Trump Declares Jerusalem the Capitol of Israel

Huge speech and decision. If the Palestinians can have their own capitol, why not Israel? In reality and presently the United States does have a consulate in Jerusalem already. Marine FAST teams (elite security forces) and increased security have already been ordered at most U.S. diplomatic operations in key locations around the world, expecting protests.

Additionally, did you know the Palestinians have an embassy in Washington DC?

Image result for u.s. consulate in jerusalem photo

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release

President Donald J. Trump’s Proclamation on Jerusalem as the Capital of the State of Israel

“My announcement today marks the beginning of a new approach to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.” – President Donald J. Trump

RECOGNIZING JERUSALEM: President Donald J. Trump is following through on his promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel and has instructed the State Department to begin to relocate the U.S. Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

  • Today, December 6, 2017, President Trump recognized Jerusalem, the ancient capital of the Jewish people, as the capital of the State of Israel.
    • In taking this action, President Trump fulfilled a major campaign promise of his and many previous Presidential candidates.
  • The Trump Administration is fully coordinated in supporting this historic action by the President, and has engaged broadly with both our Congressional and international partners on this issue.
    • President Trump’s action enjoys broad, bipartisan support in Congress, including as expressed in the Jerusalem Recognition Act of 1995.  This Act was reaffirmed by a unanimous vote of the Senate only six months ago.
  • President Trump has instructed the State Department to develop a plan to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
  • Departments and Agencies have implemented a robust security plan to ensure the safety of our citizens and assets in the region.

STATUS OF JERUSALEM: President Trump recognizes that specific boundaries of sovereignty in Jerusalem is highly sensitive and subject to final status negotiations. 

  • President Trump recognizes that the status of Jerusalem is a highly-sensitive issue, but he does not think the peace process is aided by ignoring the simple truth that Jerusalem is home to Israel’s legislature, supreme court, President, and Prime Minister.
  • President Trump recognizes that the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem are subject to final status negotiations between the parties.
  • President Trump reaffirms United States support for the status quo at the Temple Mount, also known as Haram al Sharif.

COMMITTED TO THE PEACE PROCESS: President Trump is committed to achieving a lasting peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.

  • President Trump remains committed to achieving a lasting peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians, and he is optimistic that peace can be achieved.
  • Delaying the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has not helped achieve peace over the past two decades.
  • President Trump is prepared to support a two-state solution to the dispute between the Israelis and Palestinians, if agreed to by the parties.

*** This proclamation will hurt the peace process? Really? 70 years with of talks and countless deals offered where they were ALL rejected by the Palestinian leadership? It is not clear however what the current talks include with regard to a peace deal, where full sovereignty of Israel is included or borders much less construction of housing of which all anti-Israel types call settlements.

*** How about this timeline that went back to President Truman?

The United States and the Recognition of Israel: A Chronology

Compiled by Raymond H. Geselbracht from Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel (Westport, Connecticut, 1997) by Michael T. Benson

[ 1939 | 1945 | 1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 ]
 

May 17, 1939: British White Paper on Palestine

May 25, 1939: Senator Harry S. Truman inserts in the Congressional Record strong criticism of the British White Paper on Palestine, saying it is a dishonorable repudiation by Britain of her obligations.

August 24, 1945: Loy Henderson, director of the State Department’s Near East Agency, writes to Secretary of State James Byrnes that the United States would lose its moral prestige in the Middle East if it supported Jewish aspirations in Palestine.

August 24, 1945: The report of the Intergovernment Committee on Refugees, called the Harrison Report, is presented to President Truman. The report is very critical of the treatment by Allied forces of refugees, particularly Jewish refugees, in Germany.

August 31, 1945: President Truman writes British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, citing the Harrison Report and urging Attlee to allow a reasonable number of Europe’s Jews to emigrate to Palestine.

October 22, 1945: Senators Robert Wagner of New York and Robert Taft of Ohio introduce a resolution expressing support for a Jewish state in Palestine.

November 13, 1945: The British government announces the formation of an Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry to investigate Britain’s handling of the Palestine situation. The committee begins work on January 4, 1946.

