Free Republic

Preparing for any potential war against Iran, the Biden administration has formally elevated Israel in military planning.... ...For the Pentagon, Israel is the most prized military and intelligence partner in the Middle East, with its vast combat experience and advanced technologies. With the end of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, and with the brokering of the Abraham Accords by the Trump administration, Washington sees an opportunity to incorporate Israel into a new regional alliance. ... ..."CENTCOM will now work to implement the U.S. Government commitment to a holistic approach to regional security and cooperation with our partners," the Tampa-based command...

.....TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Vice President Kamala Harris is scheduled to visit Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base on Thursday. The visit is one of two stops she has planned in Florida. Before heading to Tampa, the vice president will be in Orlando for a roundtable discussion with Florida legislators about abortion and reproductive rights. The discussion comes while the state is in a legal battle over a new 15-week abortion ban. Once Harris arrives at MacDill AFB, she’ll meet with servicemembers and receive a briefing from CENTCOM Commander, General Michael E. Kurilla, SOCOM Commander, General Richard D. Clarke and other...

A U.S. airstrike in northwest Syria has killed a senior al-Qaeda leader on Friday, the U.S. Central Command announced in a release.U.S. Army Maj. John Rigsbee, a CENTCOM spokesperson, said Abdul Hamid al-Matar was killed in the vicinity of Suluk in northwest Syria.The strike was conducted using an MQ-9 aircraft—an armed, remotely piloted aircraft.There are “no indications of civilian casualties as a result of the strike.”“Al-Qaeda continues to present a threat to America and our allies. Al-Qaeda uses Syria as a safe haven to rebuild, coordinate with external affiliates, and plan external operations. Al-Qaeda also uses Syria as a base...

Washington (CNN)US Central Command, which oversaw the US evacuation from Afghanistan, disputed an Air Force account of an attempted hijacking of a commercial flight from Kabul international airport during the final weeks of the evacuation from the country. In a statement to CNN on Thursday afternoon, a spokeswoman for Central Command said they are "unaware" of an attempted hijacking.... ...The Air Force account which detailed an attempted hijacking of a commercial airliner was published Tuesday on the Air Force's website and was written by Lt. Col. Kristen Duncan, a public affairs officer for the 23rd Wing... .In describing the frenetic...

"We're only 24 hours away from the big game! Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of @CENTCOM, has a special pregame message before #SuperBowl LV. #KnowYourMil #SBLV" DoD Twitter

The scandal surrounding US intelligence reports on ISIS just hit President Barack Obama's inner circle. James Clapper, America's top spy, is reportedly in "frequent and unusual contact" with the military officer who is suspected of allowing US reports on ISIS to be altered to fit the administration's official line, Spencer Ackerman at The Guardian reports. "In communications, Clapper, who is far more senior than Grove, is said to tell Grove how the war looks from his vantage point, and question Grove about Central Command’s assessments," Ackerman writes. "Such a situation could place inherent pressure on a subordinate, sources said." Clapper,...

  In what is a shocking development, 50 intelligence analysts are in full revolution against the Obama regime. They assert that Obama is cooking the intelligence books: More than 50 intelligence analysts working out of the U.S. military's Central Command have formally complained that their reports on ISIS and al Qaeda’s branch in Syria were being inappropriately altered by senior officials, The Daily Beast has learned. The complaints spurred the Pentagon’s inspector general to open an investigation into the alleged manipulation of intelligence. The fact that so many people complained suggests there are deep-rooted, systemic problems in how the U.S....

The Obama administration gave the parents of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl extraordinary insider access to the military’s hunt for their son by having them take part in a series of secure video conferences with senior commanders as well as White House and State Department officials. A former government official involved in American hostage issues said he had never heard of giving a family such access and questioned whether sensitive information could have been conveyed to Robert and Jani Bergdahl and somehow leaked out. A family spokesman said he knows of no such breach. Soon after Sgt. Bergdahl went missing in...

New information regarding the September 11, 2012 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic outpost and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya and on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt has been brought forward by former U.S. military personnel who were on duty that fateful night. These whistleblowers reveal that the attackers in Benghazi were led by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, under the command of Iranian General Qassem Suleimani. “Qassem Suleimani, a fanatical Islamic revolutionary, has rapidly become one of the world’s top terrorist suspects, as well as a powerful and sinister force within Iran” according to The Telegraph. U.S....

