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U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes there is "a strong likelihood" that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June, according to the Washington Post's David Ignatius. Israel believes that after this time, Iran will have entered a “zone of immunity” that will enable it to build a nuclear bomb at its leisure, Ignatius wrote. Defense Minister Ehud Barak used the same words Thursday in his speech at the Herzliya Conference. "Very soon,the Israelis fear, the Iranians will have stored enough enriched uranium in deep underground facilities to make a weapon — and only the United States could then...

US secretary of defense is concerned Israel will launch an attack before Iran enters so-called "immunity zone" when military strike won't bust Iran's nuclear facilities, 'Washington Post' reports. United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta believes that Israel will attack Iran in April, May or June, the Washington Post reported Thursday. According to the report, written by the paper’s senior opinion writer David Ignatius, Panetta is concerned that Israel will launch an attack before Iran enters the so-called “immunity zone” when its nuclear facilities will be heavily fortified and a military strike will no longer succeed.

Administration tries to justify killing AmericansNow that it’s in full campaign mode, the Obama administration can’t stop talking about things once regarded as secret. President Obama has been bragging about the once-shadowy SEAL Team 6 so much you’d think he was going to tap it to be his running mate. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta caused a flap with Pakistan on Sunday when he told “60 Minutes” he “believed” that “somebody must have had some sense” that Osama bin Laden was hiding out in Abbottabad, though he had no proof. President Obama piled on during his “historic” Google Plus video...

U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned on Sunday that Iran could develop a nuclear bomb within a year and reiterated that the U.S. would do anything to stop it. In an interview on the CBS program "60 Minutes" Panetta said, “The United States, and the president’s made this clear, does not want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. That’s a red line for us. And it’s a red line obviously for the Israelis so we share a common goal here. If we have to do it, we will do it.” He added, “If they proceed and we get intelligence...

(CNSNews.com) - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday that the cuts in defense proposed by President Barack Obaama will create "risks" in America's "capability to respond" to threats. “The risks come with the fact that, you know, we will have a smaller force," Panetta said a t a Pentagon briefing. "As we said, it’s larger than we had prior to 9/11, but obviously it will be a smaller force, and when you have [a] smaller force there are risks associated with that in terms of our capability to respond.” Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, echoed Panetta’s assessment, while pointing out that when the...

60 Minutes/Panetta Video at link. 1 1/2 minutes. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta says he believes government authorities in Pakistan knew about the whereabouts of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. "I personally have always felt that somebody must have had some sense of what was happening at this compound," said Panetta about the fugitive's hideout in an interview to air Sunday on CBS's 60 Minutes. The terrorist leader was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in a raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May. The operation was carried out without the cooperation of Pakistani authorities. "Don't forget, this...

SIERRA VISTA — At noon, Arizona time, the Secretary of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chefs of Staff, the top uniform officer in America’s armed forces will be holding a press conference to discuss proposals to reduce the military budget. Part of the proposals include the potential of having two Base Realignment and Closure rounds, one starting in 2013 and the other in 2015 Pentagon sources said. The Defense Department has to reduce its budget, as part of the overall reduction of federal spending to lower the nation’s growing deficit, which currently exceeds $15 trillion. There have been...

A U.S. special operations team of Navy SEALs rescued two aid workers in Somalia Tuesday night, including a U.S. woman who had been held hostage for three months by Somali kidnappers and suffered from a life-threatening medical condition. Jessica Buchanan, 32, of Bedford, Va., and Poul Hagen Thisted, 60, of Denmark, were abducted Oct. 25 by a band of Somalis while on their way to the airport in Galcayo, located in central Somalia. Both were working for the Danish Refugee Council's Danish Demining Group, and had just finished a training course for local Somali citizens when they were abducted. In...

Top U.S. officials moved swiftly Thursday to try to prevent diplomatic damage and contain public disgust from the release of a video that appeared to show Marines urinating on three Afghan corpses — images that spread quickly around the globe. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said he had viewed the video and considered it “utterly deplorable.” He telephoned Afghan President Hamid Karzai and pledged a full investigation. Prior to the call, Karzai described the video as “completely inhumane and condemnable in the strongest possible terms.” His administration called on the U.S. military to “apply the most severe

As tensions with Iran escalate on several fronts, most Americans favor military force to stop Tehran from building nuclear weapons if diplomacy fails, a new IBD/TIPP poll shows. That comes as the Obama ad ministration claims that Iran isn't yet building a bomb and urged the continuation of a "responsible" policy of economic pressure.

