Tag Archives: national security

DHS: Ten years old, feeling growing pains

WASHINGTON – The Department of Homeland Security has some growing to do and holes to fill.

That’s according to lawmakers on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, after they heard testimony from witnesses expressing concern about the structure of the department, which is made up of 22 different agencies.

“But the Department still has a way to go to fully realize the vision that we set for it in the Homeland Security Act,” said Chairman Joseph Lieberman, ID-Conn at the hearing.

“Its operational components are still not adequately integrated with the department’s headquarter offices and with each other, leading to suboptimal use of the department’s resources,” he continued.

Admiral Thad Allen was a key witness on the panel and stressed that the quick birth of the Department forced it to grow too much too fast.

“The time period between enactment of the legislation until the department was formed, there was a little over three months,” Allen said. “While this could be considered government at light speed, little time was available for deliberate planning and thoughtful consideration of available alternatives.”

At the time of the formation of the department, Allen was the Coast Guard chief of staff. He was challenged with the task of moving the Coast Guard into the vast new agency from its former home within the Department of Transportation.

Allen’s biggest concern 10 years ago, and still today, is the lack of planning within the support functions of the department.

Support functions, like accounting and human resources for the Department of Homeland Security, remain in the hands of the individual agencies. Funding for these functions then comes from the agencies and not from the Department of Homeland Security, Allen said.

That means there is no one person or committee within the department that handles all off the staff.

Allen described the differences in the appropriation structure of the components, or agencies, from legacy departments, or those departments that existed before the creation of the department.

“There is a lack of uniformity, comparability and transparency in budget presentations across the department,” he said.

By that, he means you can’t tell where money is going. It’s not easy to see if the money is being used to pay for the cost of employees or operational cost or investments in technology.

The Homeland Security Act required a five-year Future Years Homeland Security Plan outlining a planning, programming and budget framework. But this plan has never been effectively implemented, Allen said in his prepared testimony.

Allen also talked about an issue that witness, former California Democratic representative, Jane Harman made note of in her testimony; redefining our borders.

“As with ‘borders’ we must challenge our existing paradigm regarding ‘case-based’ investigative activities… It takes a network to defeat a network,” Harman said. Utilizing the advances in technology is key to building a strong information-sharing network, she said.

Information sharing and connecting the dots is something the Department hasn’t gotten right, said Harman, the former chairwoman of the House intelligence committee.

“First, the intel function has never fully developed. Part of the reason is that President George W. Bush stood up the Terrorist Threat Integration Center – now the National Counterterrorism Center – that put the mission of fusing intelligence outside of the Department,” she said.

State fusion centers sprung up across the country as part of the Homeland Security Act. Harman said law enforcement agencies report that even though these centers are a part of DHS, the centers provide better, timelier information than DHS itself.

“Intelligence reports are meant to be consumed by state and local law enforcement, but many of those entities consider DHS ‘spam’, cluttering inboxes,” Harman said.

Harman said that good information is flowing from ports of entry via Suspicious Activity Reports.  But when asked whether this information can be packaged in a way that is helpful for state and local law enforcement, she said, “At this point in time, the answer is no.’’

Admiral Allen and Harman agreed the federal government’s role and responsibilities within the department must be clearly defined.

“Congress has shortchanged the department,” by having so many congressional committees with oversight of it Harman said. “By failing to reorganize its committee structure, the homeland jurisdiction remains anemic. So the Department still has to answer to more than 80 committees and subcommittees.”

Harman stressed that Congress still hasn’t made a “single, principal point of oversight and review for homeland security issues and problems.”

Allen suggested that there be a law defining the government’s role in the Department and that better outlines the oversight of the Department.

Follow Malena @mcaruso2 on Twitter

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The Art of War: A novice reporter considers reporting on conflicts, terrorism and national security

Painting of shock and awe. “Baghdad Bombing”, from the Iraq Series: Shock and Awe I, by American painter Betty Herbert (b. 1929).

WASHINGTON—How would I begin to tell you about war?

If good journalism starts with asking good questions, I have to admit what little I know of the strategy behind the American-led wars of the last decade in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gaining a better understanding of how the military approaches war has armed me with some tools so that I can ask better questions and be more confident in reporting on national security, and also be a better-informed consumer of journalism on this topic.

When I think about my experience of America’s decade of post-9/11 wars, this is my first memory: I was seventeen and watching live images of American bombs bursting over Baghdad in a green glow. They were coming through on a snowy television signal on a March night; I was home from school for spring break and it was the beginning of wartime—whatever that means.

