Posted on 06/30/2003 9:02:51 PM PDT by null and void
Good Morning.
Welcome to the daily thread of Operation Infinite Freedom - Situation Room.
It is designed for general conversation about the ongoing war on terror, and the related events of the day. In addition to the ongoing conversations related to terrorism and our place in it's ultimate defeat, this thread is a clearinghouse of links to War On Terrorism threads. This allows us to stay abreast of the situation in general, while also providing a means of obtaining specific information and mutual support.
Ridge May Move Up in Succession List
WASHINGTON - Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge could move up to eighth in the line of presidential succession, leapfrogging 10 other Cabinet members in a congressional effort to better prepare for a catastrophic attack on Washington.
Under legislation approved by the Senate and now pending in the House, Ridge would move from 18th to eighth, behind Attorney General John Ashcroft and in front of Interior Secretary Gale Norton, in the line to succeed the president in a disaster.
The measure sped through the Senate without debate last Friday.
Ridge, asked about the legislation, said Monday, "One of our responsibilities obviously is continuity of government ... and where the Congress thinks the secretary should fit, that's their judgment. I'm satisfied with it."
The current system dates back to the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, signed by President Truman, that specifies that the vice president, the speaker of the House, the president pro tempore of the Senate and the secretary of state are next in line to take over the presidency if necessary. Other Cabinet members are listed according to the date their offices were established.
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon released videotape Monday of an Air Force reconnaissance plane's encounter with North Korean fighter jets March 2 as they intercepted the unarmed U.S. aircraft over the Sea of Japan.
As reported at the time, there was no hostile fire from the four North Korean fighters, but it was the first such intercept since April 1969 when a North Korean plane shot down a U.S. Navy EC-121 surveillance plane, killing all 31 Americans aboard.
In the videotape, which was shot from the Air Force RC-135S, the pilot of one of the North Korean fighters can be seen gesturing from his cockpit, apparently signaling the U.S. plane to leave the area.
The U.S. plane, of a type used to monitor missile tests, broke off its mission and returned unharmed to its base at Kadena, Japan. The United States resumed reconnaissance flights over the Sea of Japan 10 days after the incident, and there have been no reported North Korean intercepts since then.
WASHINGTON - Paul J. Redmond, a top terrorism intelligence expert at the Department of Homeland Security, is retiring, officials said Monday.
Redmond, assistant secretary for information analysis and a former CIA officer, is leaving for health reasons, officials said.
"In the past few months, Paul Redmond has served the department well by taking on a significant challenge and making great progress in creating a capability to identify and assess threats to the homeland," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in a statement. "The entire country will benefit from Paul's work establishing a new agency."
Previously, Redmond served 33 years at the CIA, working in Asia and Europe. He rose to top positions in the agency's counterintelligence ranks before retiring in 1997.
Oh, my. I don't like that one bit at all. It messes with my trivia skills...
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon used potentially dangerous chemical and biological agents in 50 secret tests involving military personnel in a decadelong project to measure the weapons' combat capabilities, according to a Pentagon findings released Monday.
The tests were done between 1962 and 1973 and involved 5,842 service members. Many were not told of the tests, some of which involved releases of deadly nerve agents in Alaska and Hawaii.
The information released Monday disclosed eight new tests that primarily used nonlethal bacteria and in some cases caustic chemicals. And it revealed for the first time experiments to find ways to use submarines to distribute biological weapons.
"Project 112" and "Project SHAD," as they were called, were developed in 1961 to study the combat uses of biological and chemical weapons and methods to protect American troops from such attacks. Initially it was believed that only simulated agents were used, but last year the Defense Department admitted for the first time that some of the tests used real chemical or biological weapons.
Most of the tests made public Monday used the benign bacteria bacillus globigii to simulate how biological weapons agents would spread through a hold of a ship.
http://www.defenselink.mil/
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was lightly wounded on Tuesday when an American military convoy was attacked by a rocket-propelled grenade near Baghdad airport, the U.S. military said.
The attack, on a highway close to the capital's international airport, came despite a U.S. crackdown on armed resistance in Baghdad and areas to the north.
A military spokesman said the soldier was lightly wounded and witnesses said a military vehicle was hit. U.S. convoys traveling on the same highway have been targeted on several occasions in the past.
U.S. forces have come under fire almost daily in recent weeks in mainly Sunni Muslim central Iraq, a stronghold for ousted President Saddam Hussein.
At least 22 U.S. and six British troops have been killed by hostile fire since President Bush declared major combat in Iraq over on May 1.
The U.S. military, which has about 156,000 soldiers in Iraq, has launched several operations to stamp out attacks. The latest, Operation Desert Sidewinder, began on Sunday with infantry soldiers backed by aircraft and armored vehicles.
FALLUJAH, Iraq - A massive explosion rocked a mosque in this restive Iraqi town, killing at least five Iraqi civilians and injuring four others, witnesses and hospital officials said Tuesday.
Iraqi civilians said the blast was caused by a missile or bomb strike, but American soldiers at the scene disputed that account, saying it was likely caused when explosives hidden at the site went off.
The incident was likely to increase tension in the town, already the scene of several confrontations between U.S. soldiers and anti-American insurgents.
Witnesses said the blast took place just before 11 p.m. Monday in a small cinderblock building in the courtyard of the mosque. The explosion blew out the walls and took down the ceiling of the structure.
About a dozen Iraqis were gathered around the blast Tuesday morning, sifting through the rubble for pieces of metal they said proved the damage was caused by an American attack.
"These are pieces of a missile," said Aqeel Ibrahim Ali, 26, who was standing on a concrete slab overlooking the destruction, holding out a box filled with metal shards. "An airplane shot a missile."
But Sgt. Thomas McMurtry, a reservist with the 346th Tactical Psychological Operations Company, said there was no evidence the explosion was caused by a U.S. attack.
"They did it to themselves. Clearly, the physical evidence does not support that (a missile strike) in any way," he told The Associated Press. "Whatever blew up was just sitting inside there. There is no evidence that it was anything else but a ground based explosive."
McMurtry, a schoolteacher based in Dayton, Ohio said he is a former special forces engineer with munitions training, said that if the explosion had been caused by a bomb or missile, there would be evidence of shrapnel. He said U.S. army ordnance disposal personnel had scanned the wreckage and saw no evidence of a missile strike.
The U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad said it had no information on the incident.
It was unclear who the Iraqi victims were, or what they were doing at the mosque late Monday.
Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, has been a hotbed of anti-American activity. U.S. soldiers shot and killed 20 protesters in April, provoking widespread resentment. Even so, tribal elders in the city insist that people want to cooperate with U.S. occupation authorities.
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