November 29, 1945: At a press conference, President Truman expresses opposition to the Taft-Wagner resolution. He says he wants to await and consider the report of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry.

April 20, 1946: The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry submits its report, which recommends that Britain immediately authorize the admission of 100,000 Jews into Palestine.

May 8, 1946: President Truman writes to Prime Minister Attlee, citing the report of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, and expressing the hope that Britain would begin lifting the barriers to Jewish immigration to Palestine.

June 21, 1946: A Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum to the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee warns that if the United States uses armed force to support the implementation of the recommendations of the report of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, the Soviet Union might be able to increase its power and influence in the Middle East, and United States access to Middle East oil could be jeopardized.

September 24, 1946: Counsel to the President Clark Clifford writes to the President to warn that the Soviet Union wishes to achieve complete economic, military and political domination in the Middle East. Toward this end, Clifford argues, they will encourage the emigration of Jews from Europe into Palestine and at the same time denounce British and American policies toward Palestine and inflame the Arabs against these policies.

October 4, 1946: On the eve of Yom Kippur, President Truman issues a statement indicating United States support for the creation of a “viable Jewish state.”

October 23, 1946: Loy Henderson, director of the State Department’s Near East Agency, warns that the immigration of Jewish Communists into Palestine will increase Soviet influence there.

October 28, 1946: President Truman writes to King Saud of Saudi Arabia, informing the king that he believes “that a national home for the Jewish people should be established in Palestine.”

1947-48: The White House receives 48,600 telegrams, 790,575 cards, and 81,200 other pieces of mail on the subject of Palestine.

February 7, 1947: The British government announces that it will terminate its mandate for Palestine.

February 14, 1947: The British government announces that it will refer the problem of the future of Palestine to the United Nations.

April 2, 1947: The British Government submits to the General Assembly of the United Nations an account of its administration of Palestine under the League of Nations mandate, and asks the General Assembly to make recommendations regarding the future government of Palestine.

May 13, 1947: The United Nations General Assembly appoints an eleven nation Special Committee on Palestine to study the Palestine problem and report by September 1947.

August 31, 1947: The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine issues its report, which recommends unanimously (all 11 member states voting in favor) that Great Britain terminate their mandate for Palestine and grant it independence at the earliest possible date; and which also recommends by majority vote (7 of the member nations voting in favor) that Palestine be partitioned into Jewish and Arab states.

September 17, 1947: Secretary of State George Marshall, in an address to the United Nations, indicates that the United States is reluctant to endorse the partition of Palestine.

September 22, 1947: Loy Henderson, director the State Department’s Near East Agency, addresses a memorandum to Secretary of State George Marshall in which he argues against United States’ advocacy of the United Nations proposal to partition Palestine.

October 10, 1947: The Joint Chiefs of Staff argue in a memorandum entitled “The Problem of Palestine” that the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states would enable the Soviet Union to replace the United States and Great Britain in the region and would endanger United States access to Middle East oil.

October 11, 1947: Herschel Johnson, United States deputy representative on the United Nations Security Council, announces United States support for the partition plan of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine.

October 17, 1947: President Truman writes to Senator Claude Pepper: “I received about 35,000 pieces of mail and propaganda from the Jews in this country while this matter [the issue of the partition of Palestine, which was being considered by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine from May 13, 1947 to August 31, 1947] was pending. I put it all in a pile and struck a match to it — I never looked at a single one of the letters because I felt the United Nations Committee [United Nations Special Committee on Palestine] was acting in a judicial capacity and should not be interfered with.”

Ca. November 1947: A subcommittee of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine establishes a timetable for British withdrawal from Palestine.

November 19, 1947: Chaim Weizmann meets with President Truman and argues that the Negev region has great importance to the future Jewish state.

November 24, 1947: Secretary of State George Marshall writes to Under Secretary of State Robert Lovett to inform him that British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had told him that British intelligence indicated that Jewish groups moving illegally from the Balkan states to Palestine included many Communists.

November 29, 1947: The United Nations General Assembly approves the partition plan for Palestine put forward by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. The 1947 UN Partition divided the area into three entities: a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone around Jerusalem.

