More to the Paula Broadwell Classified Material

Posted on June 9, 2016June 9, 2016 by Denise Simon

FBI found hundreds of classified files on Petraeus biographer Broadwell’s computer

CharlotteObserver: FBI agents found hundreds of classified documents on Paula Broadwell’s home computers in Charlotte during their investigation into her relationship with then-CIA Director David Petraeus, according to newly unsealed FBI documents obtained by the Observer.

More than 300 of those documents were classified as secret, according to a 2013 FBI affidavit accompanying the agency’s request to search Petraeus’ home in Arlington, Va.

A newly unsealed FBI search warrant reveals that agents found hundreds of classified documents on Paula Broadwell’s computers when they searched her Charlotte home in 2012, part of the agency’s investigation into her relationship with then CIA Director David Petraeus. File photo, July 13, 2011 AP

The documents, which were unsealed Tuesday by the U.S. District Court in Eastern Virginia, offer new details of the sweeping federal investigation into the relationship between Broadwell, a Charlotte author, and Petraeus, a highly decorated military commander, the subject of Broadwell’s book as well as her former lover.

The probe uncovered their affair, revealed their mishandling of classified documents and lead to Petraeus’ resignation as head of the CIA. Last year, Petraeus pleaded guilty in Charlotte to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling government documents and was fined $100,000.

Broadwell, the author of Petraeus’ biography, was never charged. Legal experts say her role as a journalist made any prosecution problematic.

Broadwell did not respond Wednesday to a phone message and email seeking comment. Neither did her Washington-based attorney Robert Muse. Jacob Sussman, the Charlotte member of Petraeus’ defense team during his plea hearing, had no comment.

The documents, partially redacted, have been sealed for more than three years. At the time of the search warrant request, the FBI asked that the affidavit remain sealed to protect an ongoing investigation. It was released in response to a public-information request by the media.

The affidavit is signed by a Charlotte-based FBI agent. Its allegations include:

▪ The documents show that when confronted by the FBI, both Broadwell and Petraeus appeared to mislead investigators about their extensive exchange of classified material, most of it involving military and diplomatic operations during Petraeus’ years as commander of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Petraeus admitted his affair with Broadwell during an October 2012 interview with the FBI in his CIA office. But he said he never gave classified information to her. That answer led some prosecutors to recommend that Petraeus be hit with a felony charge of obstructing a federal investigation. As part of his plea deal with Charlotte-based prosecutors, Petraeus admitted he lied to the FBI.

Interviewed in Charlotte, Broadwell claimed to have gotten some of the documents doing research for her book but “was unable to provide specifics as to how she obtained them … Broadwell advised that she never received classified information from Petraeus,” the affidavit says.

On the contrary, the new documents include details of multiple emails between the two over classified records, including the “black book” diaries and logs Petraeus kept as commander.

In one exchange included in the affidavit, Broadwell told Petraeus that certain records he’d shared were “naturally very helpful … (I want more of them! I know you’re holding back.)”

In June 2011, the affidavit says she expressed excitement at Petraeus’ willingness to share certain files. “(I)’ll protect them. And I’ll protect you,” she wrote.

During the same conversation, Petraeus referred to some files from his time as Iraqi War commander. “Class’d, but I guess I might share!” he told Broadwell.

From 2003 to 2012, Broadwell had security clearance to handle classified information, the affidavit says. But that came with the understanding that she not unlawfully remove the information “from authorized storage facilities” and not store the classified information “in unauthorized locations.”

The FBI found that Petraeus shared eight of his black books with Broadwell in 2011. Those contained secret codes, highly sensitive diplomatic information and wartime strategies, among other highly classified information. At the time, she was writing “All In,” Petraeus’ biography.

None of the classified information appeared in the book, documents say. But the affidavit says the FBI seized numerous photographs of the contents of the black books during a search of Broadwell’s home.

▪ The FBI gathered recordings Petraeus made as military commander in the Middle East in which he discussed information classified as “Top Secret” with reporters.