... In November of 2011, the Washington Post reported that the Iranian government had mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon after receiving assistance from foreign scientists. The Post went on to say: An intelligence update will be circulated among International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] members... It is expected to focus on Iran's alleged efforts towards putting radioactive material in a warhead and developing missiles... Julian Borger of the Guardian-UK reported in November of 2009: The UN's nuclear watchdog has asked Iran to explain evidence suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with an advanced nuclear warhead design......

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says Iran is laying the groundwork for making nuclear weapons someday, but is not yet building a bomb and called for continued diplomatic and economic pressure to persuade Tehran not to take that step. As he has previously, Panetta cautioned against a unilateral strike by Israel against Iran's nuclear facilities, saying the action could trigger Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces in the region. "We have common cause here" with Israel, he said. "And the better approach is for us to work together." Panetta's remarks on CBS' Face the Nation, which were taped Friday and aired Sunday,...

Iran is a year or less from “N-Day,” but the United States will stop it – no matter what, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told CBS Monday night. His comments were far stronger than those of President Barack Obama, who has said that Iran must not reach nuclear capability but has not categorically stated that his administration will prevent it. Concerning the “military option,” Panetta told interviewer Scott Pelley, “There are no options off the table.” Asked if the Ahmadinejad regime can produce a nuclear weapon by the end of 2012, Panetta answered, “It would probably be about a year before...

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Pentagon chief Leon Panetta made history Saturday as the first American defense secretary to set foot on Libyan soil and said he hoped the post-Moammar Gadhafi government could assemble the country’s militias into “one Libya.” Panetta has indicated that the U.S. will give the Libyans some time to gain control of the militias that overthrew Gadhafi during an eight-month civil war before determining how to help the fledgling government. At a news conference in the capital with Prime Minister Abdal-Raheem al-Keeb, Panetta said that he was confident that the new Libyan government is reaching out to...

BAGHDAD (AP) — After nearly nine years, 4,500 American dead and 100,000 Iraqi dead, U.S. officials formally shut down the war in Iraq — a conflict that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said was worth the American sacrifice because it set Iraq on a path to democracy. Panetta stepped off his military plane in Baghdad Thursday as the leader of America's war in Iraq, but departed as one of many U.S. and global officials who hope to work with the struggling nation as it tries to find its new place in the Middle East and the broader world. Bombings and gun...

In recent days, there has been a truly frightening articulation of the US administration’s perception of Israel vis-à-vis the Muslim world. On Friday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta essentially blamed Israel for its own “increasing isolation,” urging the Jewish state to reach out to its neighbors. He suggested that Israel make diplomatic inroads with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Egypt, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly Islamist and anti-Israel Turkey, and vulnerable Jordan, a country whose leadership – for the sake of self-preservation – has been making concessions to its own Muslim Brotherhood. And when asked at the end of his speech at the Brookings...

US ambassador in Belgium provides controversial explanation for Muslim anti-Semitism BRUSSELS – Growing global anti-Semitism is linked to Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians, the American ambassador to Belgium told stunned Jewish conference attendants in Brussels earlier this week. Speaking Wednesday at a Jewish conference on anti-Semitism organized by the European Jewish Union (EJU,) Howard Gutman told participants he was apologizing in advance if his words are not to their liking. He then proceeded to make controversial statements about his views on Muslim anti-Semitism, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Friday.

... Obama has turned out to be the war president, choosing to empower his Islamist friends at the expense of American interests -- policy that promises to enslave millions of people in Egypt and other countries where the Islamic contagion is sweeping through the region. Mr. Panetta, how can this be good for America and the world? I realize that you do not care what impact your views and directives have on Israel because your administration is in a punishing mood with regard to Israel, where every new home and business there being scrutinized and stopped because you have decided...

Charlie:: “You coulda been another Billy Conn, and that skunk we got you for a manager, he brought you along too fast.” Terry: “It wasn’t him, Charley, it was you. Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, `Kid, this ain’t your night. We’re going for the price on Wilson.’….I coulda taken Wilson apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palooka-ville! You was my brother, Charley, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called on Israel Friday to "reach out and mend fences" with Turkey, Egypt and other security partners in the Middle East, saying he is troubled by the Jewish state's growing isolation in the volatile region. He also urged Israeli leaders to do more to restart peace talks with the Palestinians and underscored President Barack Obama's determination to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He called Iran "a very grave threat to all of us" and said any Iranian disruption of the free flow of commerce through the Persian Gulf is a "redline" for...

