US ground forces to be cut by 100,000

WASHINGTON: Pentagon leaders have outlined a plan for absorbing $US487 billion in defence cuts over the coming decade by shrinking US ground forces, slowing the purchase of a next-generation stealth fighter jet and retiring older planes and ships.

In a bid to pre-empt election-year Republican criticism, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the plan shifts the Pentagon’s focus from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to future challenges in Asia, the Mideast and in cyberspace.

More special operations forces like the Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden will be available around the world, he said.
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“Our approach was to use this as an opportunity to maintain the strongest military in the world, to not hollow out the force,” he said in a statement prepared for a Pentagon news conference on Thursday.

Some politicians were quick to dispute him.

“Taking us back to a pre-9/11 military force structure places our country in grave danger,” said Senator John Cornyn, a Republican and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee that will hold hearings on the Pentagon budget plan.

Panetta announced that the administration will request a 2013 budget of $US525 billion, plus another $US88 billion for operations in Afghanistan. Combined, those totals are about $US33 billion less than the Pentagon is spending this year.

Panetta said, however, that the Pentagon’s base budget will grow to $US567 billion in 2017. At that point, the cumulative budgets over five years would be $US259 billion less than had been planned before the administration struck a deficit-cutting deal with Congress last summer that requires projected defence spending to be reduced by $US487 billion by 2022.

Among the details Panetta disclosed:

The Army would shrink by 80,000 soldiers, from 570,000 today to 490,000 by 2017. That is slightly larger than the Army on 9/11.

The Marine Corps would drop from today’s 202,000 to 182,000 – also above the level on September 11.

The Air Force would retire some older planes including about two dozen C-5A cargo aircraft and 65 of its oldest C-130 cargo planes.

The Navy would keep a fleet of 11 aircraft carriers but retire seven cruisers earlier than planned. It also would delay purchase of some other ships, including a new Virginia-class submarine.

Purchase of F-35 stealth fighter jets, to be fielded by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, would be slowed.

Current plans for building a new generation of submarines that carry long-range nuclear missiles would be delayed by two years. The current fleet of nuclear-capable bombers and land-based nuclear missiles would be left unchanged.

Prominent in the plan is a renewed focus on Asia, where China’s rapid military modernisation has raised worry in Washington and rattled US allies.

The Pentagon has embraced a proposal by special operations chief Admiral Bill McRaven to send more manpower and equipment to worldwide “Theatre Special Operations Commands” to strike back wherever threats arise, according to a senior defence official.

The defence budget is being reshaped in the midst of a presidential contest in which Barack Obama seeks to portray himself as a forward-looking commander in chief focusing on new security threats. Republicans want to cast him as weak on defence.

Obama has highlighted his national security successes – the killing of Osama bin Laden, the death of senior al-Qaeda leaders and the demise of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi – to counter Republican criticism.

He also has emphasised the completion of the US troop withdrawal from Iraq and the start of a drawdown in Afghanistan as turning points that offer new opportunities to scale back defence spending.

But several congressional Republicans see a political opening in challenging the reductions in projected military spending that the party and Obama agreed to last year as part of a deal to raise the nation’s borrowing authority. They have echoed Obama’s potential presidential rivals Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, who plead for fiscal austerity but contend that sizeable cuts would gut the military. AGENCIES

Gaddafi delivers audio message

Libyan rebels in hot pursuit of fugitive despot Col. Moammar Gaddafi claimed to have surrounded his hideout in a Tripoli residential compound but there was no independent confirmation he was actually inside.

At the same time, the man who commanded Libya for nearly 42 years took to the airwaves to deliver an audio message calling on Libyans to “resist these enemy rats” and urging them to “leave your homes and liberate Tripoli.”

However, it was not known when Gaddafi made the recording – his third broadcast since rebels seized his massive home compound Tuesday. He has not been seen in public for weeks.

With a bounty of $1.7 million on his head, and the rebels determined to flush him out and declare a final victory in their six-month uprising, Gaddafi has become, at least temporarily, the world s most wanted fugitive.

A rebel spokesman said Gaddafi was hiding inside a Tripoli apartment building along with an unspecified number of his sons.

The apartment block was near Gaddafi s compound and a “massive” firefight was underway, with heavy resistance coming from the building, however the Pentagon was unable to confirm the rebel claim that Gaddafi was surrounded.

In Washington, a US official said that the CIA was “collecting intelligence about the situation on the ground. The US government, NATO and other foreign partners will continue to gather information to assist the Libyan people with critical security priorities.”

But Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan stressed the US was “not involved in a manhunt.”