December 2, 1947: President Truman writes to former Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., encouraging him to tell his Jewish friends that it is time for restraint and caution. “The vote in the U.N.,” Truman wrote, “is only the beginning and the Jews must now display tolerance and consideration for the other people in Palestine with whom they will necessarily have to be neighbors.”

December 5, 1947: Secretary of State George Marshall announces that the State Department is imposing an embargo on all shipments of arms to the Middle East.

December 12, 1947: President Truman writes to Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization, that it is essential that restraint and tolerance be exercised by all parties if a peaceful settlement is to be reached in the Middle East.

February 4, 1948: Chaim Wiezmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization, arrives in New York.

February 12, 1948: Secretary of Defense James Forrestal says at a meeting of the National Security Council that any serious attempt to implement partition in Palestine would set in motion events that would result in at least a partial mobilization of United States armed forces.

February 19, 1948: Secretary of State George Marshall says at a press conference, when asked if the United States would continue to support partition, that the “whole Palestine thing,” was under “constant consideration.”

February 21, 1948: Eddie Jacobson, a longtime and close personal friend of President Truman, sends atelegram to Truman, asking him to meet with Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization.

February 22, 1948: President Truman instructs Secretary of State George Marshall that while he approves in principle a draft prepared by the State Department of a position paper which mentions as a possible contingency a United Nations trusteeship for Palestine, he does not want anything presented to the United Nations Security Council that could be interpreted as a change from the position in favor of partition that the United States announced in the General Assembly on November 29, 1947. He further instructs Marshall to send him for review the final draft of the remarks that Warren Austin, the United States representative to the United Nations, is to give before the Security Council on March 19, 1948.

February 27, 1948: President Truman writes to his friend Eddie Jacobson, refusing to meet with Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization.

March 8, 1948: Counsel to the President Clark Clifford writes to President Truman, in a memorandum entitled “United States Policy with Regard to Palestine,” that Truman’s actions in support of partition are “in complete conformity with the settled policy of the United States.”

March 9, 1948: Secretary of State George Marshall instructs Warren Austin, United States representative to the United Nations, that if a United Nations special assembly on Palestine were convened, the United States would support a United Nations trusteeship for Palestine.

March 12, 1948: The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine reports that “present indications point to the inescapable conclusion that when the [British] mandate is terminated, Palestine is likely to suffer severely from administrative chaos and widespread strife and bloodshed.”

March 13, 1948: President Truman’s friend Eddie Jacobson walks into the White House without an appointment and pleads with Truman to meet with Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization. Truman responds: “You win, you baldheaded son-of-a-bitch. I will see him.”

March 18, 1948: President Truman meets with Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization. Truman says he wishes to see justice done in Palestine without bloodshed, and that if the Jewish state were declared and the United Nations remained stalled in its attempt to establish a temporary trusteeship over Palestine, the United States would recognize the new state immediately.

March 18, 1948: The United Nations Special Commission on Palestine reports to the United Nations Security Council that it has failed to arrange any compromise between Jews and Arabs, and it recommends that the United Nations undertake a temporary trusteeship for Palestine in order to restore peace.

March 19, 1948: United States representative to the United Nations Warren Austin announces to the United Nations Security Council that the United States position is that the partition of Palestine is no longer a viable option.

March 20, 1948: Secretary of State George Marshall announces that the United States will seek to work within the United Nations to bring a peaceful settlement to Palestine, and that the proposal for a temporary United Nations trusteeship for Palestine is the only idea presently being considered that will allow the United Nations to address the difficult situation in Palestine.

March 21, 1948: President Truman writes in his diary regarding the confusion caused by the State Department’s handling of the trusteeship issue: “I spend the day trying to right what has happened. No luck. Marshall makes a statement. Doesn’t help a bit.”

March 21, 1948: President Truman writes to his sister Mary Jane Truman that the “striped pants conspirators” in the State Department had “completely balled up the Palestine situation.” But, he writes, “it may work out anyway in spite of them.”

March 22, 1948: President Truman writes to his brother Vivian Truman regarding Palestine: “I think the proper thing to do, and the thing I have been doing, is to do what I think is right and let them all go to hell.”

