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Do we have a concept of the insider threat condition within government with emphasis added on contractors within the intelligence community? Anyone? Combined with stupidity, lax security measures, no passwords and dated software platforms, is there anything left our adversaries don’t know by now?
Referencing Vault 7 and the CIA, the agency has agreements with several outside contractor firms. The employees of those firms have a much lower standard of security, behavior and access than that of the CIA. The agency holds contracts with 5 major outside firms that do 80% of the private contract work to include Booz, Allen and Hamilton. The next logical question is who else besides the CIA holds private contract work agreements, DNI, Defense Department, Geo-Spatial, NSA? Yes.
Where does one begin to document cyber vulnerabilities and how to close those gaps immediately and at what cost? Meanwhile little is being reported about NSA documents thief Harold Martin.
US military leak exposes ‘holy grail’ of security clearance files
Exclusive: These security clearance applications contain sensitive personal information, and are highly valuable to foreign adversaries seeking to undermine US national security.
ZDNet: A unsecured backup drive has exposed thousands of US Air Force documents, including highly sensitive personnel files on senior and high-ranking officers.
Security researchers found that the gigabytes of files were accessible to anyone because the internet-connected backup drive was not password protected.
The files, reviewed by ZDNet, contained a range of personal information, such as names and addresses, ranks, and Social Security numbers of more than 4,000 officers. Another file lists the security clearance levels of hundreds of other officers, some of whom possess “top secret” clearance, and access to sensitive compartmented information and codeword-level clearance.
Phone numbers and contact information of staff and their spouses, as well as other sensitive and private personal information, were found in several other spreadsheets.
The drive is understood to belong to a lieutenant colonel, whose name we are not publishing. ZDNet reached out to the officer by email but did not hear back.
The data was secured last week after a notification by MacKeeper security researcher Bob Diachenko.
Among the most damaging documents on the drive included the completed applications for renewed national security clearances for two US four-star generals, both of whom recently had top US military and NATO positions.
Both of these so-called SF86 applications contain highly sensitive and detailed information, including financial and mental health history, past convictions, relationships with foreign nationals, and other personal information.
These completed questionnaires are used to determine a candidate’s eligibility to receive classified material.
Several national security experts and former government officials we spoke to for this story described this information as the “holy grail” for foreign adversaries and spies, and said that it should not be made public.
For that reason, we are not publishing the names of the generals, who have since retired from service.
Nevertheless, numerous attempts to contact the generals over the past week went unreturned.
“Some of the questions ask for information that can be very personal, as well as embarrassing,” said Mark Zaid, a national security attorney, in an email. The form allows prospective applicants to national security positions to disclose arrests, drug and alcohol issues, or mental health concerns, among other things, said Zaid.
Completed SF86 forms aren’t classified but are closely guarded. These were the same kinds of documents that were stolen in a massive theft of sensitive files at the Office of Personnel Management, affecting more than 22 million government and military employees.
“Even if the SF86 answers are innocuous, because of the personal information within the form there is always the risk of identity theft or financial fraud that could harm the individual and potentially compromise them,” said Zaid.
One spreadsheet contained a list of officers under investigation by the military, including allegations of abuses of power and substantiated claims of wrongdoing, such as wrongfully disclosing classified information.
A former government official, who reviewed a portion of the documents but did not want to be named, said that the document, in the wrong hands, provided a “blueprint” for blackmail.
Even officers who have left in recent years may still be vulnerable to coercion if they are still trusted with historical state secrets.
“Foreign powers might use that information to target those individuals for espionage or to otherwise monitor their activity in the hopes of gaining insight into US national security posture,” said Susan Hennessey, a Brookings fellow and a former attorney at the National Security Agency.
Government officials use the form as a screening mechanism, said Hennessey, but it also offers applicants the chance to inform the government of past indiscretions or concerns that eliminate the possibility of blackmail in the future, she added. “These are people whose lives can depend on sensitive information being safeguarded, so the notion they would fail to put country over self in that kind of circumstance is far-fetched and supported by relatively few historical examples,” she said.