In an audio file taken from Broadwell’s home in November 2012, Petraeus can be heard discussing “sensitive military campaigns and operations” with reporters from the Washington Post. His only demand was to be referred to in the subsequent stories “as a senior military officer,” the affidavit says.

▪ Petraeus tried to stop the FBI investigation as soon as he heard about it. According to the affidavit, the FBI began its probe in Tampa, Fla., after a person identified as “Witness 1,” who is clearly Tampa socialite and Petraeus confidante Jill Kelley, complained of receiving threatening emails from someone who had access to the CIA director’s schedule – a potential breach of security.

According to Kelley’s recent book, an email went to her husband, Scott, on June 1, 2012, and referred to a Washington, D.C., dinner when Kelley and Petraeus, after a night of drinking, had compared each other’s muscles.

“As her husband, you might want to examine your wife’s behavior and see if you can rein her in before we publicly share the pictures of her with her hands sliding between the legs of a senior service official,” the email said.

The FBI later traced those messages to Broadwell.

On June 22, 2012, the FBI notified Petraeus’ security detail of its investigation. A month later, Kelley notified the FBI that she no longer wanted to press charges against the cyber stalker. That August, Kelley told the FBI that Petraeus “personally requested” that Kelley “call off the G-men,” and that the stalker “possessed information which could embarrass Petraeus and other public officials,” the affidavit says.

▪ Broadwell, who is married, and Petraeus, also married, took steps to hide their correspondences. The affidavit says the two used prepaid cellphones and email accounts “using non-attributable names.”

In September 2012, Broadwell told agents that she and Petraeus would use the same email account, saving messages in the “draft” folder instead of sending them.

[READ MORE: The aftermath of a scandal]

In the years since, Broadwell has apologized for the affair and says she has attempted to rebuild her marriage and has focused on charitable issues such as returning veterans and “Wounded Warriors.” She has also started a foundation to examine gender bias in the media.

‘I’m the first to admit I screwed up,” Broadwell recently told the New York Times. “… But how long does a person pay for their mistake?

At Least 12 Former Gitmo Detainees Killed Americans Since

Posted on June 8, 2016June 8, 2016 by Denise Simon

They were not even the worst of the worst. Has anyone tracked those 5 Taliban released for Bergdahl?

“Despite the current restrictions of the [Memorandum Of Understanding], it is clear… that the five former detainees have participated in activities that threaten U.S. and coalition personnel and are counter to U.S. national security interests–not unlike their activities before they were detained on the battlefield.,” the Intelligence Committee statement said.

Last year, the non-partisan Government Accountability Office also found that the Obama administration violated the law on the Bergdahl swap.

Related reading: House Report Taliban 5 Report

About 12 released Guantanamo detainees implicated in attacks on Americans

WaPo: The Obama administration believes that about 12 detainees released from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have launched attacks against U.S. or allied forces in Afghanistan, killing about a half-dozen Americans, according to current and former U.S. officials.

In March, a senior Pentagon official made a startling admission to lawmakers when he acknowledged that former Guantanamo inmates were responsible for the deaths of Americans overseas.

The official, Paul Lewis, who oversees Guantanamo issues at the Defense Department, provided no details, and the Obama administration has since declined to elaborate publicly on his statement because the intelligence behind it is classified.

But The Washington Post has learned additional details about the suspected attacks, including the approximate number of detainees and victims involved and the fact that, while most of the incidents were directed at military personnel, the dead also included one American civilian: a female aid worker who died in Afghanistan in 2008. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, declined to give an exact number for Americans killed or wounded in the attacks, saying the figure is classified.

[Pentagon official: Release of Guantanamo detainees has led to American deaths]

Lewis’s statement had drawn scrutiny on Capitol Hill, where some lawmakers see the violence against Americans as further evidence that the president’s plans for closing the prison are misguided and dangerous. They also describe the administration’s unwillingness to release information about the attacks as another instance of its use of high levels of classification to avoid discussion of a politically charged issue that could heighten political opposition to its plans.

