited $40 billion last week as a hypothetical amount for the supplemental financing request. The number represented a standard calculation of $1 billion for every 1,000 troops deployed. …

Mr. Obama did include the $130 billion for the wars as part of his regular $668 billion defense budget this year, the first time that has happened since 2001. President George W. Bush regularly financed the wars with emergency requests that usually came after the Pentagon budget was introduced. …

www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/05military.html?_r=4&ref=world

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All Headline News
October 31, 2009
By Windsor Genova

Bogota, Colombia (AHN) – The Colombian and U.S. government signed a pact Friday that will allow American soldiers to station in the Latin American country’s seven military bases.

Colombian officials led by Foreign Minister Jaime Bermudez, Defense Minister Gabriel Silva and Interior and Justice Minister Fabio Valencia Cossio as well as U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield signed the pact in Bogota, Colombia’s capital.

Under the deal, the troops will fight terrorists, drug traffickers and Colombian rebels to secure both countries.

The U.S. have the same arrangement with El Salvador and Aruba-Curacao. Other troops were stationed in a U.S. base in Ecuador but the facility was shut down a few months ago.

Read more: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7016858082#ixzz0VhAhhVIx

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foreignpolicy.com
October 28, 2009

President Obama today nominated of Philip Coyle, a leading critic of Bush administration missile defense schemes, to be a top White House scientific advisor.

Coyle, who was the head weapons tester at the Pentagon during the Clinton administration, was nominated to become the Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. There he will lead a team tasked with giving scientific advice to Obama on a range of national security issues and will report to Director John Holdren.

Since his last tour at the Pentagon, Coyle has been a leading analyst on weapons systems for the Center for Defense Information, a component of the World Security Institute, a defense-minded think thank. From that perch, he’s been actively involved in several of the national security debates involving advanced technology and a staunch watchdog on the missile defense system the Bush administration rushed to deploy throughout its tenure.

Coyle has often pointed out that the testing done by the Pentagon on ballistic missile defense components since 2001 has been either shoddy or thin. Moreover, he has repeatedly questioned the basic rationale for investing billions to deploy ballistic missile defense around the world, especially in Eastern Europe.

“In my view, Iran is not so suicidal as to attack Europe or the United States with missiles,” he testified before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee in February, “But if you believe that Iran is bound and determined to attack Europe or America, no matter what, then I think you also have to assume that Iran would do whatever it takes to overwhelm our missile defenses, including using decoys to fool the defenses, launching stealthy warheads, and launching many missiles, not just one or two.”

Coyle has often argued that the Bush administration rushed to deploy missile defense systems around the world to build momentum and keep money flowing into the program. He has repeatedly said that the Missile Defense Agency has been amassing hardware that is either not aligned with the threat or can’t be relied on in case of an actual emergency.

Over $120 billion has been spent on ballistic missile defense since its inception during the Reagan administration. …

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/28/obama_chooses_leading_missile_defense_critic_for_advisory_post

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