My reaction to war has often been confused and confusing—so how would I begin to try to report on one or the lives affected? I have no context for war in my own life, and so before taking the Covering Conflicts, Terrorism and National Security course at Medill, I found the topic too huge and abstract to approach.

The course has helped me to see why national security journalism is absolutely essential (a U.S. Senate panel just voted this week to authorize $631.4 billion in defense spending for the 2013 fiscal year!), and also as a reporting topic not too big for me to grasp. By learning the ways in which military, government and intelligence experts assess issues and develop strategies for handling them, they have become more accessible to me as reporting topics.

Is there a just war, and were these wars just? It is hard to know how to talk about war in a way that is not influenced by popular sentiment, political jargon or simply a default—that war is an atrocity, and as history has dictated, sometimes necessary.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be fought hard and fast, with little damage, American military officials said. But with war, ends have rarely, if ever, been achieved without brutal and costly means.

Understanding the tools military officials use to analyze war can help explain how these two wars were fought and why they worked, or didn’t. Like theory in the study of economics, war theory addresses an array of scenarios, decisions and outcomes. In an unpredictable field of possibilities, the strategy helps us to understand how our military leaders attempt to predict the unpredictable and make consequential decisions, at the most basic level, on assumptions.

The most subjective part (the why we went to war) is something that still remains up for debate. But that uncertainty is actually an assumption in the framework of war—a fact I actually found reassuring, because at least we can admit there is no right answer when it comes to war.

Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz wrote his principal work “On War” in 1832, and it remains a must-read exploration for those seeking to understand the moral and political implications of war.

Clausewitz set forth certain truths about war.

Fog and friction are inevitable. Uncertainty and unpredictability when                         combined with danger, physical stress and human fallibility dominate war.

War is an act of force to compel the enemy to bend its will.

In war, the idea of combat is always present

War’s natural tendency is escalation…towards the maximum possible use             of force, and/or until total disarmament of the enemy.

The purpose of war is political and all wars are a products of the societies  that fought them.

Once at war, the point of “winning” eventually shifts. The sense of accomplishment comes in lives saved versus lost or getting home alive—at least that has been the case in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There is tactic and strategy. But the greatest strategy in war was perhaps laid out in the The Art of War, a 6th Century B.C. Chinese military strategy book by Sun Tzu. One takeaway: The best way to win a war is to never start one.

For as long as the human record, we the human race have at no time not been at war somewhere. Most war is in some way futile, and all wars have outcomes.

To study and write about conflict I realized I would have to become grounded in my set of beliefs about war and develop my own standard for when using war is ever an acceptable or valid policy tool.

It is also hard to extract oneself from the reporting, even though all good journalists attempt to be fair in their analysis. For me, this starts with a personal assessment of what it means to me to coexist on this earth—Am I a fighter or a pacifist? A realist or an idealist? Do I think it is possible for one nation to use force to compel another nation into compliance and be successful? And if it’s possible, do I want it?

I do not want war. War may bring ends, but only through a process of destruction, which only continues the costly cycle of war amongst us. Now that I have some frameworks for analyzing the purpose of war, I feel confident that I can express that view with concrete examples of why my belief is valid.

As journalists, the premise of our work is simple: to ask good questions. While being better informed on a topic makes the reporting richer and more valuable, what I takeaway from this is course is that the questions do remain simple. What is the purpose of this war? What will it accomplish? What will it cost? What are the unknown costs? Military strategy adapts to national political aims. It is those aims that should change if we want to avoid war.

 

 

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Proposals to extend Patriot Act provisions advance

Leahy's proposal to extend the Patriot Act

A screen shot of Sen. Patrick Leahy's, D-Vt., bill to extend three controversial provisions of the Patriot Act until December 2013.

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to extend three contentious Patriot Act provisions until the end of 2013, and place a sunset on another section covering the use of National Security Letters while adding oversight authority to monitor surveillance tools.

The bill is sponsored by committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and is one of several multiple-year extension proposals of the Patriot Act provisions up for debate. At the end of 2013, the provisions would “sunset” or expire.

Approved by a 10-7 vote, the legislation would extend Patriot Act authorities to use roving wiretaps on multiple electronic devices and to obtain court-approved access to business records deemed relevant to terrorist investigations.