One U.S. official familiar with the intelligence said that nine of the detainees suspected in the attacks are now dead or in foreign government custody. The official would not specify the exact number of detainees involved but said it was fewer than 15. All of them were released from Guantanamo Bay under the administration of George W. Bush.

The official added: “Because many of these incidents were large-scale firefights in a war zone, we cannot always distinguish whether Americans were killed by the former detainees or by others in the same fight.”

Military and intelligence officials, responding to lawmakers’ requests for more details, have provided lawmakers with a series of classified documents about the suspected attacks. One recent memo from the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which was sent to the House Foreign Affairs Committee after Lewis’s testimony, described the attacks, named the detainees involved and provided information about the victims without giving their names.

But lawmakers are prohibited from discussing the contents of that memo because of its high classification level. A similar document provided last month to the office of Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), a vocal opponent of Obama’s Guantanamo policy, was so highly classified that even her staff members with a top-secret clearance level were unable to read it.

“There appears to be a consistent and concerted effort by the Administration to prevent Americans from knowing the truth regarding the terrorist activities and affiliations of past and present Guantanamo detainees,” Ayotte wrote in a letter to Obama this week, urging him to declassify information about how many U.S. and NATO personnel have been killed by former detainees.

Rep. Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has also written legislation that would require greater transparency surrounding the transfer of Guantanamo detainees.

Royce and Ayotte are among the lawmakers who opposed a road map for closing the prison that the White House submitted to Congress earlier this year. That plan would require moving some detainees to U.S. prisons and resettling the rest overseas.

“The administration is releasing dangerous terrorists to countries that can’t control them, and misleading Congress in the process,” Royce said in a statement. “The president should halt detainee transfers immediately and be honest with the American people.”

Just under 700 detainees have been released from Guantanamo since the prison opened in 2002; 80 inmates remain.

Secrecy about the top-security prison, perched on an inaccessible corner of Cuba, is nothing new. The Bush administration for years refused to provide a roster of detainees until it was forced to do so in a Freedom of Information Act case in 2006. To this day, reporters have never been able to visit Camp 7, a classified facility that holds 14 high-value detainees, including the five men on trial for organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations have provided only limited information on current and former detainees; most of what the public knows about them comes from defense lawyers or from documents released by WikiLeaks.

According to a 2012 report from the House Armed Services Committee, the Defense Intelligence Agency ended the practice of naming some suspected recidivists in 2009 when officials became concerned that it would endanger sources and methods.

National Security Council spokesman Myles Caggins said it was difficult to discuss specific cases in detail because the information was classified.

“But, again, we are committed to being forthcoming with the American people about our safe and responsible approach to Guantanamo detainee transfers, including about possible detainee re-engagement in terrorist activities,” he said.

One Republican aide who has reviewed the classified material about the attacks on Americans said the information has been “grossly overclassified.”

Administration officials say that recidivism rates for released Guantanamo inmates remain far lower than those for federal offenders. According to a recent study, almost half of all federal offenders released in 2005 were “rearrested for a new crime or rearrested for a violation of supervision conditions.” Among former Guantanamo detainees, the total number of released detainees who are suspected or confirmed of reengaging is about 30 percent, according to U.S. intelligence.

Nearly 21 percent of those released prior to 2009 have reengaged in militancy, officials say, compared with about 4.5 percent of the 158 released by Obama.

Human rights activists say the statistics are suspect and cannot be verified because the administration provides almost no information about whom it is counting and why.

Most of those suspected of re-engagement are Afghan, reflecting the large numbers of Afghans detained after the Sept. 11 attacks and the ongoing war there. More than 200 Afghan prisoners have been repatriated from the prison.

Officials declined to identify the woman killed in Afghanistan in 2008. But there are two female aid workers killed that year who might fit the description.

Cydney Mizell, a 50-year-old employee of the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation, was abducted in Kandahar as she drove to work. Her body was never recovered, according to a former colleague who said he was told about a month later that she had died.