“Still, it is the obligation of the government to keep this kind of information safe, both in order to protect the privacy of those who serve and their families and to protect them against being placed in difficult situations unnecessarily,” said Hennessey.
Though many of the files were considered “confidential” or “sensitive,” a deeper keyword-based search of the files did not reveal any material marked as classified.
A completed passport application for one of the generals was also found in the same folder, as well as scans of his own and his wife’s passports and driving licenses.
Other data included financial disclosures, bank account and routing information, and some limited medical information.
Another document purported to show the lieutenant colonel’s username and password for a sensitive internal Dept. of Defense system, used to check staff security clearances.
And, a smaller spreadsheet contained a list of Social Security numbers, passport numbers, and other contact information on high-profile figures and celebrities, including Channing Tatum.
The records were collected in relation to a six-day tour to Afghanistan by Tatum in 2015. An email to Tatum’s publicist went unreturned.
The drive also contained several gigabytes of Outlook email files, covering years worth of emails. Another document purported to be a backup.
Nevertheless, this would be the second breach of military data in recent months.
Potomac, a Dept. of Defense subcontractor, was the source of a large data exposure of military personnel files of physical and mental health support staff. Many of the victims involved in the data leak are part of the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM), which includes those both formerly employed by US military branches, such as the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and those presumably still on active deployment.
It’s not known how long the backup drive was active. Given that the device was public and searchable, it’s not known if anyone other than the security researchers accessed the files.
The Office of Personnel Management, which processes security clearance applications, referred comment to the Pentagon.
A Pentagon spokesperson would not comment in an email Monday.
Former DAG James Cole appears with Sidney Blumenthal for depo in House investigation.
Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime Clinton family friend, on Tuesday sat for a closed-door deposition in the House over his communications with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton around the time of the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. James Cole, a former deputy attorney general under Eric Holder Jr. who is now a partner in Sidley Austin’s Washington office, represents Blumenthal.
*** Then this in a snippet:
The complaint, filed in October, names Sidley Austin and partner Edward McNicholas, alleging that they assisted one Joseph Garcia in securing millions in investments from a woman named Carrie Birkel. Birkel is looking to recover $1.5 million from the lawyers. Birkel claims that she had millions to invest after she got her $10 million divorce settlement — a divorce precipitated by Garcia providing her, unsolicited, with compromising photos of her husband, before introducing her to McNicholas, who vetted divorce lawyers for her on a $25,000 retainer.
As the complaint states:
Birkel’s claims arise out of a truly bizarre set of circumstances that would seem more appropriate for an episode of “Law and Order” than in reality.
Garcia and his wife used multiple aliases to go along with numerous Social Security numbers. While peddling phony investments, Garcia would only reference his time as a Navy SEAL; the details were confidential. And he instructed his family to always have “go bags” packed should they need to flee one of the many lavish homes they rented across the country. More here.
***
For the confirmation hearing for Loretta Lynch, Statement of David B. Barlow ,Partner, Sidley Austin LLP made an endorsing and glowing recommendation for her.
Okay, so Sidley Austin is a very big and weird law firm with clear power in Washington DC, so what?
Well, let’s bring in the Russian lobby operation shall we? Sidley is the law firm of record to influence Congress and the White House against sanctions and political cover. The lobby agreement was generated by VTB Bank with Sidley Austin.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) reported in April that suspicious payments made by “Putin’s cronies may have, in some cases, been intended as payoffs, possibly in exchange for Russian government aid or contracts.”
The secret documents suggested that much of the money originally came from a bank in Cyprus, the ICIJ said, “that, at the time, was majority-owned by the Russian state-controlled VTB Bank.”
The documents also showed dozens of transactions, over more than a decade, involving people or companies linked to Putin, who has been in power at the Kremlin since 2000. Among those identified in the document were Putin’s longtime friend, cellist Sergei Roldugin, and the wife of Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov.