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul said that, if the congressional supercommittee fails to reach a deficit-reduction agreement before Thanksgiving, that might be the best way to force the government to cut spending. "It's sort of like telling your children that, if you don't clean up your mess — or else," Paul said today on CNN's "State of the Union." "Really, maybe we need the ‘or else’ because Congress isn't behaving the way they should be behaving. Maybe sequestration is our only way we will get any kind of cuts." Sequestration, the term used for automatic spending cuts that will be...

Since becoming defense secretary in July, Mr. Panetta has flown home 14 times as of last week, continuing the cross-country commute he made regularly as CIA director, and he has no plans to curtail the trips, his aides said. “The White House understood when Mr. Panetta took the job that he would return to Monterey to visit his family, as he did when he was director of the CIA,” a senior administration official said. “That’s where his family lives, after all.” Mr. Panetta’s travel situation, first reported by the Los Angeles Times in September, is drawing another look, particularly after...

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said ahead of a meeting Friday with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that he would warn his Israeli counterpart about the global economic consequences of a military strike on Iran's nuclear program, adding that he still favors sanctions and diplomacy over a strike. "To go beyond (sanctions and diplomacy) raises our concerns about the unintended consequences that could result. ... There are going to be economic consequences to that, that could impact not just on our economy but the world economy," Panetta told those travelling with him to Halifax, Canada.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said ahead of a meeting Friday with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that he would warn his Israeli counterpart about the global economic consequences of a military strike on Iran's nuclear program, adding that he still favors sanctions and diplomacy over a strike.

<p>“We face the threats from rising powers — China, India, others — that we have to always have sufficient force protection out there in the Pacific to make sure they know we’re never going anywhere,” Mr. Panetta said during a visit to a shipyard in Groton, Conn., where he toured a submarine, the Mississippi, in the final stages of construction.</p>

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Thursday he would raise American concerns about the unintended consequences of any military action against Iran during his upcoming meeting with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Reuters reported. Panetta and Barak are due to meet on Friday in Halifax, Canada. Speaking to reporters traveling with him to Canada, Panetta said the United States believed the most effective way to confront Iran still was to use diplomatic pressure and sanctions. “Obviously to go beyond that raises our concerns about the unintended consequences that could result,” Reuters quoted Panetta as having said. Echoing remarks he made...

The number of U.S. ground forces would drop to levels not seen since 1940, the Navy would drop to the smallest number of ships since 1915 and the Air Force would be the smallest ever, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in warning Congress of the dire implications of deeper defense cuts. The Pentagon chief on Monday offered a litany of drastic steps triggered by the automatic, across-the-board cuts if Congress' Super Committee fails to come up with a $1.2 trillion deficit-cutting plan by Nov. 23. If the panel stumbles, the Pentagon faces some $500 billion in reductions in projected spending...

Under orders to cut the Pentagon budget by more than $450 billion over the next decade, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is considering reductions in spending categories once thought sacrosanct, especially in medical and retirement benefits, as well as further shrinking the number of troops and reducing new weapons purchases.

Panetta: Additional military cuts 'nuts'By John T. Bennett - 10/12/11 09:52 AM ET The Army must maintain its counterterrorism expertise and rebuild its ability to go toe to toe with another large ground force — all while facing deep budget cuts, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday. For a second day in a row, Panetta took a hard line against deeper military budget cuts than the $350 billion called for under the August debt deal. He called it "nuts" if $600 billion more in cuts were to be triggered if the congressional supercommittee fails to reach a deal on at...

EXCERPT Others Panetta is naming to the advisory board include former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick and former Rep. Jane Harman. Panetta, Albright and Gorelick all served in the Bill Clinton administration. The high-level board provides advice and opinions to the defense secretary on a range of policy issues.

US Secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, just came to town and warned that Israel is becoming “increasingly isolated” and must restart negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and work to restore relations with Egypt and Turkey. Why? According to Fox News, he said the ongoing upheaval in the Middle East makes it critical for the Israelis to find ways to communicate with other nations in the region in order to have stability. His remarks come on the heels of Bill Clinton's attack on Netanyahu for the failure of the peace process and Gates’ parting shot according to Elliot Abrams “Gates argued...