Another woman, Nicole Dial, 30, a Trinidadian American who worked for the International Rescue Committee, was shot and killed the same year south of Kabul, along with two colleagues.

Relatives of Mizell and Dial said they have not been in touch with the FBI for years. Dial’s brother said he was unaware of a former Guantanamo detainee being involved in his sister’s killing.

Mizell’s stepmother said she was never told the exact circumstances of her daughter’s death or who abducted her.

“She was definitely killed,” Peggy Mizell said. “I figured she was shot.”

Response to a Russian Attack on Poland and the Baltic States

Posted on June 8, 2016June 8, 2016 by Denise Simon

Citation: RFEL

*****

Huge NATO Exercise Is a Rehearsal for a Russian Invasion

U.S. C-17 planes from the 82nd Airborne Division drop paratroopers during a multinational jump with soldiers and equipment from the U.S., Great Britain and Poland on to a designated drop zone near Torun, Poland, on June 7, 2016. The exercise, Swift Response-16, sets the stage in Poland for the multinational land force training event Anaconda-16. AP

TORUN, Poland — US, British and Polish soldiers parachuted to the ground in Poland on Tuesday in a mass show of force as NATO launched its biggest war games in eastern Europe since the Cold War.

The exercises — staged against the backdrop of a military and diplomatic standoff between Russia and the West — have rattled the Kremlin.

NATO says the 10-day Anaconda maneuvers involving 31,000 troops are intended to shore up security on the alliance’s eastern flank, where member states have been spooked by Russia’s increasingly assertive actions.

“There’s no reason to be nervous,” Ben Hodges, Commanding General, US Army Europe, told reporters, insisting the exercises were purely “defensive”.

They are being held a month ahead of a NATO summit in Warsaw set to seal its largest revamp since the Cold War by deploying more troop rotations to eastern European members deeply wary of Russia after its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Moscow fiercely opposes the NATO moves, billed by the US-led alliance as part of its “deterrence and dialogue” strategy.

‘Trust deficit’

And the Kremlin reacted angrily to the start of the maneuvers, NATO’s biggest since the Trident drills last year involving 36,000 troops in Italy, Spain and Portugal.

“The exercises… do not contribute to an atmosphere of trust and security,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

“Unfortunately we are still witnessing a deficit in mutual trust.”

Anaconda involves troops from 24 states, including 14,000 from the US, as well as ex-Soviet “Partnership for Peace” states like Ukraine.

US generals in Torun, central Poland, said it took just 24 hours for 500 rapid “Global Response” paratroopers to deploy 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) from the world’s largest military base in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Russia has long protested at NATO’s expansion in its Soviet-era backyard and in 1997 NATO formally agreed not to install permanent bases in former Warsaw Pact states.

Since the Ukraine conflict erupted in 2014 however, NATO has established a high-speed “spearhead” response force, complete with forward command and logistic centers in eastern states.

The Pentagon said in March it would deploy an additional armored brigade of about 4,200 troops in eastern Europe from early 2017 on a rotational basis.

While NATO cut all practical cooperation with Moscow over the Ukraine crisis, the alliance plans formal talks with the Russians before the July 8-9 summit.

“The Cold War is history and we want it to stay that way,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said last week.

But last month Moscow and Washington accused each other of mounting an aggressive military presence in Europe as the US broke ground on a missile shield in Poland and Romania.

Russia has vowed to “end threats” posed

by the missile system, despite US assurances it is intended to ward of potential attacks by “rogue” states in the Middle East.

Moscow has significantly stepped up its presence in the Baltic Sea area and its jets regularly violate the airspace of smaller ex-Soviet NATO allies like Estonia. In April, they even buzzed a US naval destroyer.

‘Test of wills’

Some analysts question whether NATO’s current strategy — using rotational rather than permanent forces — can secure its eastern flank.

“When push comes to shove, how long will it really take to mobilize at break-neck speed troops in the possibility of a threat of an attack?” Carnegie Europe analyst Judy Dempsey said in an interview with AFP.