US blames China wants to be No. 1 military power

According the Pentagon’s annual China power report to Congress, released on Wednesday, China is steadily continuing a secretive and potentially destabilizing military buildup that would give the People’s Liberation Army a modernized regional armed force by the end of the decade. But the PLA will have limited ability to reach the United States for years to come, The Pentagon estimates China’s total military spending at $160 billion in 2010, more than Beijing’s stated military budget of $92 billion and a 12 percent spending increase over the previous year.

With Taiwan its chief concern, Beijing’s spending on “anti-access and area denial” weaponry designed to defend its claimed air and sea territory is tilting the balance of power toward the mainland. The Pentagon now feels Chinese leaders are worried about starting an arms race among its neighbors in the region.

Defense Department officials have said for months they believe China’s desire to modernize and increase its regional military capabilities is understandable given the rising power’s rapidly expanding global economic interests.

But Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen has said that some weaponry seems to push Chinese capabilities beyond stated limited goals of its government, which must reveal more about how much it spends on its military, what it buys, and why.

“The United States welcomes a strong, prosperous and successful China,” the Pentagon report says, “that reinforces international rules and norms and enhances security and peace both regionally and globally.”

But 2010 was marred by a months-long relations freeze from Beijing in retaliation for a $6 billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan, the continuation of a pattern former Defense Secretary Robert Gates sought to break. The thaw began when Gates and Mullen visited China this year, trips bolstered by lower-level military engagements discussing defense policy, maritime security and other sensitive security issues.

In recent weeks, global attention turned to China’s sea trials of its first aircraft carrier, a remodeled Russian ship. Schiffer said the ship does not yet have aircraft, and China is only land-training future carrier pilots thus far, so its significance is unknown.

“Whether or not this proves to be a net-plus for the region or for the globe, or proves to be something that has destabilizing effects and raises blood pressure in various regional capitals, I think, remains to be seen,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Schiffer said in a briefing.

China likely will begin building its own aircraft carrier this year, to be operational after 2015. Several more Chinese carriers and support ships are expected in the next 10 years. But it will take years for Chinese pilots to reach a “minimal level of combat capability” from a carrier.

In the last decade, Chinese naval ships have acquired advanced air defenses that allow them to operate farther out to sea, away from land-based defenses, the Pentagon said. They are developing a new anti-ship ballistic missile that can attack aircraft carriers beyond 1,500 kilometers, and China already has deployed roughly 60 catamaran-hulled littoral ships.

A new naval base on Hainan Island is now complete and is big enough to port aircraft carriers and ballistic missile submarines accessible via tunnels beyond detection. Additionally, its navy continues building a new class of submarine and five newer versions of current attack submarines in development would have better technology to run silent. But the report says China’s submarines have limited ability to communicate while at sea and the navy has no experience conducting submarine patrols with live nuclear warheads.

There also are still roughly 1,200 short-range ballistic missiles opposite Taiwan, of increasing and improved varieties.

The Pentagon called China’s J-20 a “stealth fighter” – previously officials questioned its stealth capability – but predicted the aircraft would not be operational until after 2018 and requires further progress on its engine.

The Pentagon also said China was the source of U.S. computer network attacks many times in 2010, but gave no details. Pentagon officials rarely names China as the culprit behind cyber attacks.

According to the report, thirty percent of China’s foreign arms sales went to the Middle East and North Africa, with Pakistan the chief customer for conventional weapons.

Gulf Arabs to try to draw Yemen opposition to talks

SANAA: Gulf Arab ambassadors were to meet Yemen opposition figures on Wednesday to urge them to join mediation talks as protesters around the country again demanded an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32-year rule.

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) invited government and opposition representatives on Monday to talks in Saudi Arabia, at a date yet to be set, while the United States pressed the veteran political survivor to negotiate with his opponents.

U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates visited Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and was to discuss the unrest sweeping the region with King Abdullah, whose kingdom borders Yemen and is grappling with internal pressures of its own.

Saleh, who ignored a transition-of-power plan offered by the opposition on Saturday, accepted the GCC invitation on Tuesday and urged the opposition to follow suit. So did Ali Mohsen, the prominent general who turned against Saleh last month. There was no sign of a shift in position by Saleh despite the pressure. He has insisted for weeks he will leave once he has overseen parliamentary and presidential elections this year.

“The president will not leave his historic role early, before the transition of power… This issue is important,” Saleh adviser Ahmad al-Soufi told Al Arabiya television.

The ambassadors of Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia were to meet the government side on Wednesday as well as representatives of the opposition coalition, which has been non-committal so far.

“We welcome the (GCC) position on respecting the Yemeni people’s choices and we will also welcome any efforts made for the sake of President Saleh’s speedy departure,” Joint Meeting Parties coalition spokesman Mohammed al-Sabri said on Monday.