It also would continue the authority to conduct secret surveillance of “lone wolf” terrorism suspects who are not Americans. These are alleged terrorists who don’t operate as part of al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

The panel’s decision to sunset National Security Letters in December 2013 as well represents an attempt to appease civil liberties groups, who are frustrated by the lack of checks and balances on the provisions.

The letters have gained notoriety because they compel businesses to turn over customer records without probably cause or judicial oversight, and are often accompanied by gag orders.

Leahy said the bill strikes a balance between national security and civil liberties interests, but sunsets aren’t enough, said Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union.

“We are not asking that they sunset, we are asking that they be amended,” Richardson said. “We’ve been asking for the same thing for 10 years—that reasonable checks and balances be put into these tools so they can no longer be used to collect information on innocent people or people who aren’t suspected of doing anything wrong.”

Richardson said the increased congressional oversight in Leahy’s extension is not a permanent solution.

“For us oversight does not take the place of substantive amendments in the law,” she said.

Whether the provisions actually would be at risk of expiring depends on whether Congress would take any further action before the deadline. That’s the catch with sunset provisions. So far the government has acted every time, keeping much of the 2001 law intact and effectively creating a sense of permanency.

Congress first reauthorized the Patriot Act with a pair of bills passed in 2005 and 2006, reasoning it was still needed to effectively fight terrorism. When the three controversial provisions came up for renewal in 2010, President Barack Obama signed a one-year extension. And before they would have expired last month, lawmakers quickly tacked on another 90-day extension.

This series of short-term extensions has kept the Patriot Act alive and most likely such extensions will continue to be approved, said Paul Rosenzweig, former deputy assistant secretary for policy in the Department of Homeland Security.

“Some in the Republican side say let’s stop doing this,” Rosenzweig said. “Let’s just get it done and make it permanent. I think that that’s a question for the debate going forward.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has introduced legislation that would extend the three expiring provisions through 2013 with no opportunity for amendment. Her proposal does not include the oversight included in Leahy’s bill.

The third major proposal is co-sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. It would permanently extend the provisions.

Meanwhile former CIA Director Michael Hayden has come out against any efforts to restrict Patriot Act provisions.

In a Washington Post opinion piece he co-authored with former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, they said, “The wall between intelligence-gathering and criminal investigation, thought before Sept. 11 to have been required by statute or the Constitution, but realized afterward to have been unnecessary, will be rebuilt.”

Leahy’s bill now goes before the entire Senate for a vote. Whatever the outcome, Rosenzweig said the Patriot Act is not dead yet.

“Reviving it in some form will happen, it’s really just a question of exactly what deal gets cut,” he said.

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Assessing a Venezuelan threat

WASHINGTON–Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened to cut off oil supplies to the United States if his nation were to be attacked by U.S. ally Colombia. Though the oil markets barely responded to the threat, suggesting the private sector wasn’t too moved, it still raises the question: should we be worried?

Probably not, energy consultants say.

“For the U.S., energy security means having access globally to competitive low cost energy supplies,” said Alan Hegburg, senior fellow in the energy and national security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

That means ­it is unlikely that Venezuela’s manipulation of the market would have an effect on this access, he says.

Hegburg suggests that the oil market is flexible enough and well supplied enough to withstand a decline in supply of Venezuelan oil. ­

“Because the oil market is a global one, whether the United States imports oil from a country or not, makes no difference to U.S. national security,” said Keith Crane, director of the environment, energy and economic development program at the RAND Corporation, via e-mail.

Canada is actually the largest exporter of oil to the United States. It is followed by Mexico, Saudi Arabia and then Venezuela, according to the Global Post. Nigeria, Angola and Iraq come next in line.

However, one theory factoring into the oil and national security paradox suggests oil wealth allows countries to operate counter to the U.S. “The control over enormous oil revenues gives exporting countries the flexibility to adopt policies that oppose U.S. interests and values,” says a report by the Council on Foreign Relations.

In the case of Venezuela, with the U.S. importing most of the oil the nation is exporting, it seems Chavez would be cutting off his nose to spite his face.

According to a report from the RAND Corporation, the U.S. imported $38.8 billion worth of petroleum and refined oil from Venezuela in 2007. And, it might prove difficult for the president to do things like expand Venezuelan influence throughout Latin America, support the destabilization of neighboring governments and beef up Venezuela’s military were he almost $40 billion in the hole.

But, as Crane points out, if we stopped importing oil from Venezuela, someone else would buy it. So, the question becomes, how much of a threat is Venezuela in general?

Says the RAND report, “increased oil revenues have given Chavez more freedom to pursue policies antithetical to U.S. interests, but have not permitted him to become a serious threat to U.S. national security.”

It suggests he is not well respected by his neighbors, being unable to buy—despite all his oil revenues—influence on their political and economic policies. Nor does Venezuela pose a military threat to the U.S.

Sorry, Chavez.

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Natural gas for national security?

WASHINGTON–National security is T. Boone Pickens’ primary reason for coming up with a plan to end America’s dependence on foreign oil, specifically oil from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

The U.S. imports 12 millions barrels of oil a day and five million come from OPEC, and the oil tycoon believes that makes the United States essentially a financier of terrorism that emanates from oil-producing countries in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere.

“We are paying for the Taliban by purchasing oil from OPEC,” Pickens said. “That’s the oil that I am focused on.”

Pickens, founder and chairman of BP Capital Management, spoke at a town hall meeting at the National Defense University in Washington on May 19. He spoke to a crowded room about the “Pickens Plan,” and focused on the importance of converting the nation’s fleet of 18-wheelers from diesel to natural gas.

In 1970, the nation imported 24 percent of the oil it used. Today, it imports more than 65 percent, according to Pickens. Fifty-seven percent of all oil consumed in the U.S. is imported and 70 percent of all oil consumed in the U.S. is used for transportation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In his speech at the NDU, Pickens alluded to an April 15 Wall Street Journal article by the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, R. James Woolsey, stating it as a good description of why our dependence on oil is a security issue.

Woolsey writes:

“Oil profits enhance the ability of dictators and autocrats to dominate their people. This is one reason that eight of the top nine oil exporters (Norway is the exception) are dictatorships or autocratic kingdoms, as are virtually all of the 22 states that depend on oil and gas for at least two-thirds of their exports.”

Richard Andres, energy security policy chair at the National Defense University, also said in an interview that countries that are most dependent on oil for income are often dictatorships. His concern is the enormous amount of money we are sending to these countries. In 2008, the U.S. spent $475 billion on foreign oil.

“Many of those countries are very vocal about their disagreements with the U.S. and are using the money to fund military– often indirectly to fund terrorists groups,” Andres said. “By relying on foreign oil, the U.S. is supporting both sides on the war on terror.”

Pickens described how his plan to convert the eight million 18-wheelers, buses, delivery trucks and utility vehicles to run off of natural gas would cut the nation’s dependence on OPEC oil in half. Nearly 33 percent of every barrel of oil we import is used by 18-wheelers moving goods across the country.

“Any vehicle which returns to the “barn” each night where refueling is a simple matter, should be replaced by vehicles running on clean, cheap, domestic natural gas rather than imported gasoline or diesel fuel,” Pickens states on his website PickensPlan.org.

Some question Pickens’ motives, since he is the founder and largest shareholder of Clean Energy Fuels Corp., the biggest provider of natural gas for transportation needs in the U.S.

The Pickens plan is a part of the Senate climate bill introduced by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., earlier this month and Pickens said his part of the plan has bipartisan support.

North American has at least a 120-year supply of natural gas and that supply is growing, according to a June 2008 study by Navigant Consulting.

“The only way to solve the problem is to get on your own resources. It’s the only way. Either that or quit driving,” Pickens said. “I like wind, solar, but they don’t move vehicles.”

He explained that he would like to see more electric cars on the road as well, but he is pushing for 18-wheelers because they are too large to run off current battery technology.

Ron Bengtson, the founder of American Energy Independence, said that the Pickens Plan will not deliver since personal vehicles will not be able to run off natural gas. You can get an automobile converted to run off natural gas, he said, but currently there are no filling stations.

“What we really need in place is not to shift from gas to natural gas,” Bengston said, “but to have existing gas engines run on alcohol fuels.” He added that there are many other options besides corn ethanol, such as methanol.

Andres said that the military is already taking steps to run off of alternative fuels. He said that the military has certified all aircraft in the Air Force and half of the Navy fleet to run off of alternative fuels.

“No one has the money to be first mover in industry to take on new expensive fuel or alternative technology,” Andres said. “But if the military can start those industries moving, the prices will drop radically once the technology is ready.”

Andres supports Pickens’ idea to convert 18-wheelers and other heavy vehicles to natural gas. He also said algae biofuel is very promising as an alternative fuel.

Pickens criticized Barack Obama and other U.S. presidents in the past 40 years for not coming up with a solid plan to end our dependence of foreign oil, warning that China already has a plan. Pickens has spent millions of his own dollars promoting his plan.

