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AUSTRALIAN soldiers will soon have access to a state-of-the-art Australian-designed riflescope that will effectively allow them to shoot around corners. Defence Minister Robert Hill said the scope, designed by the Defence Science Technology Organisation (DSTO) in Adelaide, used a system of mirrors similar in concept to a periscope and was already attracting international interest. Senator Hill said the scope allowed the user to line up a target in the absence of a direct line of sight, and therefore afforded them greater protection. "We're about to deploy this particular sight to infantry sections in Iraq for the first time and I...

DoD Announces Criteria for Two New Campaign Medals The Department of Defense announced today the creation of two campaign medals for Afghanistan and Iraq. Presidential Executive Order 13363 established the Afghanistan and Iraq campaign medals to recognize members, who made specific sacrifices and significant contributions in these areas of operation. Service members authorized the Afghanistan Campaign Medal must have served in direct support of Operation Enduring Freedom on or after Oct. 24, 2001, to a future date to be determined by the Secretary of Defense or the cessation of the operation. The area of eligibility encompasses all land areas of...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Neil E. Wright, Executive Director VetsCoR 1-800-294-4895 1976 Havasu Garden Drive Lake Havasu City, AZ 86404 newright@vetscor.org www.VetsCoR.org VETSCOR ANNOUNCES THE NEWEST ARMED SERVICES INDUCTION into the "PORTRAITS OF FREEDOM" cyber-Tribute Web Site The induction is submitted by Rodger Hunter March 7, 2005 - Veterans for Constitutional Restoration (VetsCoR), Inc. has created a web site dedicated to honoring America's Armed Services, past and present, and recently had the honor of accepting Rodger Hunter’s memorial page for his father, James E. Hunter. This cyber “Tribute” includes photos and text about a “greatest generation” man. Mr. Hunter’s father...

    For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.     Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today!         ~ MILITARY SHORT SPEAK ~             The military seems to have a language of its own, with many terms, Acronyms, initialisms and abbreviations that aren't generally used in the "civilian world." What is an acronym? It is a word created from the first letter of a series of other words. It is spoken as one word.  What is an...

Hunter statement on Secretary Rumsfeld's recent appearance at the House Armed Services Committee and the inaccurate Washington Post coverage that followed Washington, D.C. - House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) made the following statement regarding Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's testimony on February 16th - and an erroneous Washington Post front page commentary the following day. A letter to the editor of the Post was submitted on the 17th but has not yet been published. In an effort to set the record straight in a timely manner, the letter is being released today. "The February 17 front-page Washington...

WASHINGTON - Rep. Heather Wilson is scheduled to arrive at Fort Bliss, Texas, today on her first, and quite possibly last, junket as a member of the House Armed Services Committee. The Albuquerque Republican said House Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, has refused to sign a waiver of House rules to let her stay on a second major committee. That comes after the Republican Steering Committee on Thursday rejected Barton's request to oust Wilson from his committee.

During upcoming confirmation hearings for Attorney General-nominee Alberto Gonzales, senior Democrats want to screen infamous videotapes showing Iraqis being abused at Abu Ghraib prison, top sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT. The curtain is raised Thursday for the Senate Judiciary Committee's showdown with Gonzales. The Bush White House counsel will be grilled about his role in formulating the administration's legal policies on coercive techniques in interrogations -- techniques some Democrats believe led to outright torture! Yet it's the grainy prison videos, shot by a soldier's cellphone and never before viewed by the public, that threaten to turn the New Year ugly:...

Another year has come and gone while our brave sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mother and fathers, and friends continue to carry the war on terrorism to foreign and unforgiving lands. They sacifice their lives, their bodies, their livelihoods, and their domestic tranquility to protect us from the growing terrorist menace that would threaten us all. They encounter hardships, pain, loneliness that only those who have experienced it can understand, including their loved ones. This article is dedicated to the selfless sacrifice they all make, from front line troops in peril of their lives and limb, to the rear...

WASHINGTON — The chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services committees have reached an agreement on the intelligence reform bill that has been held up by two House lawmakers, clearing the way for a vote on the measure. "After working through the weekend with the vice president, several conferees and other members, we have come to an agreement on changed bill language that we believe protects with necessary clarity the time-tested chain-of-command," Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said in a statement Monday. "Pending a review of the rest of the legislation, we are prepared to...

...Duncan Hunter, ...the House Armed Services Chairman, is refusing to join the Beltway stampede to pass, in a few short weeks, the most extensive changes in U.S. intelligence in 50 years. ...The Senate and House each passed bills in the heat (and panic) of the election campaign.... Mr. Hunter specifically objects to a provision that would take budget authority away from the Secretary of Defense over the intelligence agencies under his control. This is a narrow but important issue. It would potentially undercut the military's ability to obtain and act on intelligence in real time.... There are other problems with...