March 25, 1948: President Truman says at a press conference that a United Nations trusteeship for Palestine would be only a temporary measure, intended to establish the peaceful conditions that would be the essential foundation for a final political settlement. He says that trusteeship is not a substitute for partition.

April 11, 1948: President Truman’s friend Eddie Jacobson enters the White House unnoticed by the East Gate and meets with Truman. Jacobson recorded of this meeting: “He reaffirmed, very strongly, the promises he had made to Dr. Weizmann and to me; and he gave me permission to tell Dr. Weizmann so, which I did. It was at this meeting that I also discussed with the President the vital matter of recognizing the new state, and to this he agreed with a whole heart.”

May 12, 1948: President Truman meets in the Oval Office with Secretary of State George Marshall, Under Secretary of State Robert Lovett, Counsel to the President Clark Clifford and several others to discuss the Palestine situation. Clifford argues in favor of recognizing the new Jewish state in accordance with the United Nations resolution of November 29, 1947. Marshall opposes Clifford’s arguments, and contends they are based on domestic political considerations. He says that if Truman follows Clifford’s advice and recognizes the Jewish state, then he (Marshall) would vote against Truman in the election. Truman does not clearly state his views in the meeting.

May 12, 13, and 14, 1948: Counsel to the President Clark Clifford and Under Secretary of State Robert Lovett discuss the different views held in the White House and the State Department regarding whether the United States should recognize the Jewish state. Lovett reports to Clifford on May 14 that Marshall will neither support nor oppose Truman’s plan to recognize the Jewish state, that he will stay out of the entire matter.

May 13, 1948: Chaim Weizmann, president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the World Zionist Organization, writes to President Truman: “I deeply hope that the United States, which under your leadership has done so much to find a just solution [to the Palestine situation], will promptly recognize the Provisional Government of the new Jewish state. The world, I think, would regard it as especially appropriate that the greatest living democracy should be the first to welcome the newest into the family of nations.”

May 14, 1948: late morning eastern standard time (late afternoon in Palestine): David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, reads a “Declaration of Independence,” which proclaims the existence of a Jewish state called Israel beginning on May 15, 1948, at 12:00 midnight Palestine time (6:00 p.m., May 14, 1948,eastern standard time).

May 14, 1948, 6 p.m. eastern standard time (12:00 midnight in Palestine): The British mandate for Palestine expires, and the state of Israel comes into being.

May 14, 1948, 6:11 p.m. eastern standard time: The United States recognizes Israel on a de facto basis. The White House issues the following statement: “This Government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition has been requested by the provisional government thereof. The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the State of Israel.” To see a color copy of this document click here.

May 14, 1948, shortly after 6:11 p.m. eastern standard time: United States representative to the United Nations Warren Austin leaves his office at the United Nations and goes home. Secretary of State Marshall sends a State Department official to the United Nations to prevent the entire United States delegation from resigning.

May 15, 1948: On May 15, 1948, the Arab states issued their response statement and Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq attack Israel.

January 25, 1949: A permanent government takes office in Israel following popular elections.

January 31, 1949: The United States recognizes Israel on a de jure basis.

February 24 to July 20, 1949: Israel signs armistice agreements with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

About that July FBI Hillary Interview

The FBI released a summary of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s July 2, 2016 interview with the FBI concerning allegations that classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on a personal e-mail server she used during her tenure. We also are releasing a factual summary of the FBI’s investigation into this matter. We are making these materials available to the public in the interest of transparency and in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Appropriate redactions have been made for classified information or other material exempt from disclosure under FOIA.

 

Hillary Clinton Emails FBI Report OCR by LawNewz on Scribd

There is a lot here but also know that many pages have full redactions. Parts 1-16 can be found here.

Accompanying Mrs. Clinton into the meeting were her lawyer David E. Kendall; Cheryl D. Mills and Heather Samuelson, longtime aides who are also lawyers; and two lawyers from Mr. Kendall’s firm, Williams & Connolly, Katherine Turner and Amy Saharia. Eight officials from the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice conducted the interview, according to a person who was familiar with the substance of the session but declined to be named because the meeting was private. We do know however that Peter Stzrok was in attendance in the lead in the interview.