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Sunday that Israel is becoming increasingly isolated in the Middle East, The Associated Press reported. Panetta added Israel must restart negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and work to restore relations with Egypt and Turkey. Panetta made the comments as he was traveling to Israel, saying the ongoing upheaval in the Middle East makes it critical for the Israelis to find ways to communicate with other nations in the region in order to have stability. “There’s not much question in my mind that they maintain that (military) edge,” AP quoted Panetta as having told reporters...

Not every anti-Israel step the Obama administration takes is reflected by policy. For every "start negotiations with the 1949 Armistice lines" there is disinformation, a falsification of history spewed out by the administration. The latest example of this falsification of history was presented tonight by new Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. On his way to meetings with Israeli and Egyptian officials, Panetta warned that Israel is becoming increasingly isolated in the Middle East, and said Israeli leaders must restart negotiations with the Palestinians and work to restore relations with Egypt and Turkey. In a blunt assessment made as he was traveling...

U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta will arrive in Israel on Monday and meet with Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The two are due to discuss several issues including security ties between the U.S. and Israel, the Palestinian drive for independence, the "Arab Spring" and the Iranian nuclear program. This will be the second meeting between Barak and Panetta within two weeks. The last meeting took place when Barak visited Washington just before the opening session of the United Nations' General Assembly that dealt with the Palestinian application. Barak also held meetings with General David Petraeus, who replaced Panetta as director...

It is only a matter of time before the Arab Spring uprising reaches Iran and overthrows the regime, according to U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. The former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director said that the reform movement in the Islamic Republic is learning from the mass demonstrations and protests in Egypt, Syria, Libya and Tunisia, where all of the regimes' leaders have been ousted or are facing the danger of losing power. Asked by television interviewer Charlie Rose if the Arab Spring movement would reach Iran, Panetta replied, "Absolutely. I think we saw evidence of that in the last election...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Revolution in Iran appears to be a matter of time, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta predicted on Tuesday, saying the Iranian reform movement was learning from revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria. Panetta, a former CIA director who took over the Pentagon's top job in July, was asked on the Charlie Rose television show whether the Arab Spring might spread to non-Arab Iran. Panetta responded: "Absolutely." "I think we saw in evidence of that in the last election in Iran that there was a movement within Iran that raised those very same concerns that we're seeing...

Obama is outclassed and outsmarted by retiring Gen. PetraeusGen. David H. Petraeus closed his phenomenal 37-year Army career this week with a joint review at Fort Myer in Arlington. Service members from every branch were present, and flags of all 50 states fluttered in the breeze. A substantial crowd had come to hear the general’s farewell address. Many were classmates from the West Point Class of 1974, smartly attired but enthusiastic and occasionally whooping like they were cadets. Others were people with whom he had served over his storied career, whom he recognized from the dais during his speech. The...

The day after the passage of the debt-reduction deal, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta sent a message to the Pentagon’s rank-and-file–and to Congress. Failure to enact further deficit-reduction measures, he said, might trigger “dangerous, across-the-board” cuts to defense. The first stage of budget cuts under the “Budget Control Act of 2011” calls for $350 billion in cuts to defense spending over 10 years. But if lawmakers fail to find an additional $1.5 trillion in deficit savings, the law calls for a process called “sequestration” that would result in automatic cuts of $1.2 trillion–half of which would fall on the Pentagon budget...

Cuts to Pentagon spending won’t be done in a “hasty, ill-conceived way,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a letter to reassure to his department’s staff Wednesday. Acknowledging that defense cuts “must be” part of the solution to trim the national debt, Panetta said military leaders will be able to make $350 billion in cuts over the next decade that were laid out in the compromise bill to raise the debt ceiling “while maintaining the excellence of our military.”

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to certify that gays can serve openly in the armed services

Obama officials decry Tehran’s culpability for U.S. troop deathsThe United States is engaged in a deadly but seldom mentioned proxy war with Iran. In a rare act of candor, two senior Obama administration defense officials have addressed the open secret of Iran’s active support for insurgent groups fighting U.S. troops overseas. Earlier this week, during a visit to Iraq, newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta strongly denounced Iranian support for increasingly violent Shiite militia groups in that country. “We are very concerned about Iran and the weapons they are providing to extremists here in Iraq,” he said. “We’re seeing...