“Russian exercises are sophisticated, they’re big, they’re intimidating and look what they’re doing in Kaliningrad,” she said, referring to Moscow’s maneuvers in the Russian enclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania.

“It’s like a warning to NATO: ‘don’t forget, we’re right inside NATO territory’.”

The Kremlin has said it would set up three new divisions in the west and south of Russia by the end of the year to counter NATO forces near its border.

Describing the confrontation as “a test of wills”, Dempsey said she believes Moscow’s saber-rattling is ultimately aimed at stopping NATO from encroaching even further into its backyard, with ex-Soviet republics Georgia and Ukraine keen to join the Western alliance.

Mystery Navy Flights to Jam GPS for 1 Month

Posted on June 7, 2016June 7, 2016 by Denise Simon

ZH: Starting today, and continuing for the next month, the FAA has warned airplane pilots that GPS signals on on the West Coast, and especially over California and Nevada, may be impacted.

The reason why is not exactly clear, but as Gizmodo notes, the US military will be testing a device or devices that will potentially jam GPS signals for six hours each day. Officially the tests were announced by the FAA but are centered near the US Navy’s largest installation in the Mojave Desert, China Lake, located “just down the road” from Area 51. The Navy has kept silent about the nature of the tests.

An aerial view of the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake

As Gizmodo adds, the FAA issued an advisory warning pilots on Saturday that global positioning systems (GPS) could be unreliable during six different days this month, primarily in the Southwestern United States. On June 7, 9, 21, 23, 28, and 30th the GPS interference testing will be taking place between 9:30am and 3:30pm Pacific time. But if you’re on the ground, you probably won’t notice interference.

The dates and times of potential GPS outages per the FAA are shown below:

7 JUN 16 1630Z – 2230Z
9 JUN 16 1630Z – 2230Z
21 JUN 16 1630Z – 2230Z
23 JUN 16 1630Z – 2230Z
28 JUN 16 1630Z – 2230Z
30 JUN 16 1630Z – 2230Z

The testing will be centered on China Lake, California—home to the Navy’s 1.1 million acre Naval Air Weapons Center in the Mojave Desert. The potentially lost signals will stretch hundreds of miles in each direction and will affect various types of GPS, reaching the furthest at higher altitudes. But the jamming will only affect aircraft above 50 feet. As shown in the FAA map below, the jamming will almost reach the California-Oregon border at 4o,000 feet above sea level and 505 nautical miles at its greatest range.

The FAA map showing the GPS jamming that will occur at different altitudes this month

“We’re aware of the flight advisory,” Deidre Patin, Public Affairs specialist for Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division told Gizmodo but she couldn’t give any further details about whether there was indeed GPS “jamming,” nor whether it had happened before. Patin added, “I can’t go into the details of the testing, it’s general testing for our ranges.”

Embraer Phenom 300 business jets are specifically being told to avoid the area completely during the tests.

THIS NOTAM APPLIES TO ALL AIRCRAFT RELYING ON GPS. ADDITIONALLY, DUE TO GPS INTERFERENCE IMPACTS POTENTIALLY AFFECTING EMBRAER PHENOM 300 AIRCRAFT FLIGHT STABILITY CONTROLS, FAA RECOMMENDS EMB PHENOM PILOTS AVOID THE ABOVE TESTING AREA AND CLOSELY MONITOR FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEMS DUE TO POTENTIAL LOSS OF GPS SIGNAL.

This means that billionaires flying into Santa Monica will have to find alternative routes in the affected intervals, due to the FAA’s warning that the jamming test could interfere with the business jet’s “aircraft flight stability controls.”

As Gizmodo’s Matt Novak writes, “GPS technology has become so ubiquitous that cheap jamming technology has become a real concern for both military and civilian aircraft. And if we had to speculate we’d say that these tests are probably pulling double duty for both offensive and defensive military capabilities. But honestly, that’s just a guess.”

Readers who have more information on the nature of these tests are welcome to write in or comment. The full FAA Advisory is attached below.