The campaign has prioritized assisting the F.B.I., but it declined to cooperate with a State Department inspector general’s audit of Mrs. Clinton’s email practices.

Those findings, delivered to members of Congress in May, undermined some of Mrs. Clinton’s initial statements defending her use of the server.

The report said there was “no evidence” that she had requested or received approval for the server, despite having “an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business.”

Federal law deems it a crime to “knowingly” mishandle classified information outside secure government channels or to permit the practice through “gross negligence.”

The week prior to this FBI interview, was the time that Bill Clinton met Loretta Lynch on the tarmac at the Phoenix airport.

***  Image result for peter strzok Peter Strzok

Peter Strzok, also worked with FBI director James Comey on the Clinton email investigation. In fact, he was so deeply involved in the Clinton investigation that he is said to have interviewed Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, and to have been present when the FBI interviewed Clinton. According to CNN, he was part of the team responsible for altering the FBI’s conclusion that Clinton was “grossly negligent” in handling classified emails (a finding that could have triggered criminal liability) to “extremely careless” — a determination that allowed her to escape prosecution entirely.

*** We all know that the Russians not only intruded and continue to intrude into our political process as noted by the fake accounts and the bot operations in social media, such is the case in many foreign nations allied with the United States. Mueller’s investigative operation while countless Republicans and conservatives want the process terminated, it should be argued that these two FBI agents at a minimum were attempting to affect the election outcome significantly more than what Russia attempted to do. Let that sink in for a moment or two.

Much like the work of an inspector general, the Mueller team will recommend cases for prosecution which has already happened, however, there will be recommendations going forward to further examine the money trail, the people, the activities and further the intrusions such that going into the mid-term elections and into the general election in 2020, the United States is much more aware and possibly prepared to ward off any outside interference.

We also cannot forget John Podesta as a major player. If was completely honest and candid the first time, he would not have had to make a second appearance.

The House Intelligence Committee on Monday afternoon interviewed John Podesta in a return appearance for the former Clinton campaign chairman, according to Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas).

The committee was “following up on questions we had as a result of subsequent revelations with respect to Fusion and Glenn Simpson,” Conaway said, an apparent reference to the recent disclosure that Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) helped fund a controversial dossier of opposition research into then-candidate Donald Trump.

Podesta “answered all our questions,” Conaway said, but declined to comment further.

Podesta has, in the past, been of interest to the committee over the hack of his personal email account by suspected Russian operatives.

*** Meanwhile, the former Podesta Group appears to have a new name and some new and old players.

Two more former lobbyists from the Podesta Group are striking out on their own after Tony Podesta’s firm imploded last month.

The lobbyists, Oscar Ramirez and Dana Thompson, are teaming up with Josh Lamel, who recently left BGR Group, to start InSight Public Affairs.

Ramirez and Thompson had originally planned to join Cogent Strategies, the new firm that the Podesta Group’s longtime Chief Executive Kimberley Fritts started last month. Their pictures were included on the firm’s website when it launched.

“From a client-service perspective and an everyday work perspective, it seemed natural” to join Cogent, Thompson said in an interview on Friday.

But Thompson and Ramirez continued to consider their next moves in the wake of the Podesta Group’s collapse and decided they’d rather start a firm of their own. They teamed with Lamel, who had left the BGR Group, a top Washington lobbying firm, in October with plans to open a shop of his own.

While many former Podesta Group staffers have joined Cogent, others have scattered to other lobbying firms or started their own shops. Those who have opted to strike out on their own include Paul Brathwaite, who launched Federal Street Strategies, and Josh Lahey, who teamed up with Colin Hayes, a former Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee staff director, to start Lot Sixteen.

InSight Public Affairs will do lobbying and other public affairs work for a variety of clients with a focus on the tech and telecommunications sectors. “A large chunk of our business is going to be working with clients that are part of the innovation economy,” Ramirez said, including the clean energy industry, tech startups and financial and educational technology firms.

Around and around we go….

 

Shame on FBI’er Peter Strzok, Fail!