On Tuesday, an opposition source said security forces in the southern port city of Aden detained six people for mobilising students to join a civil disobedience campaign that has kicked off in South Yemen in recent days, with shops, schools and some government offices closed for part of the day in some towns.

Tension has risen this week in a standoff that began in February when protesters began camping out outside Sanaa University. Saleh, a wily political survivor who has been in power since 1978, said then he would run for re-election in 2013 but that did not persuade sceptical activists to go home.

On Monday, security forces and armed men in civilian clothes fired on protesters in Taiz, south of Sanaa, and the Red Sea port of Hudaida, killing 21 people.

On Tuesday, security forces and armed men again attacked a crowd of tens of thousands of protesters in Taiz, residents said, and protesters responded by hurling rocks.

Doctors told Reuters around 30 protesters were wounded by gunfire and beatings. Around 300 were injured in total, they said, most suffering from tear gas inhalation.

Saleh supporters clashed with protesters and army units protecting them in Sanaa on Tuesday, resulting in three deaths. The government said a mediation team sent to General Mohsen had been set upon, while Mohsen said it was a trap to assassinate him.

U.S. CHANGES TACK

Washington has long seen Saleh as a pivotal ally in its fight against al Qaeda, which has used its Yemen base to stage attacks on Saudi Arabia and the United States. In return for billions of dollars in military aid, he has pledged to fight militants and allowed unpopular U.S. air strikes on their camps.

But on Monday, U.S. officials said Washington was ratcheting up pressure on Saleh to work towards a power transition plan.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon said the United States was calling for a negotiated transition in Yemen “as quickly as possible.”

“Obviously the situation right now is a difficult one. The longer it festers, the more difficult it becomes,” Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said.

Some diplomats in Saudi Arabia have suggested Riyadh wants Mohsen to replace Saleh, though the general has said he is not interested in taking power. Civil society opposition groups say Mohsen, 70, an Islamist, is tainted by his kinship and long-time association with the veteran ruler.

More than 100 people have been killed since anti-government protests began in Yemen, including the March 18 killings of 52 anti-government protesters by rooftop snipers in Sanaa.

That incident, which led Saleh to declare a state of emergency, prompted top Yemeni generals, ambassadors and some tribes to back the protesters, in a major blow to the president.

Opposition sources say talks stalled because Saleh was manoeuvring to ensure he and his family do not face prosecution over corruption accusations raised by the opposition. Many demonstrators are sceptical about the GCC talks.

Frustration with Saleh’s intransigence may push Yemenis, many of them heavily armed and no strangers to wars and insurgencies, closer to a violent power struggle. AGENCIES

Interpol Issues Arrest Warrant for WikiLeaks Founder

Interpol on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange over rape allegations.
The France-based international police organization issued a red notice for Assange — the equivalent of putting him on its most-wanted list — after Sweden issued an arrest warrant for him as part of a drawn-out rape investigation.

Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, came to Sweden in August seeking to stay because his website servers are in the country. However, his application was denied in October. During his stay, he was accused of raping and molesting two women.

Assange, a former computer hacker whose whereabouts are unknown, has denied the allegations. He said the allegations are a smear campaign by the Pentagon against him because he released thousands of classified U.S. war reports from Afghanistan and Iraq. Court documents filed by prosecutors allege that Assange is suspected of raping and sexually molesting a woman in the town of Enkoping. He also was suspected of the sexual molestation and unlawful coercion of a second woman in Stockholm. The two women attended a seminar held by Assange and six days later, they both launched the allegations, the court document said. A Stockholm prosecutor immediately started a rape investigation, but the case was dropped the next day.WikiLeaks has recently published an unprecedented 400,000 classified U.S. documents on the Iraq war and posted 77,000 secret U.S. files on the Afghan conflict in July.

US deployment to Afghanistan outstrips Soviet war

BRUSSELS: The US-led war in Afghanistan is now longer than the Soviets’ futile campaign in the benighted nation — and after nine years and 50 days of battle, the West is also groping for an exit.

Afghanistan’s brutal terrain remains littered with the rusting hulks of Russian tanks captured during the 1979-89 war, and is now testing more than 140,000 US-led forces fighting rebel guerillas to keep their own ally in power.

After NATO announced plans to end its combat mission by 2014, many of those who lived through the Soviet years say they remember similar attempts to build up local security forces and manage a dignified withdrawal.

While troops are making some gains against Taliban insurgents in pockets of the restive south and east of the country, progress remains uneven and violence is at an all-time high, the Pentagon admitted in a report last

Pak Cooperating Nato Forces in Afg: Pentagon

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon admitted Tuesday in a report that progress has been “uneven” in the war in Afghanistan, with only modest gains against the Taliban insurgency despite a surge of US and NATO troops.

