Thursday, Jan 08th
Last update08:51:27 AM GMT
Military Glance
Fifty-one crew members of the USS Ronald Reagan say they are suffering from a variety of cancers as a direct result of their involvement in Operation Tomodachi, a U.S. rescue mission in Fukushima after the nuclear disaster in March 2011.
The affected sailors are suing Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), alleging that the utility mishandled the crisis and did not adequately warn the crew of the risk of participating in the earthquake relief efforts.
A long-awaited study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a link between tainted tap water at a U.S. Marine Corps base in North Carolina and increased risk of serious birth defects and childhood cancers.
The authors of the study on Camp Lejeune released late Thursday by the CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry warned it is based on a small sample size and cannot prove exposure to the chemicals caused specific individuals to become ill.
Linda Woodford spent the last 15 years of her career inserting phony numbers in the U.S. Department of Defense’s accounts.
Every month until she retired in 2011, she says, the day came when the Navy would start dumping numbers on the Cleveland, Ohio, office of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, the Pentagon’s main accounting agency. Using the data they received, Woodford and her fellow DFAS accountants there set about preparing monthly reports to square the Navy’s books with the U.S. Treasury’s - a balancing-the-checkbook maneuver required of all the military services and other Pentagon agencies.
A National Guard veteran injured while training for combat has lost her battle to obtain the enhanced benefits provided to those injured while engaged in combat.
In a decision potentially important for other training-injured vets as well, U.S. Court of Federal Claims Judge Edward J. Damich rejected the pleas of former New York National Guard soldier Tanya L. Towne.
Air Force officers entrusted with the launch keys to long-range nuclear missiles have been caught twice this year leaving open a blast door that is intended to help prevent a terrorist or other intruder from entering their underground command post, Air Force officials said.
The blast doors are never to be left open if one of the crew members inside is asleep - as was the case in both these instances - out of concern for the trouble an intruder could cause, including the compromising of secret launch codes.
During an Oct. 12 press conference in Kabul, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that under the pending U.S.-Afghan security agreement, the United States would retain exclusive jurisdiction over its service members for any crimes they commit in Afghanistan.
Kerry unfortunately misstated U.S. law, policy and practice. What's worse, he did so at a critical juncture in the negotiations for an agreement to enable American troops to remain in Afghanistan after 2014. And he did this while standing next to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Kerry's misstatements undermined Karzai's ability to explain and advocate for the jurisdiction provisions at an upcoming loya jirga, or political assembly.
It was an innocuous e-mail, one of millions sent every day by spouses with updates on the situation at home. But this one was of particular interest to the National Security Agency, and contained clues that put the sender’s husband in the cross hairs of a CIA drone.
Days later, Hassan Ghul — an associate of Osama bin Laden who provided a critical piece of intelligence that helped the CIA find the al-Qaeda leader — was killed by a drone strike in Pakistan’s tribal belt.
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