Putin has admitted there were transactions between him and Roldugin, but said there was no evidence of illegal activity.
Roldugin has dismissed any suggestion that he was either a custodian or a conduit for Putin’s money or assets.
*** Back in 2014:
VTB Bank and Bank of China today signed an Agreement on Cooperation in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The agreement was signed by First Deputy President and Chairman of VTB Bank Management Board Vasily Titov and Bank of China President Chen Siqing.
Under the agreement, the banks plan to develop their partnership in a number of areas, including cooperation on ruble and renminbi settlements, investment banking, inter-bank lending, trade finance and capital-markets transactions.
Vasily Titov said :”The signing of the agreement underscores VTB Group’s ongoing drive to grow its business in Asia, and will help facilitate the development of bilateral trade and economic relations between Russia and China, which have always been reliable partners.”
***
The Russian state-controlled bank VTB confirmed that its websites had been targeted by a cyber attack. The VTB is the second largest bank in the country. In December of 2016, Security Affairs reported:
Last week the Russian intelligence service FSB revealed that an unnamed foreign power is planning to undermine Russian Banks with cyber attacks and PSYOPS via social media.
According to the Russian intelligence, a group of servers in the Netherlands and leased to the Ukrainian web hosting firm BlazingFast were ready to launch an assault next Monday.
“Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), said that the servers to be used in the alleged cyber attack were located in the Netherlands and registered to a Ukrainian web hosting company called BlazingFast.” reported the Reuters.
“The attack, which was to target major national and provincial banks in several Russian cities, was meant to start on Dec. 5, the FSB said in a statement.”
A few hours after the announcement made by the FSB, the Russian Central Bank confirmed that hackers have stolen 2 billion rubles, roughly 31 million US dollars, from accounts at the Russian central bank.
The Russian authorities haven’t disclosed the identity of the alleged threat actor behind the attack.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security have issued a joint security statement to accuse the Russian government of a series of intrusions into the networks of US organizations and state election boards involved in the Presidential Election.
“The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process” reads the statement.
There is more to the Obama administration and decisions than we know. This matter of cyber intrusions, sanctions, lawyers, Russian interference will not go away any time soon.
Back in January, The Hill reported on early meetings the Trump team was having to address the proposed governmental budget. Yippee…finally. However, are all the proposals a good thing once they are introduced? Trump’s White House wants to cut $10.5 TRILLION in 10 years. He is working to increase Pentagon spending by $54 billion.
***
Staffers for the Trump transition team have been meeting with career staff at the White House ahead of Friday’s presidential inauguration to outline their plans for shrinking the federal bureaucracy, The Hill has learned. The changes they propose are dramatic.
The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.
Overall, the blueprint being used by Trump’s team would reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years.
*** So far, so good.
Okay, there are more clues, and you can decide for yourself.
There are other agencies that will be affected and they can lobby their case for more funding once the budget is presented, reviewed and accepted.
The budget plans that the White House is expected to send to departments and agencies on Monday are just one stage in a lengthy process.
The agencies can argue for more funding, and final spending plans must be approved by the U.S. Congress.
Trump’s budget assumes annual economic growth of 2.4 percent, the second official said. While campaigning for the presidency last year, Trump called for a “national goal” of 4 percent economic growth.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, speaking on Fox News earlier on Sunday, said Trump’s budget would not seek cuts in federal social programs such as Social Security and Medicare. More from Reuters.
Anyone remember the old discussion of balancing the budget? The Heritage Foundation has a money wing that has studied and examined all government agencies and has proposed the blueprint. It would be well for voters and those concerned with government budgets and spending to examine this blueprint and as such the Trump White House should do the same. The full blueprint is here and it is a stellar piece of work.
First up that must be scrutinized is ‘entitlements’. Just exactly where did that term come from anyway? Who is entitled to anything and why? If you can stomach entitlement spending and the associated charts, click here.
There are also federal government grant programs and the Trump White House has not mentioned these. The U.S. State Department is a major grant operation for non-government agencies (NGO) and click here for those details.