CHLK 16-08 GPS Flight Advisory by zerohedge

SITREP Afghanistan: Taliban, Contractors, Troop Levels

Posted on June 7, 2016June 7, 2016 by Denise Simon

Two members of an NPR news crew, David Gilkey and Zabihullah Tamanna, were killed on Sunday while traveling in southern Afghanistan.

CNN: “They were traveling with an Afghan army unit when the convoy came under fire. Their vehicle was struck by shell fire,” according to a statement by NPR.

Two other NPR crew members, correspondent Tom Bowman and producer Monika Evstatieva, “were in a following vehicle,” NPR head of news Michael Oreskes told CNN. “Tom and Monika were not hurt.”

Sunday’s attack marks the first time in the 46-year history of NPR that one of its journalists has been killed on assignment.

Gilkey, 50, was an award-winning staff photographer and video editor for NPR. In the 15 years since the 9/11 attacks, he returned time and time again to Afghanistan and other conflict zones.

“David was profoundly committed to coverage of both Afghanistan and Iraq,” Oreskes said. “He wanted to know what was happening to the people there. I think that’s why he kept going back — because he wanted to understand what was happening to the soldiers and civilians.”

Watchdog: Afghanistan’s lapis lazuli is a ‘conflict mineral’

FNC: KABUL, Afghanistan – An international anti-corruption watchdog says Afghanistan’s war is being fueled by the country’s mining sector, with armed groups — including the Taliban — earning $20 million from illegal mining of lapis lazuli.

A report by Global Witness released on Monday says that lapis lazuli, a blue stone almost unique to Afghanistan, should be classified as a “conflict mineral.”

It says the northern Badakhshan province where lapis lazuli is concentrated has been “deeply destabilized” by violent competition for control of the mines between local strongmen, law makers and the Taliban.

Badakhshan is a microcosm of what is happening across Afghanistan, with mining being the Taliban’s second biggest source of income, after drugs.

The Taliban insurgency is in its 15th year.

Afghanistan’s mineral assets are believed to be worth billions of dollars.

How Obama’s Afghanistan plan is forcing the Army to replace soldiers with contractors

WaPo: Current restrictions on U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan and a heavy reliance on civilian contractors are eroding the skills and cohesion of units deployed to the country, according to information from the Army given to the House Armed Services Committee and provided to The Washington Post.

According to an Army document, the use of civilian labor in one of the Army’s combat aviation brigades, or CABs, in Afghanistan has had negative side effects because the contractors are being used in lieu of the brigade’s maintenance soldiers. Those soldiers should be deploying with their units, but are not because of the “constrained troop level environment” in Afghanistan, the document says.

[Obama faces what is likely his last major decision on the Pentagon’s role in Afghanistan]

“Aviation maintainers not deploying with their [brigades] results in an erosion of skill and experience essential to soldier and leader development,” Army officials said in the document. “The atrophy of these critical skills erodes the brigade’s ability to deploy in the future and sustain itself in an expeditionary manner to locations that may not permit the deployment of contractors.”

According to the Army document, three CABs have deployed to Afghanistan since 2013 with reduced maintenance staffs. A typical CAB usually deploys with 1,500 soldiers but can swell above 2,500 depending on the mission. In 2013, a brigade deployed with 1,900 troops, but as U.S. forces were reduced in Afghanistan, a brigade of only 800 deployed in 2015. Despite the reduction in troop levels, the brigade was still expected to maintain and fly its roughly 100 aircraft.

Currently, the 4th Infantry Division’s CAB is deployed to Afghanistan and provides “country-wide aviation support,” according to a breakdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan that was compiled by the Institute for the Study of War. It primarily provides rotor-wing support in the form of helicopter gunships and transports.

According to the Army document, only 6 percent of the 4th’s CAB is dedicated to maintaining aircraft. That small number is specifically for recovering aircraft that land or crash in a hostile environment. Instead, 427 civilian personnel — at a cost of $101 million annually — are maintaining the CAB’s fleet of helicopters. Through 2014 and 2015, 390 contractors maintained both the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions’ aircraft for $86 million when their CABs were deployed to Afghanistan.