The FBI agent who was kicked off of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia team over the summer for sending pro-Clinton and anti-Trump text messages took part in the Jan. 24 interview with then-national security adviser Michael Flynn, it was reported on Monday.

Peter Strzok, a former FBI section chief in the bureau’s counterintelligence division, conducted the interview of Flynn at the White House, according to Circa reporter Sara Carter.

Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the FBI during that interview. He acknowledged giving false statements about conversations he had with Russia’s ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition period. More here.

*** Image result for peter strzok lisa page photo

Peter Stzrok reviewed and cleared the Anthony Weiner-Huma Abedin emails in RECORD TIME before the election and said he FOUND NOTHING. A source familiar with FBI supervisory agent Peter Stzrok’s involvement in the Hillary Clinton server investigation confirmed CNN’s report that he changed ‘grossly negligent’ to ‘extremely careless.

FBI Agent Strzok was also involved part of review over Abedin/Weiners emails found with classified information and data. He was also connected with the dossier.

It is important to understand there is a high probability that he and Andrew McCabe coordinated all the investigations and made recommendations of which Director Comey accepted without challenge. Can it be that the Clinton operation actually coordinated all the associated investigations due to the fact that Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s wife, Jill,  was very close to Terry McAuliffe including an estimated $700,000 in campaign funds for the wife to run for a local political run in Virginia?

McAuliffe, who chaired Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid, said that despite the loss, he is ready to work with president-elect Donald Trump. He said he sent Trump a congratulatory letter the day after the election, and looks forward to Trump’s plans to improve the nation’s infrastructure.

Clinton and McAuliffe have had long and closely entwined careers. McAuliffe put up $1.35 million as collateral on Clinton’s mortgage to buy their home in Chappaqua, N.Y. The Clintons, in turn, have provided McAuliffe a large network for his business and political enterprises.

***

All kinds of Hillary bundlers donated to Jill McCabe’s campaign, people inside the Hillary campaign itself including power positions. Check out the names and amounts here.

Now an Inspector General is reviewing the whole matter of Peter Stzrok and that report is estimated for release in March of 2018.

TheHill: A government watchdog confirmed Saturday that it is reviewing allegations involving agency officials amid reports that special counsel Robert Mueller’s team removed an FBI agent after an investigation into the agent potentially sending anti-Trump text messages.

The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) indicated that its probe into the communications of agency officials is part of the watchdog’s larger review of the FBI’s actions before and after the 2016 presidential election.

“The OIG has been reviewing allegations involving communications between certain individuals, and will report its findings regarding those allegations promptly upon completion of the review of them,” the OIG said in a statement.

The OIG said its review comes as a result of its January 2017 statement that it would look into actions by the Justice Department and FBI in its handling of the investigations during the 2016 election.

In the statement, the watchdog said it had set out to “consider whether certain underlying investigative decisions were based on improper considerations and that we also would include issues that might arise during the course of the review.”

Mueller’s investigation saw its most dramatic turn yet on Friday, when Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with Russian officials that took place during the presidential transition.

 

Finally, the U.S. is Re-Tooling a Cold-War Base in Iceland

The Russians have been aggressively moving in on that region for the last several years such that under the Obama administration, the United States was in no position to respond.

Keflavik_base_05_bþj.png Officially closed in 2006, Currently the Keflavík Airbase is being used by planes from the US and other NATO members (Iceland is a member nation). As Iceland does not have an army or an air force NATO allies periodically deploy fighter aircrafts to provide air policing. The plane crews are only a small fraction of the thousands of US servicemen that used to by stationed at Keflavík. The condos that they used to live in with their families have now been turned into a school campus, a hotel and other civilian facilities. More here.

***

Image result for Naval Air Station Keflavik photo

Russian submarines are also patrolling the North Atlantic more frequently than at any time since the end of the Cold War

The United States has a long relationship with Iceland, and by treaty since 1951 continues to be responsible for the defense of the country. Iceland has no military, but the country’s coast guard fulfills most military missions, and is responsible for maintaining Keflavik as a military installation. More here.