Then there is the Department of Agriculture with a grant program. In fact every agency has a grant operation and we have not mentioned subsidies. Whoa, that one will light your hair on fire.
The federal government spends billions of dollars each year on business subsidies and tax credits, with most of the money accruing to large corporations, a new database reveals.
The database released Tuesday by the government accountability group Good Jobs First, called Subsidy Tracker 3.0, represents the first-ever comprehensive listing of federal economic development programs, expanding on the group’s existing database of state and local subsidies.
According to an accompanying report put out by the group, “two-thirds of the $68 billion in business grants and special tax credits awarded by the federal government over the past 15 years have gone to large corporations,” including numerous foreign firms.
C’mon White House, how about addressing the grants/subsidies/loan guarantee/pledges and types of aid to foreign countries that hate us.
First on the list is the money that should be terminated that the United States pays to UNRWA.
The Palestinian Authority is hugely dependent upon foreign assistance, which accounts for about 66 percent of its annual budget. European Union funding for the PA amounted to $600 million in 2005.[2] The United States gives $70 million directly to the PA each year, as well as $225 million for humanitarian projects through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).[3] Between 1993 and 2004, the Palestinian Authority received $6.93 billion in aid from the international community.[4]
What do you want Trump to cut? Education? EPA? Section 8 Housing? United Nations? Ransom money to rogue nations? How about the waste, fraud and collusion of members of Congress? How about stopping ridiculous travel by federal government employees?
Maybe we need to look carefully too at what we NEED to be spending quality money on.
Leave your thoughts in the comments section. Thanks as it is going to be a wild ride to stop spending and reforming the tax code.
It is a matter of procedure to investigate these kinds of activities and the people involved in them. In the case of national security and protocol violations, the checks and balances are required and this includes agencies such as the State Department, the FBI, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
Bijan Rafiekian is Chairman, President, CEO and Secretary of the Flynn Intel Group, Inc. Other officers are Michael Flynn and Philip A Oakley.
–> 2 Items UPDATE:
1. More important names in the Flynn affair: Former FBI agent and Admiral
12/21/16, Intelligence Online: “When he was a private consultant, Flynn worked for Inovo, a Dutch firm owned by Kamil Ekim Alptekin, the Turkish chairman of the U.S.-Turkey Business Council (USTBC) and a close advisor to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Alptekin is very well-connected to the Turkish government security apparatus. He is the chairman of the board of ATH Defence and Security Solutions Co, which sells monitoring and intelligence equipment. According to our sources, ATH supplies materiel to the Turkish intelligence service MIT (Milli Istihbarat Teskilati, and the Turkish police force’s intelligence units.”
12/15/16: Bloomberg: “[Flynn Intelligence Group] worked as a lobbyist for Inovo BV, a Dutch company with close ties to Turkish President Recep Erdogan.”
11/29/16, Al-Ahram Weekly: “[Trump’s] national security adviser, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, a former head of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), has been outed for signing a contract with a Dutch company operating as a front for a Turkish government contractor with close ties to the Erdogan regime.”
11/19/16, AP: “[Flynn’s] his private consulting firm has lobbied for a company headed by a Turkish businessman tied to Turkey’s authoritarian, Islamist-leaning government, which cracked down on dissent and jailed thousands of opponents after a failed coup in July against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.”
11/19/16, CNN: “According to the official document, Kelley was working on behalf of Inovo BV, a Dutch firm owned by Turkish businessman, Kamil Ekim Alptekin.
Alptekin told CNN in an email that the firm works to strengthen ‘the transatlantic relationship and Turkey’s future in that alliance.'” More here.
***
Bijan Rafiekian was a member of the Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States and earlier in his career, he was president of GLOBTEL and Greezone Systems, Inc. At the Export-Import Bank, Rafiekian was assigned to work deals to export coal to third world countries.