...The ferocious partisan dissension that has broken out at home over the war on terror dangerously subtracts from the nation's war-fighting effectiveness. • Partisan warfare at home has given credibility and confidence to America's enemies abroad.... • Partisan disunity has damaged America's alliances.... • Hyper-partisanship has weakened America's own war-fighting strength.... It's essential to acknowledge mistakes and learn from them.... At home, ...Democrats will do everything they can to stop [Bush].... There are, however, some actions that might help President Bush introduce some useful bipartisanship to American foreign policy. • Listen: For months after 9/11, President Bush met once a...

...The final intelligence reform bill approved by Congress must guarantee our troops access to both local and national intelligence sources. Any American soldier or Marine can tell you that there no longer exists a sharp distinction between tactical (battlefield) and strategic (global) intelligence. For example, ground troops serving overseas use satellites and unmanned drones soaring high above to strike targets half a football field's length away. The same intelligence assets may be used to monitor Iran's nuclear weapons program from an office here in the U.S.... ...But a 9/11 Commission recommendation -- now embodied in the Senate version of the...

<p>U.S. Rep. Charlie Stenholm, R-Abilene, attended his first House Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday morning.</p> <p>Stenholm, currently representing District 17 but vying for the District 19 seat, was appointed to the committee Tuesday night.</p> <p>"Charlie Stenholm is one of our most able members of Congress," said Missouri Democrat and ranking committee member Ike Skelton through a written release. "He understands national security thoroughly, and I predict he will be a tremendous asset to the House Armed Services Committee."</p>

A U.S. official working with an international group of specialists searching post-Saddam Iraq for weapons of mass destruction said today that more work needs to be performed before arriving at any conclusions. "I do not believe we have sufficient information and insight to make final judgments with confidence at this time" regarding the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein's WMDs, Charles A. Duelfer told Senate Armed Services Committee members here. Duelfer's testimony before the committee was behind closed doors and his unclassified remarks were posted on the CIA's public Web site. Duelfer said he's been the CIA's special adviser for strategy regarding...

With the help of special operations forces, the United States has made significant progress in the war on terrorism a Defense Department official told the Senate Armed Services Committee March 25. But sustaining that progress is not without its costs, he added. Thomas W. O'Connell, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, said in his prepared statement that for the U. S. Special Operations Command to continue to gain momentum in the war on terrorism, it must modernize and transform. And he said SOCOM will use $6.546 billion -- its share of the President Bush's fiscal 2005...

On March 9, CIA Director George J. Tenet testified about threats to our national security before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Most of the mainstream media focused on Democrat Senators Ted Kennedy and Carl Levin challenging Tenet to admit that the Bush administration had hyped pre-war intelligence on Iraq. NBC Nightly News' Andrea Mitchell took the same approach but then failed to note that Tenet, a former Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill, did not take the bait and explicitly denied that the Bush administration had manipulated the intelligence.

The coalition against terrorists is engaged in a war to ensure the will of the many prevails against the wishes of a few, said Defense Department leaders before the House Armed Services Committee today. Army Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, and Peter Rodman, assistant defense secretary for international security affairs, told the representatives that the recent attacks in Baghdad and Karbala underscore the danger still facing the coalition in the region. Attacks March 2 against Shiia pilgrims killed 117 and wounded 500. Abizaid said the attacks were the responsibility of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist affiliated with...

The man who spent eight months leading the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq told senators here Jan. 28 that although no such weapons have been found, he believes Iraq may have been "even more dangerous than we thought" before Saddam Hussein was removed from power. David Kay, who stepped down last week as head of the Iraq Survey Group, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Kay told the senators he has changed his belief – which he pointed out was shared by U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies, including those of governments that opposed the war –...

                                    U.S. Senate                                 Committee on Armed Services,                                Washington, DC, October 9, 1998.       The President,       The White House, Washington, DC.           Dear Mr. President: We are writing to express our concern        over recent developments in Iraq.           Last February, the Senate was working on a resolution        supporting military action if diplomacy did not succeed in        convincing Saddam Hussein to comply with the United Nations        Security Council resolutions concerning the disclosure and        destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. This        effort was discontinued when the Iraqi government reaffirmed        its...

DEATH OF A PATRIOT: BOB STUMP Nov . 11, 1999: "This is Bob Stump," snapped the crisp voice on the other end of the line, the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee and veteran Arizona congressman was telephoning me, as he always did, without using a secretary to place the call or having a press secretary handle my request (Stump never even had a press secretary or a congressional web page, never issued a press release nor did media "events"—dismissing all that as "self-promotion crap."). He was calling me to talk about the Veterans Day breakfast Bill Clinton had...