Afghanistan’s military and security forces are losing personnel at an unsustainable rate and could not remain intact for long if U.S. forces were withdrawn, according to Marine Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr, the incoming CENTCOM commander. In testimony before Congress, the Marine three-star also said that the U.S. military and Taliban are “in a stalemate” — which was the most optimistic portion of his description of the current security situation in America’s longest-running war. His assessment comes on the heels of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s statement earlier this month that nearly 29,000 military and security personnel have been killed...

Head of the U.S. military’s Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel visits Israel amid concerns Trump will withdraw forces from Syria. Votel met with the head of the National Security Council, the IDF Chief of Staff, other defense officials. A diplomatic source said that the purpose of the visit was to send a signal of reassurance to Israel that the Americans had no immediate plans to withdraw from Syria and that they would continue to back Israel on any activity intended to maintain the security of its border. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the U.S. would be out...

The new tapes are numbers 17, 19 and 20 that I recorded 9 April 2003. Tape 18 had been up. They include the CENTCOM Briefing, soldiers joining civilians trying to bring down the Saddam statue and actually bringing the statue down, and the Donald Rumsfeld Pentanon Briefing.

Turkey's parliament is expected to fast-track on Wednesday a draft bill allowing its troops to be deployed to a Turkish military base in Qatar, officials from the ruling AK Party and the nationalist opposition said. The move appears to support the Gulf Arab country as it faces diplomatic and trade isolation from some of the biggest Middle Eastern powers.

<p>In the aftermath of the Raymond Davis and bin Laden affairs, General James Mattis was key in maintaining ties with top Pakistani military leadership.</p> <p>New Delhi: The next US secretary of defence was the Obama administration's main man to keep a line open and bring ties with the top Pakistani military leadership back on an even keel in the dark days following the arrest of a CIA contractor and the killing of Osama bin Laden.</p>

James Clapper said to have frequent communication with military official who is said to be implicated in a Pentagon inquiry into manipulated intelligence Barack Obama’s intelligence chief is said to be in frequent and unusual contact with a military intelligence officer at the center of a growing scandal over rosy portrayals of the war against the Islamic State, the Guardian has learned. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, is said to talk nearly every day with the head of US Central Command’s intelligence wing, Army Major General Steven Grove – “which is highly, highly unusual”, according to a former...

For years the Obama administration has been accused of micromanaging the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from inside the White House. Now in an astonishing report from Fox News anchor Bret Baier, three former Obama Defense Secretaries are openly slamming him for his distrust of the military, his failure to lead and they're exposing his inexperienced and closest advisors for second guessing senior field commanders with phone calls to the battlefield. "President Obama, he's one of the youngest presidents we've ever had. One of the most inexperienced presidents we've ever had. He has a staff around him that is very...

A former brigadier general revealed on Fox News Monday some new information about the White House's role in U.S. Central Command's skewing of intelligence to downplay the threats of ISIS and Al Qaeda. Last week, a House Republican task force concluded in a 15-page report that U.S. military leaders altered intelligence reports "to paint a rosier picture" of the U.S.-led fight against ISIS than intelligence analysts believed was warranted. The report blamed “structural and management changes” at the intelligence directorate for the distortions, but stopped short of explaining WHY the changes were made. According to Defense News, "the problems followed...

Dr. Sebastian Gorka .. officials from the U.S. military’s Central Command altered key data to downplay the threat of ISIS. Gorka said the report, which comes from a House Republican panel, confirms allegations by dozens of intelligence analysts that their reports were altered by CENTCOM higher-ups. "This act of willfully distorting and playing down the intelligence assessments when American is at war is tantamount to being a treasonous act," Gorka said. ... this is further evidence that the Obama administration will not allow any intelligence to counter their narrative that their policies are working and the fight against ISIS is...

A House joint task force (JTF) investigating the manipulation of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) intelligence reports released its preliminary findings this week. Their report detailed persistent problems in 2014 to 2015 intelligence information being doctored to paint a rosier picture both of the White House’s war against the Islamic State and the analysis of U.S. efforts to train forces to combat the terrorist organization. More than 50 intelligence analysts at CENTCOM are concerned that important elements of their reports had been manipulated by higher-ranking officials to fool the American public with claims that the Obama Administration had contained and was...

The J.V. team According to a new report issued by a federal investigative task force, senior members of the U.S. Central Command altered intel to make it look like our battle against ISIS was going better than it was. According to the findings, lower-level analysts were assessing and disseminating information correctly but their reports were then altered by the higher-ups. As CBS News reports: The report finds that, beginning in mid-2014, final intelligence reports issued by CENTCOM contradicted the initial internal assessments made by its own analysts, reports CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod.