Author: Mike Emanuel

The uniformed officers at the top of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, & Air Force have individually written letters to lawmakers on Capitol Hill expressing concerns about the impact of changing the law affecting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” before a comprehensive review is complete.

“I felt that an organized and systemic approach on such an important issue was precisely the way to develop ‘best military advice’ for the Service Chiefs to offer the President,” Marine Corps Commandant James Conway wrote.

Army Chief of Staff General George Casey expressed a similar view. “I remain convinced that it is critically important to get a better understanding of where our Soldiers and Families are on this issue,” Casey wrote. “I also believe that repealing the law before the completion of the review will be seen by the men and women of the Army as a reversal of our commitment to hear their views before moving forward.”

This letter writing campaign comes after Senate and House proponents of repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” reached a compromise that if it passes would eventually allow gays to openly serve in the military. Defense Secretary Gates has wanted a Pentagon review of the impact of a change in policy to be finished before Congress took action. When a deal on Capitol Hill was struck, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said, “With Congress having indicated that is not possible, the Secretary can accept the language in the proposed amendment.” The change is expected to be offered as an amendment to the annual defense spending blueprint known as the Defense Authorization.

Since then, the Service Chiefs have been writing to express their concerns.

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead wrote, “We need this review to fully assess our force and carefully examine potential impacts of a change in the law.”

General Norton Schwartz, Air Force Chief of Staff, wrote that acting before the review is complete would be “presumptive and reflect an intent to act before all relevant factors are assessed, digested and understood.”

Pentagon officials announced upcoming major exercises with South Korea near the Korean peninsula – on defeating submarines and stopping ship suspected of smuggling nuclear material or equipment.

The submarine aspect is timely because North Korea is accused of sinking a South Korean ship with a homing torpedo fired from a sub. The Cheonan was attacked on March 26th, and 46 South Korean sailors were killed in the incident.

President Lee Myung-bak announced South Korea is cutting nearly all trade ties with Pyongyang, closing shipping lanes to North Korean merchant ships, and is planning to ask the UN Security Council to punish the North.

“North Korea will pay a price that corresponds to its provocative acts. I will continue to take stern measures to hold the North accountable,” President Lee said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveling in China expressed support for President Lee’s actions.

“This is a highly precarious situation that the North Koreans have caused in the region and it is one that every country that neighbors or is in proximity to North Korea understands must be contained,” Clinton said.

Clinton is also trying to secure Chinese support for UN Security Council sanctions, but it is not clear if Beijing will get on board.

“The Chinese understand the reaction by the South Koreans, and they also understand our unique responsibility for the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” the Secretary of State said.

At the United Nations, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said there must be some measures taken, and it is the responsibility of the international community to address the issue properly.

As a South Korean, this attack is also personal.

“This is most troubling to me to see what’s happening in the Korean Peninsula… that’s my motherland,” said the Secretary-General.

A source familiar with the findings of a South Korean investigation tells Fox Seoul will blame a North Korean torpedo attack for sinking the frigate Cheonan on March 26th. Forty-six South Korean sailors were killed in the incident in the Yellow Sea. The South Korean government is expected to release the findings on Thursday.

The U.S. Navy provided “forensics” support in this investigation, and British, Australian, and Swedish experts also offered their expertise to help the South Koreans determine the cause.

President Obama spoke with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Monday evening. The White House says President Lee provided an update on the status of the investigation, and  rescue and salvage operations.

“The two leaders emphasized the importance of obtaining a full accounting of the event and committed to follow the facts of the investigation wherever they lead,” said a written statement issued by the White House.

South Korea is expected to bring the findings from this investigation to the UN Security Council.

Multiple U.S. military sources tell Fox News early morning on Wednesday, April 21st, an Iranian Navy F-27 maritime patrol aircraft, flying in international airspace, flew near the USS Eisenhower (CVN 69) shortly after the aircraft carrier had finished being resupplied in the Gulf of Oman.

Sources tell Fox this is the type of plane: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokker_Friendship

Senior U.S. military sources say the plane’s closest point of approach was 1000 yards (more than ½ mile or 10 football fields) from the USS Eisenhower. 

Military sources say this aircraft was a unarmed multi-engine propeller plane, configured only for maritime patrol. To be precise, sources tell Fox it had no weapon systems.

Navy personnel identified the aircraft as part of Iran’s regular Navy (professional Navy) not the Quds Force.

The plane remained in the area for approximately 20 minutes before leaving the vicinity.  Military sources say interaction with the aircraft were routine and consistent with the type of behavior we see daily with their professional Navy.

U.S. aircraft carriers have not operated regularly inside the Arabian Gulf in the past couple of years due to being dedicated to Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) support the War in Afghanistan. The carrier position for OEF support is usually far enough east that Iranian maritime patrol flights do not usually venture out there, which is why they do not normally interact with American carriers.

U.S. Navy ships operating inside the Arabian Gulf, on the other hand, routinely have Iranian maritime patrol aircraft fly by their positions – almost on a daily basis.

U.S. officials say Iranian forces are aware of the American military presence in the region just as American ships are aware of their positioning.  

Military sources say the interaction of U.S. forces with the regular Iranian Navy and Air Force continues to be within standards of maritime practice.

            U.S. officials at the United Nations and State Department say President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and an Iranian delegation have filed paperwork at the U.S. Embassy in Bern, Switzerland for visas to visit the United States next week.

           The irony is Ahmadinejad wants to attend the Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference hosted by the United Nations, when the U.S. is discussing with members of the Security Council another round of sanctions for Tehran’s nuclear program.

            State Department spokesman PJ Crowley says the applications were filed this morning, and it is expected the visas will be granted.

            “You know, any foreign official who’s coming to the U.N. for official business is normally granted a visa,” Crowley told reporters.

            “Our focus is, should he come, we want to see him play a constructive role in the upcoming NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty)… review conference,” said Crowley.

            Assuming Ahmadinejad visits New York, don’t expect a one-on-one with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

          “The secretary will have a number of bilaterals when she’s in New York early next week,” the State Department spokesman told reporters. “The Iranian president or foreign minister is not on the schedule.”

This installment of “Taxpayer Calculator” will examine what it costs the military, and you, the taxpayer, to run two overseas wars.

President Obama announced in late 2009 a plan to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. The administration sent its request for funds to Congress in February, but the bill hasn’t been voted on yet — even though more than half of the troops are already in place now.

Because the cost of the surge wasn’t factored in when lawmakers were hashing out the 2010 budget, President Obama had to ask for an additional $33 billion to fund the surge.

You can find out how much of your salary goes to fund this war supplemental by using our Taxpayer Calculator.

The bill is expected to pass, but the House has been slow in taking it up. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., says they plan bring it the floor before the Memorial Day recess.

The additional war spending is on top of the Defense Department’s base budget for 2010 of $661 billion. Asking for the extra cash separately is a move many commanders-in-chief, including President Bush during the Iraq surge, have done in the past.

A small fraction of that $33 billion supplemental request goes to projects in Iraq. The Iraqi Security Forces, for example, are set to receive $1 billion.

The military plans to draw down to 50,000 troops in Iraq by the end of the summer. Lt. Gen. William Webster of the Third Army in Iraq told Pentagon reporters earlier this month that the cost of moving out of Iraq will cost tens of billions of dollars.

At the rate we’re spending in Afghanistan in 2010, the Department of Defense is burning $4.5 billion a month.

Since September 11th, 2001, the Pentagon has spent $837 billion on all war related activities, according to its own calculations. In Afghanistan alone the U.S. has spent $191 billion. Also, the total cost for Iraq since the invasion in March 2003 is $620 billion.

            Buried on page 11 of an unclassified report to Congress on Iran’s military power is a troubling item: “With sufficient foreign assistance, Iran could probably develop and test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the United States by 2015.”

            That is the Pentagon’s best estimate, but some experts note it is difficult to be precise with secretive regimes like Iran and North Korea.

            The 2015 ballistic missile projection comes at a time when the United States is predicting it won’t be able to protect Europe with a missile defense system until 2018.

            Critics say the Obama administration has wasted valuable time.

          “They gutted the missile defense system that we had,” James Carafano from the Heritage Foundation told Fox. “If you remember correctly, the Bush administration was going to put a third site in western Europe which the administration would have said would have been in place by 2013, but which essentially would have accomplished everything this administration says is going to happen half a decade later.”

          Another expert calls Iran’s activities troubling and worrisome, but says perfecting the technology may take time for the Iranians as it has with U.S. missile defense.

        “We haven’t really seen a technology that would have been deployable prior to 2018 and the administration is hoping to have an interim capability before that date,” Michael O’Hanlon from the Brookings Institution told Fox. “ It may not be the best system we could develop of course, but the administration hoping to have the second installation of Europe-based missile defenses at about the 2015 timeline as well.”

            This report spells out how Iran is meddling in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

            In Iraq, Iran continues to provide money, weapons, and training to select Iraqi Shia militants and terrorists despite pledges by senior Iranian officials to stop such support.

            While in Afghanistan, Iran is covertly supporting insurgent and political opposition groups, and the report notes large weapons caches of Iranian manufactured weapons have been recently uncovered. Something that has gotten the attention of U.S. military commanders there.

            “This is one of those situations where any state that is supplying our enemy is not a friend to the coalition, and that needs to be addressed,” Brigadier General Steven L. Kwast, commander of the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing told Pentagon reporters. “As we fight this enemy, the enemy has weapons.  You see it.  You read about it.  They shoot at us with bullets.  They shoot at us with RPGs.  They shoot at us with all types of weapons.”

            The U.S. military has evidence suggesting many of those weapons are supplied by the regime in Tehran.

The U.S. military announced the military leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq Abu Ayyub al Masri, and another top figure Abu Umar al-Baghdadi had been killed in a joint Iraqi-US raid Sunday morning. Below is a statement from the top U.S. military commander for the Middle East, General David Petraeus:

I congratulate the Iraqi and U.S. forces who conducted the operation that resulted in the deaths of the heads of Al Qaeda-Iraq and the Islamic State of Iraq. 

These two extremist leaders were responsible for barbaric attacks that killed thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens and Iraqi and Coalition Security Force members.  Their deaths constitute another major milestone in the effort to defeat extremism in Iraq.

The operation that resulted in the deaths of the two leaders is a further illustration of the development of the capabilities of the Iraqi Security Forces. 

The deaths of these two leaders represent significant blows against extremism in Iraq. While we recognize that AQI retains the capability of carrying out periodic extremist attacks, Iraqi leaders have vowed to press the fight against Al Qaeda and its affiliates in Iraq.  In accordance with the Iraq-U.S. Security Agreement, U.S. forces will continue to assist and enable our Iraqi partners in that effort.

Salvage crews have raised the stern or rear portion of a South Korean Navy ship that mysteriously sunk in the Yellow Sea on March 26th. The bodies of 36 crew members were also recovered.

Initial reports suggested a North Korean torpedo may have been responsible. But just as tensions between the two rivals were escalating, the cause of the incident became murkier. What is clear is some sort of explosion caused the Cheonan to split in two and then sink.

Many of the crew members were rescued by South Korean ships that rushed to the scene, but at least 44 sailors were trapped inside and killed.

If not a North Korean torpedo, among the possible causes are a sea mine left over from the 1950-53 Korean War, or some kind of accident aboard the Cheonan. The North Koreans have denied any role in sinking the ship.

Sailors from the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet have been on the scene assisting South Korea. In fact, approximately 750 U.S. service members are supporting salvage efforts.

South Korean contractors are raising the stern and bow, but American divers have been providing technical assistance as well as working with South Korean Navy divers on the debris area across approximately four miles of ocean floor.

The USNS Salvor has also been providing side scan sonar to sweep the debris field for objects that may be useful for the investigation.

The Salvor crew is also providing medical support with a decompression chamber onboard that is being used by both South Korean and U.S. divers. A U.S. Navy Diving Medical Officer, who specializes in diving medical issues, is also on the scene.

The government in Seoul has also requested that American, British, Australian, and Swedish experts participate in a joint investigation.

The results of that investigation could stir up an old feud, or allow both Seoul and Pyongyang to return to the six-party talks over North Korea’s nuclear program.

U.S. Navy ships have had two clashes with pirates in less than 24 hours.

Most recently, the destroyer Farragut disarmed pirates and sank the mother skiff off the coast of Somalia after responding to an attack on a Sierra Leone-flagged tanker.

That was after the USS Nicholas crew came under fire by a group of suspected Somali pirates just before 12:30 a.m. Thursday morning.

The Nicholas incident took place hundreds of miles west of the Seychelles Islands, and the Farragut response was approximately 800 miles northwest of the Seychelles.

Navy sources tell Fox when monsoon season ends off the coast of Africa, pirate season heats up. It becomes easier for the pirates to maneuver and choose their targets.

Pirates typically target commercial ships hoping that companies or governments will pay ransom. As one expert put it, “for the pirates, it’s a business.”

Jim Arkedis, a former counterterrorism and security analyst at the Naval Criminal Investigative Service who now works at Progressive Policy Institute, says clashes with the U.S. Navy are either bad timing or a case of mistaken identity.

“A lot of these pirates who are a long way from home off the Somali coast are potentially under the influence of alcohol and drugs. That’s how their leadership back in Somalia gets them to engage and be so aggressive,” Arkedis told Fox.

A Naval commander dealing with the piracy issue also warns the attackers are also becoming bolder and targeting ships much farther away from the Somali shores.

As U.S. troops continue surging into Afghanistan, military commanders expect the number of Improvised Explosive Devices (or IEDs) to continue growing.

The IED threat has also factored into recent military operations such as the ongoing offensive in Marjah.

Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Tadd Sholtis, spokesman for General Stanley McChrystal, tells Fox “one of the values of Marjah as an objective is its role as an IED manufacturing hub.”

The homemade bombs have also had an impact on the pace of military operations.

“We had to proceed carefully through what would be a minefield of IEDs (in Marjah),” Sholtis told Fox.

Looking ahead to the major offensive into Kandahar, General McChrystal told Pentagon reporters on Wednesday, “I think they’ll (enemy forces) primarily use IEDs… to try to give a sense that Kandahar and the area cannot be secured.”

Statistics compiled by the U.S. military in Afghanistan are staggering.

In February alone, 721 IEDs exploded or were defused across Afghanistan – killing 28 coalition troops. The roadside bombs continue to be the number one cause of American troop casualties. And the U.S. military reports far more Afghan civilians than coalition members die as a result of IED emplacement.

The U.S. military says there were 8,159 IED incidents recorded last year – up from 3,867 in 2008.

Part of the McChrystal strategy is if the U.S. and its coalition partners can win the support of the local population, the roadside bomb blasts will drop substantially, which has been the case in Iraq.

“Over time, IEDs can be a self-defeating tactic that alienates the population from the insurgent cause,” said Sholtis.

In the meantime, McChrystal says, “there are counter-IED efforts that have been significantly increased recently. And so I think that we have already made progress.”

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made a surprise trip to Afghanistan Monday morning.

Here’s some behind-the-scenes details on the plane ride.

A big logistical detail when it comes to doing these long trips is refueling, and figuring out where and when to do it.

It happened several times during the course of the trip during the 14-hour flight. My understanding is Secretary Gates likes using this particular military aircraft because it offers the midflight refueling option, and he doesn’t have to stop in Ireland or some other location to fuel up.

I was struck by seeing the refueling tanker so close to our plane. It felt like it was right on top of the aircraft. But the skill of the flight crews of both planes were sensational and it felt like it was totally under control, and not risking an accident.

Secretary Gates also came back to speak to reporters on the plane about his trip. He told us, “And one of the things I’m interested in talking to President Karzai about is his thinking and his strategy and how to pursue those. The centerpiece of General McChrystal’s strategy is putting the Afghans in the forefront. It’s their country, it’s their fight. We’re there to help. And how the politics play out in the end, have to be an Afghan-led endeavor as far as I’m concerned.”

This is Gates’ first trip to the region since President Obama announced a surge in U.S. troops to the country. On this trip the defense secretary will be meeting with troops, General Stanley McChrystal, who is the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Be sure to watch my piece Monday night at 6pm ET on Special Report with all the latest on Gate’s trip.

Former President George W. Bush went to visit his former right-hand man, Vice President Cheney at his home in McLean, Virginia this afternoon, according to Bush’s spokesman, David Sherzer. The two spent about an hour talking and shared coffee. It was the first time the two were together since last year’s inauguration.

The former Vice President was scheduled to appear with Mr. Bush at a breakfast reunion on Friday for former Bush administration staffers but the former Vice President had to cancel his attendance after his heart attack earlier this week.

Sherzer says President Bush looks forward to giving everyone an update on how he and Mrs. Bush are spending their time, including how he’s doing on his memoirs and on developing the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas.

In addition to the breakfast being sponsored by the Bush-Cheney Alumni Association, President Bush will attend the Marine Corps University Foundation Gala this evening, where he is being honored.