“I am really truly inspired by Pickens on his own, trying to push through something that in the end is good for the country,” Andres said. “This requires a visionary, someone outside the beltway who is not worried about getting re-elected.”

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Clapper nominated for Director of National Intelligence

President Obama in the Rose Garden Saturday nominated Lt. General James R. Clapper Jr. (Ret.) for the post of director of national intelligence. Clapper would replace retired Adm. Dennis Blair, who resigned from the position last month.

The President lauded Clapper as “one of our nation’s most experienced and most respected intelligence professionals” during his address, and hopes the former Air Force general’s extensive military and intelligence community background will yield a successful confirmation process.

Clapper is currently the under secretary of defense for intelligence and previously headed up both the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Clapper thanked Obama for the nomination and noted that he was “honored, and daunted by the magnitude of the responsibilities of the position of DNI,” according to the White House Web site.

Previous directors have also been daunted, and confounded by the DNI role. Since its inception via the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, three different people have occupied the post. If confirmed, Clapper would be the fourth in five years, and beyond his normal duties would be burdened with proving that the role is even worthwhile.

The director of national intelligence is responsible for briefing and advising the President, National Security Council and Homeland Security Council on pivotal matters relating to intelligence and national security. The DNI is also the head of the 16-member intelligence community, a role previously carried out by the director of central intelligence.

But former DNI’s, like Blair, struggled to maintain authority over the labyrinthine network of agencies that comprise the intelligence community. Dr. Jay Williams, a professor of political science at Loyola University and retired Captain in the U.S. Naval Reserve, believes that organizational shortfalls may undermine the DNI’s ability to operate effectively.

“The problem is organizational,” Williams said. “The DNI doesn’t have authority over the others no matter what it says in the legislation. Unless he controls the budget, unless he can force decisions at the human level, at the organizational level, it just isn’t that effective.”

The director position was created after the September 11 terrorist attacks in response to perceived intelligence lapses, and was recommended in a report issued by the 9/11 Commission.

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Civil War battlefields serve modern military efforts

GETTYSBURG, PA. — When the Union and Confederacy waged war against one another, the term “national security” did not exist. While politicians and generals always sought to protect the country’s borders, there was no convenient phrase to sum up initiatives designed to keep the United States safe. In fact, before the National Security Act of 1947, all we had to go on was the Constitution’s pledge to “provide for the common defense.”

Even though Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee never thought of national security as we conceive of it today, and ­the Civil War has been over for 150 years, today’s military can glean important insights from the war’s iconic battles. But with expanded development threatening battlefields in Gettysburg, Pa., Spotsylvania County, Va., and Pickett’s Mill, Ga., the chance to study what happened in these places in the current context, and to understand both good and bad leadership displayed there, is also in danger.

The tactics may not apply to modern warfare, but Civil War battlefields provide “valuable lessons we can learn about military leadership,” according to Dr. Conrad Crane, director of the U.S. Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

It’s the mission of the Civil War Preservation Trust to ensure that opportunity is not stripped away.

“We subscribe to the theory that if you destroy where history happened, you start the process of destroying that history,” said Jim Lighthizer, president of the trust. “If you destroy that history, you very possibly might repeat the same mistakes you made in that period.”

The trust recently released its list of the 10 most endangered battlefields for 2010, and legendary Gettysburg made the cut. David LeVan, a former CEO of Conrail Corp and a local motorcycle dealer, wants to build a 5,000 square foot casino on the outskirts of town.

Crane said the preservation of Civil War battlefields, especially ones like Gettysburg where the leaders had to make improvised decisions directly affecting the outcome, is invaluable in teaching today’s military how to lead a force.

“From a military standpoint, the battlefields were initially preserved for staff rides for soldiers so they could get out and see the ground the way it was and work through the decision-making processes of the combatants at the time,” Crane said. “It’s a lot more useful to do a staff ride where you can actually see the ground than if you’re walking through a housing area.

“It goes back to being able to really go back in the past, to stand in position and say ‘This is where Robert E. Lee was when he made this decision.’”

The Wilderness in Spotsylvania County, Va., about 55 miles south of Washington, saw both the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863 and the Battle of The Wilderness in 1864. Chancellorsville holds special importance because it’s where Stonewall Jackson lost an arm in a friendly fire incident while searching in darkness for a way to continue the battle with the Army of the Potomac reeling. Eight days later, Jackson was dead, a victim of pneumonia. Two months later, the Confederates lost at Gettysburg, a battle in which Jackson’s leadership could have made a dramatic difference.