BAGHDAD, July 11 (Reuters) - New U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Monday that some NATO allies operating in Libya could see their forces "exhausted" within 90 days. "The problem right now, frankly, in Libya is that ... within the next 90 days a lot of these other countries could be exhausted in terms of their capabilities, and so the United States, you know, is going to be looked at to help fill the gap," Panetta said, speaking to troops in Baghdad. He did not say which countries he was referring to, or what the U.S. response would be...

Newly appointed US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told American troops in Baghdad on Monday that 9/11 was the reason they were in Iraq, before he was quickly corrected by his spokesman. "The reason you guys are here is because of 9/11. The US got attacked and 3,000 human beings got killed because of Al-Qaeda," Panetta told about 150 soldiers at the Camp Victory US base. "We've been fighting as a result of that," he said. The administration of former US President George W. Bush had hastily linked Saddam Hussein, the ousted Iraqi dictator, to the 9/11 attacks. That was one...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The United States will take unilateral action when needed to deal with the threat to American troops in Iraq from Shi'ite militias armed by Iran, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said on Monday. U.S. forces officially ended combat operations in Iraq last August but have come under increasing fire in recent weeks. Fourteen U.S. service members were killed in hostile incidents in June, the highest monthly toll in three years. U.S. officials blame Shi'ite militias armed by Iraq's Shi'ite neighbor Iran for most of the recent attacks.

Reporting from Baghdad— Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Sunday that weapons supplied by Iran are behind a rash of attacks against American forces in Iraq, part of an escalating campaign of violence ahead of the planned U.S. troop withdrawal by the end of the year. "We're seeing more of those weapons going in from Iran, and they've really hurt us," said Panetta, who arrived in Baghdad on an unannounced visit after a two-day stop in Afghanistan. U.S. officials said 15 U.S. troops were killed in June, the most in any month in two years. More than half of the deaths...

Panetta Says Defeat of Al Qaeda ‘Within Reach’ By ELISABETH BUMILLER KABUL, Afghanistan — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who arrived in Kabul on Saturday, said that the United States was “within reach of strategically defeating Al Qaeda” and that the American focus had narrowed to capturing or killing 10 to 20 crucial leaders of the terrorist group in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Mr. Panetta, who took over as defense secretary from Robert M. Gates on July 1, made his comments aboard his plane before arriving on an unannounced trip to Kabul, the Afghan capital. They were Mr. Panetta’s first...

It is now fairly well known that President Barack Obama enjoyed a close relationship with the socialists, Trotskyites and “former” communists, who made up the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America. It is less well known that while a California Congressman, Obama’s Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta also worked closely with Santa Cruz based members of the US’s largest Marxist organization. Hugh DeLacy A key point of contact was Hugh DeLacy, Panetta’s friend and correspondent from at least 1976, until his death in 1986. DeLacy was a long time Communist Party USA member who worked closely with members of the...

In a front page story about a major FBI terrorism investigation, The Washington Post has reported that the targets include “Chicagoans who crossed paths with Obama when he was a young state senator and some who have been active in labor unions that supported his political rise.” The implication is that the trail could lead to the White House. This is an unusual investigation that does not primarily involve Islamists. Instead, it is focused on elements of the old international communist networks that many people mistakenly thought had faded away with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Those under investigation...

Leon Panetta While a Southern California based congressman in the 1970s and ’80s, CIA director and Obama Secretary of Defense nominee Leon Panetta, was close to a pro-communist, Santa Cruz based “peace activist” named Lucy Haessler. In spite (or perhaps because of) Haessler’s involvement with the Women’s International Democratic Federation, Panetta placed a tribute in the Congressional Record, April 11, 1984, to mark Haessler’s 80th birthday. Panetta noted that Lucy Haessler attended several conferences of the East German based organization in France, the Soviet Union, Poland and East Germany. He did neglect to mention however that the W.I.D.F. was...

Leon Panetta In 1983, then Congressman, Leon Panetta, placed a tribute in the Congressional Record to two of his Santa Cruz, California constituents. The couple, Hugh DeLacy and his wife Dorothy Baskin DeLacy, both had long histories with the Communist Party USA and were very active in the Santa Cruz “progressive” movement that had helped nurture Congressman Panetta’s career. Phrases like “social justice” and “dark forces of McCarthyism” rolled from Rep. Panetta’s pen, in a piece that would not have been out of place in the Communist Party’s Peoples Daily World. Panetta makes it very clear he sympathizes with...