BI: The Pentagon is preparing to spend millions of dollars to fix up a Cold War-era air base in Iceland as Washington rushes to keep an eye on a new generation of stealthy Russian submarines slipping into the North Atlantic.

Tucked away in the 2018 defense budget sitting on President Donald Trump’s desk is a provision for $14.4 million to refurbish hangars at Naval Air Station Keflavik to accommodate more U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft, a key surveillance asset for locating and tracking submarines, a defense official confirms.

The move comes as new Russian nuclear and conventional submarines have been making more frequent trips through the area known as the “GIUK gap” — an acronym for Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom — the route for the Russian Northern Fleet to enter the Atlantic Ocean.

The United States and Iceland have agreed to increase rotations of the American surveillance planes to Iceland next year, Pentagon spokesman Johnny Michael confirmed to Foreign Policy.

Inside the alliance, there is concern over NATO’s ability to locate and track the new Russian submarines as they move silently into the open ocean. NATO officials have admitted that the past two decades of anti-piracy operations near Africa and support for ground operations in the Middle East have distracted from the anti-submarine mission which was at the core of the Cold War mission in the Atlantic.

After allowing its naval forces to fall into disrepair in the 1990s, Russian President Vladimir Putin set out on a major military overhaul in the 2000s, clawing back capability by designing and building new diesel- and nuclear-powered boats, making them quieter, more lethal, and longer-legged than their Soviet predecessors.

Russia’s undersea fleet “is in the best state it has been in since the fall of the Soviet Union,” said Michael Kofman, a Russian military expert at the Center for Naval Analyses. “A lot of effort has been spent on drilling, training, and readiness.”

The Russian submarine force of about 50 hulls is a fraction of the 400 the Soviet Union floated during the Cold War, but they boast vastly improved technical capabilities that put them on par with their American rivals, experts said.

“This time they’re going for quality rather than quantity,” added Magnus Nordenman of the Atlantic Council.

In an unclassified assessment of Russian military strength issued earlier this year, the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that Moscow’s new nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines are “capable of delivering nuclear warheads from thousands of kilometers away. This strategic capability puts the Russian Navy in the top tier of foreign navies.”

The pride of the Russian fleet is the nuclear-powered Yasen-class guided missile submarine, which can carry 32 Kalibr cruise missiles. While the missile’s range isn’t known for sure, Russian subs have fired the Kalibr into Syria from about 700 miles away.

Moscow has two Yasen-class subs operational, and plans to build an additional eight in coming years.

In late November the British first sea lord, Adm. Sir Philip Jones, said that the naval superiority Western navies have enjoyed in recent decades is disappearing and resurgent powers like Russia are testing the Royal Navy in home waters.

Yasen class Russian submarine The Russian Yasen-class nuclear attack submarine Severodvinsk Wikimedia Commons

“It’s now clear that the peaks of Russian submarine activity that we’ve seen in the North Atlantic in recent years are the new norm,” he said.

France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Turkey signed a letter of intent this summer to start development of new submarine-detecting aircraft. More airborne assets are needed because the number of sub-hunting ships that can patrol the waters on the North Atlantic, Baltic, and Mediterranean is far reduced since the Cold War.

Navies generally use frigates to conduct anti-submarine warfare — known as ASW operations — and the number of frigates in use by NATO allies has fallen to about 50, down from the 100 or so in the early 1990s.

Partly to fill that gap, the U.S. Navy is working to rush a new class of 20 frigates into service beginning in 2020. Last month, the service issued a notice to the defense industry to come up with a multi-mission frigate design that could be built within the next two years capable of conducting air defense and anti-submarine operations.

Russia has traditionally been constrained in its access to the open ocean, and the loss of the Baltic states and Poland, and of Black Sea ports in Romania and Bulgaria, mean modern Russia has a harder time getting out to sea than the Soviet Union did.

In the event of conflict with the West, Moscow’s Baltic and Black Sea fleets would likely be bottled up by NATO, “so that leaves the Northern Fleet as their power-projection fleet — it’s how they get out into the Atlantic,” the Atlantic Council’s Nordenman said.