Flynn’s company was paid $535,000 by Alpetkin between September of November of 2016 with an assigned focus to take on Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania. If Trump and his White House press spokesperson declared they did not know about General Flynn’s outside lobby work, it is strains the fact that Bijan Rafiekian actually was named to the Trump transition team. Further, through this process, Flynn hired SGR LLC to do the public affairs work on the Inovo project. In all fairness however, all parties involved here were against Hillary Clinton winning the presidency. More here.
*** Another reason there is scrutiny of members of the early Trump team includes Carter Page.
WASHINGTON (AP) — At Moscow’s New Economic School, the annual graduation ceremony often features a prominent political figure. President Barack Obama addressed graduates at the prestigious institution in 2009. The former presidents of Mexico and the Czech Republic have spoken at recent ceremonies.
Last year, the university invited Carter Page, a little-known former investment banker and foreign policy adviser to then-U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump. It wouldn’t be the last time Page would draw unexpected — and some say outsized — attention for his relationship to Trump, his entanglements in Russia and the murky nexus between the two.
Page, who left the campaign before the election, has emerged as a key figure in the controversy surrounding Trump associates’ connections to Russia. The New York Times has reported that Page is among the Trump associates whose potential contacts with Russia are being investigated by the FBI. Congressional committees probing Russia’s hacking during the election and Trump campaign ties have asked Page to preserve materials related to their investigations.
For those who contend the scrutiny of Trump is overblown, Page is the sort of figure often associated with an understaffed presidential campaign that struggled to recruit policy advisers and spent little time vetting those who did join the team. But to those who believe Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia as it hacked Democratic groups, Page may be the key link between the candidate and Moscow. Page contends he’s the target of a plot hatched by Trump’s former rival Hillary Clinton and allies who engaged in “severe election fraud in the form of disinformation, suppression of dissent, hate crimes and other extensive abuses.”
Page’s appearance at the Russian university immediately raised eyebrows.
For an adviser to an American presidential hopeful speaking overseas, his message was strikingly critical of the U.S. It came as Trump’s calls for warmer relations with the Kremlin were a source of criticism from Democrats and alarm from some fellow Republicans.
Washington had a “hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption and regime change” in its dealings with Russia, Page said at the school.
Page and former Trump campaign officials say he made the trip in a personal capacity and not as a representative of the campaign. But university officials have been clear that Page’s connections and insight into the Trump campaign were the draw.
“We were interested in what was going on — already then, Trump’s candidacy raised eyebrows, and everyone was really curious,” said Shlomo Weber, the academic director at the New Economic School, in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda radio station.
A newsletter announcing Page’s visit read. “You are invited to a lecture by Carter Page, foreign policy adviser for Donald Trump’s election campaign.”
Page has said he asked for, and received, permission from the Trump campaign to appear in a personal capacity.
Page has offered contradictory answers about his contacts with Russian officials during his visit. On Thursday, he told The Associated Press he did not meet with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who also spoke at the graduation. But in September, he told The Washington Post that he did speak with Dvorkovich briefly.
Back in the U.S. a few days later, Page talked with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. at an event on the sidelines of the Republican National Convention, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting. Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke with the Russian envoy at the same event, a conversation he failed to reveal when asked about contacts with Russians during his Senate confirmation hearings.
Page, a former Merrill Lynch investment banker who worked out of its Moscow office for three years, now runs Global Energy Capital, a firm focused on energy sectors in emerging markets. According to the company’s website, he has advised on transactions for Gazprom and RAO UES, a pair of Russian entities.
In December, Page returned to Moscow, where he noted he had “the opportunity to meet with an executive from Rosneft,” the Russian oil giant, according to a video clip of his remarks posted on YouTube. Rosnet’s chairman, Igor Sechin, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been targeted by U.S. sanctions, though Page says he was not referring to Sechin in his remarks.
Some of the suspicion surrounding Page stems from the fact that no one who worked for the campaign can quite explain how he ended up on Trump’s list of foreign policy advisers. Page has also sidestepped those questions, saying he doesn’t want to put others “in the same damaged pot as myself.”