However, US military admitted rising cooperation by Pakistan being extended to Nato forces fighting with Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, persisting that Pak-Afg border regions were safe heavens for Taliban.

The cautious tone of the report offered a contrast to more upbeat public declarations from top officials and military leaders, who have touted encouraging signs and said the US military has gained the initiative on the battlefield.

“Progress across the country remains uneven, with modest gains in security, governance, and development in operational priority areas,” according to the report issued to Congress.

Violence was at an all-time high in the nine-year-old war as coalition forces try to roll back the Taliban from cities and towns, with combat incidents up 300 percent since 2007 and 70 percent since last year, it said.

The report described limited progress by the NATO-led force in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, longstanding Taliban bastions that have been the focus of an influx of 30,000 American troops.

“While kinetic activity is at a historic high, we are seeing some early indications that comprehensive COIN (counter-insurgency) operations are having localized effects in portions of Helmand and Kandahar Provinces,” said the report, a semi-annual update delivered to Congress.

Despite the presence of nearly 100,000 US troops and nearly 50,000 other foreign forces, the insurgency remained resilient and efforts to cut off safe havens and supply links to neighboring Iran and Pakistan “have not produced measurable results,” according to the report, which covered April to September.

While NATO and Afghan forces have “increased pressure on insurgent networks over the past several months, the insurgency has proven resilient with sustained logistics capacity and command and control,” the Pentagon said.

The insurgency “retains momentum in certain areas” while in others the momentum was shifting in favor of Afghan and NATO-led forces, it said.

The gap between the administration’s portrayal of the war and the official report to Congress in part reflects divisions between US intelligence agencies and the rest of the government, with the spy services tending to take a more pessimistic view, officials said.

One senior defense official, who asked not to be named, told journalists that the report focused on conditions through September and did not reflect “important progress” in recent weeks in military operations surrounding Kandahar city.

Describing the state of the insurgency, the report said the Taliban and its allies were adept at propaganda, exploiting widespread dissatisfaction with the corruption-plagued Kabul government.

The Taliban aimed to inflict enough losses on coalition forces to undermine international support for the war effort and “prompt a rapid withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan,” it said.

The report cited the training of Afghan security forces as “one of the most promising areas of progress,” with the Afghan army and police reaching recruitment goals in July, ahead of an October target.

The quality of the Afghan forces and a high attrition rate remained cause for concern, however, according to the report, which was written in coordination with intelligence agencies, the State Department and other government departments.

NATO pins hopes on Afghan security forces

WASHINGTON: The training of Afghan soldiers is designed to pave the way for the exit of NATO-led troops in 2014 but the effort faces difficulties over the quality of security forces and a high attrition rate, a Pentagon report said.

The United States and its allies see building up the Afghan army and police as pivotal to the war effort, and serious setbacks could jeopardize plans to hand over security to the Afghans.

Afghan security forces’ “growth and development are among Afghanistan’s most promising areas of progress, though numerous challenges persist,” said the Pentagon update on the war delivered to Congress.

The number of soldiers and police has grown by a third since November 2009. The Afghan army, with 134,000 troops, and the police, with a force of 116,000, met their recruitment goals three months ahead of schedule, hitting the targets in July

No, Pentagon says, Obama will not be guarded by 34 ships

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama will not be protected by a vast armada of 34 US warships when he visits Mumbai this weekend, officials said, calling reports from India on security preparations “comical.”

The claim that many of the 288-ship US naval fleet would be deployed to waters off Mumbai was “absolutely absurd,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters on Thursday.

US officials usually decline to discuss details about security precautions for the president, but the media accounts circulating out of India were so off the mark that press officers at the Pentagon and the White House said they felt compelled to speak up.

“I will take the liberty this time of dismissing as absolutely absurd this notion that somehow we were deploying 10 percent of the Navy — some 34 ships and an aircraft carrier — in support of the president’s trip to Asia,”

WikiLeaks renews question of secrecy

WASHINGTON: When WikiLeaks readied the largest-ever release of secret war files, US officials warned the whistleblower site it was irresponsible. After the 400,000 documents came out, the Pentagon said they revealed little new.

And so, some experts ask, why were the documents classified as secret in the first place?

“The Pentagon used the word ‘mundane’ to refer to some of these materials. Mundane materials should not be classified as national security information,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy.

“There are several things the US could do to reduce more of these unauthorized disclosures and one of them is to drastically cut back on the scale of classification.”

WikiLeaks, run by shadowy Australian hacker Julian Assange, released the documents on Friday in defiance of warnings

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