While the Northern Fleet has primarily been designed to hold NATO at a distance from Russia, or exact a cost for any push by NATO forces, the increasing ability of its stealthy submarines to slip past American surveillance and pop up off the U.S. Eastern seaboard unannounced is a major concern for policymakers.

“The U.S. Navy needs to have a clear answer as to how they’re going to track these submarines,” said Kofman.

“Iceland is key,” Nordenman added. During the Second World War, U.S. anti-submarine forces in Iceland helped hunt down German U-boat wolf packs that had enjoyed a safe haven in the middle of the ocean, a role the island seems set to reprise.

“It’s the unsinkable aircraft carrier in the middle of the Atlantic that you can fly from,” Nordenman said.

Is the Homeland Prepared for NoKo Missiles?

Or China or Russia?

Ever wonder why there is no defense system in Hawaii or other remote Pacific Island? Unless, we are poised to deploy the new SM-6 which has had remarkable recent test results.

The Standard Missile-6 is built in a state-of-the-art Raytheon facility in Huntsville, Alabama. <a href ="/news/rtnwcm/groups/gallery/documents/image/six_things_sm-6_pic_01_lg.jpg" target="_blank">(Download high-resolution photo)</a>

(Is there a defense system for electronic warfare or cyber?)

What if North Korea or Iran launched a nuclear missile aimed at the United States? Could we prevent it from arriving?

That’s the basic motivation behind US homeland missile defense, a complex system of ground-based radars, satellite sensors, and interceptor missiles designed to destroy incoming warheads. If the system operated as promised, sensors would track intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) throughout their launch and flight. Interceptor missiles based in Alaska and California would then collide with and destroy the incoming weapons.

Diagram of how missile defense works ICBM launches have three distinct phases of flight. During the boost phase, a rocket launches the warhead at high speeds above the atmosphere, where it continues in free-fall through the vacuum of space. The midcourse phase begins with the rocket separating from the warhead, which continues unguided and unpowered, hundreds of miles above the Earth. The reentry, or terminal, phase sees the warhead descend at high speeds back through the Earth’s atmosphere toward the ground.

US homeland missile defense (also called “strategic missile defense”) is designed to destroy ICBMs during their midcourse phase, using interceptor missiles launched from the ground (hence the official name, “ground-based midcourse defense,” or GMD).

The process begins with infrared sensors on satellites, which monitor known launch locations for the tell-tale heat signature produced by launching rockets. Once a launch is established, tracking is transferred to radar systems, which help verify the missile’s trajectory. More here.

A target missile launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands A target missile launches from the Marshall Islands during a test intercept run. Photo: US Missile Defense Agency

The U.S. agency tasked with protecting the country from missile attacks is scouting the West Coast for places to deploy new anti-missile defenses, two Congressmen said on Saturday, as North Korea’s missile tests raise concerns about how the United States would defend itself from an attack.

West Coast defenses would likely include Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missiles, similar to those deployed in South Korea to protect against a potential North Korean attack.

The accelerated pace of North Korea’s ballistic missile testing program in 2017 and the likelihood the North Korean military could hit the U.S. mainland with a nuclear payload in the next few years has raised the pressure on the United States government to build-up missile defenses.

Congressman Mike Rogers, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee and chairs the Strategic Forces Subcommittee which oversees missile defense, said the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), was aiming to install extra defenses at West Coast sites. The funding for the system does not appear in the 2018 defense budget plan indicating potential deployment is further off.

When asked about the plan, MDA Deputy Director Rear Admiral Jon Hill‎ said in a statement: “The Missile Defense Agency has received no tasking to site the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense System on the West Coast.”

THAAD is a ground-based regional missile defense system designed to shoot down short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles and takes only a matter of weeks to install.

A Lockheed Martin representative declined to comment on specific THAAD deployments, but added that the company “is ready to support the Missile Defense Agency and the United States government in their ballistic missile defense efforts.” He added that testing and deployment of assets is a government decision.

In July, the United States tested THAAD missile defenses and shot down a simulated, incoming intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM). The successful test adds to the credibility of the U.S. military’s missile defense program, which has come under intense scrutiny in recent years due in part to test delays and failures. More here.