While U.S.-led combat operations in Afghanistan officially ended in 2014, last fall, as the Taliban gained momentum throughout the country, President Obama agreed to keep about 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan through 2016, and 5,500 into 2017.

Although the troop levels are low compared to the 45,000 deployed at the start of 2014, the number of uniformed service members in Afghanistan is only part of the U.S. war effort there. As of April, 26,000 Pentagon contractors are in Afghanistan, about half of whom are assigned to logistics and maintenance duties, according to publicly available reports.

[In Afghanistan, a series of attacks on Americans during ‘non-combat’ operations]

Although the number of contractors has almost always exceeded the number of uniformed troops in Afghanistan, the ratio of civilian employees compared to U.S. military personnel has more than doubled in the past two years, from 1.34 to 2.92.

“I am not at all convinced that the only units affected are the combat aviation brigades,” Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a recent interview. “Aside from financially … is there a potential that it increases the risk that our folks face just because of these political limits? Those questions are certainly worthy of a significant deep dive on the part of the committee.”

***** Obama being asked about force levels:

Washington, DC- Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) and nine members of the Senate Armed Services Committee sent a letter to President Obama regarding U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan. “A timely decision on U.S. force levels is necessary so that our allies and partners can generate forces and make appropriate pledged for the Resolute Support Mission beginning in January 2017,” the bipartisan group of senators wrote. “We urge you to announce any changes to our current planned force levels ahead of the relevant NATO conferences, giving the strong consideration to the assessment of your military commanders and to conditions on the ground.”

The letter was signed by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE), Senator Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Senator Angus King (I-ME).

The text of the letter can be found below. Additionally, click here to read the letter.

Dear President Obama:

We appreciate your continued willingness to consider adjustments based on the security situation in Afghanistan to preserve and build upon the hard fought gains achieved over the past 14 years. In recent months, the Senate Armed Services Committee has heard from General Nicholson, General Campbell, and General Votel – the senior military commanders closest to the fight – that the security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating, which challenges the ability of the Afghan government to provide stability and security for its people.

We understand that General John Nicholson is in the process of completing his assessment of the capabilities and associated troop levels he believes will be necessary in Afghanistan to confront a resurgent Taliban, a reviving Al Qaida, and a rising Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, and will make recommendations in the near future. As the Commander on the ground, we believe that his recommendations should be given extraordinary weight. We also believe that the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan should be based on conditions on the ground and that considerations on troop levels should be driven first by what capabilities are needed to protect our national security interests in Afghanistan, and second by the number of troops it takes to enable those capabilities.

Furthermore, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) will hold its Force Generation Conference beginning on June 8th and the NATO Summit in Warsaw will begin on July 8th. It is important that our allies and partners understand any changes to our planned force levels for Afghanistan before those key events to determine and plan for the number of troops they will commit to operations in Afghanistan in 2017. As has long been the case, we believe our NATO Allies and partners will follow our lead in Afghanistan. In February, General Campbell testified to Congress that “If our number continues to go down, NATO will absolutely reduce their commitment to Afghanistan.” Additionally, we do not think we are going to learn anything in the next several months that we do not know now. Should you decide to revise the planned number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan for 2017, we urge you to announce such a decision before the relevant NATO conferences convene and inform our partners and allies of that decision so they can plan accordingly.

In summary, a timely decision on U.S. force levels is necessary so that our allies and partners can generate forces and make appropriate pledges for the Resolute Support Mission beginning in January 2017. We urge you to announce any changes to our current planned force levels ahead of the relevant NATO conferences, giving the strongest consideration to the assessment of your military commanders and to conditions on the ground.

Sincerely,

Senator John McCain

Senator Joe Manchin

Senator Kelly Ayotte

Senator Jeanne Shaheen

Senator Deb Fischer

Senator Joe Donnelly

Senator Tom Cotton

Senator Tim Kaine

Senator Lindsey Graham

Senator Angus King