One campaign official said Page was recruited by Sam Clovis, an Iowa Republican operative who ran the Trump campaign’s policy shop and is now a senior adviser at the Agriculture Department. Clovis did not respond to messages from The Associated Press.
Trump has distanced himself from Page, saying he never met him. Those who served on the campaign’s foreign policy advisory committee also said they had limited contact with Page.
“Only met him once very briefly,” said George Papadopoulos, the director of the Center for International Energy and Natural Resources Law and Security in London.
But in a letter late Wednesday to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Page cast himself as a regular presence in Trump Tower, where the campaign was headquartered.
“I have frequently dined in Trump Grill, had lunch in Trump Café, had coffee meetings in the Starbucks at Trump Tower, attended events and spent many hours in campaign headquarters on the fifth floor last year,” Page wrote. He also noted that his office building in New York “is literally connected to the Trump Tower building by an atrium.”
Page stopped advising the campaign sometime around the end of summer, though the exact circumstances of the separation are unclear. After the campaign, Trump’s lawyers sent Page at least two cease and desist letters, according to another campaign official, who like others, insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
_
AP writers Jim Heintz in Moscow and Maria Danilova contributed to this report.
January of 2016, days after North Korea claimed it tested a hydrogen bomb, the United States responded with a display of military might on the Korean Peninsula.
A B-52 bomber jet from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam flew over Osan, South Korea, on Sunday “in response to a recent nuclear test by North Korea,” United States Pacific Command said.
The B-52 was flanked by South Korean F-15 fighter jets and U.S. F-16 fighter jets.
“This was a demonstration of the ironclad U.S. commitment to our allies in South Korea, in Japan, and to the defense of the American homeland,” said PACOM Commander. More here from CNN.
***
A press report is telling us:
(KUNA) South Korea’s military said Thursday the joint annual exercise with the US will continue as planned, one day after China requested a halt according to Yonhap New Agency. The Chinese Foreign Minister Wany Yi proposed North Korea suspend its nuclear and missile activities in return for a halt to the war drills. This was rejected.
Another press report from a source in the UK reports:
Donald Trump set to send B-52 NUCLEAR BOMBERS to South Korea after North fires missiles at Japan and US warns of ‘overwhelming’ response
Secretary of Defence James Mattis said the US “remains steadfast in its commitment” to the defence of its allies
Now US military chiefs are reportedly planning to fly in B-1 and B-52 bombers – built to carry nuclear bombs – to show America has had enough, according to the Korea Times.
South Korea and the US have also started their annual Foal Eagle military exercise sending a strong warning to North Korea over its actions.
A military official said 300,000 South Korean troops and 15,000 US personnel are taking part in the operation. Washington is also expected to deploy a series of strategic assets from the US as well as from military bases in Guam and Japan, reports the Korea Times.
The USS Carl Vinson, a Nimitz-class supercarrier, will join the Foal Eagle exercise after departing from San Diego.
The nuke-powered aircraft carrier will carry dozens of fighter jets, early warning aircraft and anti-sub craft.
It will be accompanied by the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain (CG-57) and two Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers.
From the US Marine Corps in Japan, F-35B stealth fighters will be deployed to the peninsula for the first time.
“An F-35B is capable of evading anti-aircraft radar and making preemptive strikes,” a military official said. More details here.
***
“The USS Carl Vinson is expected to arrive in Busan around March 15 to participate in the Foal Eagle exercise,” a USFK spokesman told reporters.
The South Korean and U.S. militaries on Wednesday kicked off the two-month field training exercise involving ground, air and naval forces. The U.S. supercarrier will make use of its air assets, as well as its escort ships in the maneuvers that aims to deter North Korean aggression.
Separately, the allies plan to start the Key Resolve computer-simulated command post exercise on March 13 for a two-week run. The U.S. is expected to deploy other strategic assets, such as the B-1B and B-52 bombers, with the tiltrotor V-22 Osprey to make an appearance, in a show of force against the North, which has stepped up its nuclear and missile threats. More here.