Now, the battlefield is threatened by a major shopping center with a Wal-Mart and four other retail outlets. Encroachment by commercial properties jeopardizes the site where Lee took the initiative and divided his forces, a controversial leadership decision that had allowed Jackson, who would eventually fall in a friendly fire incident that led to his pneumonia, to roll up the Union’s right flank and rout a force that doubled his own.

“The experience of walking in those footsteps will be irreparably changed,” said author Jeff Shaara, who has written multiple novels about the Civil War, including “Gods and Generals.”

With counterinsurgency playing such a large role in military operations, the Army and Marines could learn a lot from the ways the Union fought John Singleton Mosby, William Quantrill and Bloody Bill Anderson, partisans who engaged the Federal Army from the Atlantic all the way to Kansas. But with battlefields across the country succumbing to urban sprawl, those lessons may fade away into the past. ­

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Obesity raised alarm among military retirees

“Child obesity, this issue is so serious that it has become a threat to our national security,” said Lt. Gen. Norman Seip, a member of Mission: Readiness, a nonprofit organization aiming at ensuring national security by heeding the young generation.

The group recently released a report “Too Fat to Fight,” showing that “weight problems have become the leading medical reason why recruits are rejected for service” and “More than 9 million young adults – 27 percent of all Americans age 17 to 24 – are too overweight to join the military.”

But isn’t the technology advancement playing a more and more important role in military? Why can an intelligent and technology-savvy young man get rejected just because of being overweight?

Mark McGinley, professor of Military Science at Carroll College, said although technical skills can be superb, physical strength should never be overlooked.

“Fitness is a critical component for military service,” McGinley said. “Put somebody in an austere environment and maybe a lot of heat and a lot of cold. Levels of fitness are going to have a dramatic impact on your productivity.”

Kirby Hanson, professor of Military Science at Missouri State University, is likely to agree.

“If you’re not physically fit the extreme measures or the extreme environmental conditions, which are currently on-going, [it] would definitely affect the way you perform your job,” Hanson said. “For example, temperate rises to about 130 degrees Fahrenheit plus in Iraq in the summer time. If you have a solider who is overweight and is suffering because of the heat due to his weight, he is not able to do his job no matter how technically savvy he might be in his chosen profession.”

Therefore, although the number of the turned-down is astonishing, there is no reason for the military to change the policy or lower the standard, Hanson added.

“It’s not really a question of rejection on the army’s part. It has to be the soon-to-be soldiers, you know, he or she doesn’t take military steps to lose weight,” he said.

And, that, to McGinley, is a bigger societal issue. While there are plenty programs to help “soon-to-be soldiers” get leaned and meet the military standards, as a parent, he said, he is worried about his children’s health and food nutrition.

At the same time, “Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity Within a Generation,” a report on childhood obesity, was released on Tuesday, claiming that the childhood obesity epidemic is a “national health crisis” and has “life-threatening consequences.” The report is done by a White House task force, part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign, aiming to curb the obesity epidemic.

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FBI arrests three with possible links to Shahzad

As part of the investigation into the Times Square attempted bombing, three Pakistani men were arrested on immigration violations during a series of raids across the Northeast, The New York Times reported on Thursday, May 13. The three also may have provided funds to Faisal Shahzad, although Attorney General Erci Holder said it is unclear if they men knew the funds would be used for an act of terrorism, according to The Times.

“There’s at least a basis to believe that one of the things they did was provide him with funds and so we’re trying to trace back,” Holder said, according to a BBC News report on Friday, May 14.

The raids were part of the continuing investigation into the Times Square bombing attempt. One man was arrested because he overstayed his visa, and another was already awaiting a ruling from an immigration court hearing, BBC News reported.

Further reading: BBC News story, New York Times story

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New York suffers security cuts despite Times Square bombing attempt

The Department of Homeland Security informed New York lawmakers of a 27 percent cut in federal grants for mass transit security and a 25 percent cut in port security grants, the New York Post reported Thursday, May 13.

New York mass transit federal funds will drop from $153 million last year to $111 this year while port security funds drop from $45 million to $33.8 million, officials said.

New York received more than $100 million in security grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act , ABC News reported. White House spokesman Nick Shapiro told ABC News that New York has received a net increase of $47 million for port and transit security over the previous year’s budget.

Further reading: The New York Post story, The Wall Street Journal story, ABC News story

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