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For several months during Bill Clinton's administration, a former top military officer says the White House lost the card with a set of numbers for opening the briefcase containing the codes for a nuclear attack. Gen Hugh Shelton, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, said in his new memoir, "Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior" that "the codes were actually missing for months. That's a big deal -- a gargantuan deal." A similar claim was made by Lt Col Robert Patterson, a former aide, in a book published seven years ago. He...

Judging by the rhetoric coming out of Tehran, John Bolton’s appointment as America’s National Security Advisor is the worst thing that ever happened. The Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council labeled Bolton’s appointment “a matter of shame.”  The Chairman of the Iranian Parliament's Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy declared,  "The use of hardline elements against the Islamic Republic of Iran shows that the Americans seek to exert more pressure on Iran.”First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri opined, “They (US officials) are wrong to assume that the Iranian nation will give in to their threats against the Islamic Republic.”  ...

In 1997, one of Bill Clinton's Cabinet members suggested that Shelton order a US plane to fly low over Baghdad so Saddam would shoot it down and, ta da, give America instant justification for war. "I was so mad I was about to explode," recounts Shelton, thinking about the sacrificial pilot. “Why, of course we can,” he responded. "Just as soon as we get your ass qualified to fly it, I will have it flown just as low and slow as you want to go.” The memoir doesn't name the Cabinet member, but Elliott notes that the way the passage...

WASHINGTON — The United States was said to have planned to destabilize at least two Arab countries over the last two years. A former leading U.S. military commander asserted that the administration of President Barack Obama worked to destabilize the regimes of Bahrain and Egypt. Ret.] Gen. Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the administration’s drive against Bahrain, wracked by a Shi’ite revolt, was led by the intelligence community.

When Everyone Agreed About Iraq For years before the war, a bipartisan consensus thought Saddam possessed WMD. By STEPHEN F. KNOTT At 5:34 a.m. on March 20, 2003, American, British and other allied forces invaded Iraq. One of the most divisive conflicts in the nation's history would soon be labeled " Bush's War." The overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime became official U.S. policy in 1998, when President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act—a bill passed 360-38 by the House of Representatives and by unanimous consent in the Senate. The law called for training and equipping Iraqi dissidents to overthrow Saddam...

A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says in a new book that while Bill Clinton was in the White House, a key component of the president's nuclear launch protocol went missing. "The codes were actually missing for months. This is a big deal," says Gen. Hugh Shelton. "We dodged a silver bullet."

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Barack Obama is considering former top military leaders among his possible running mates, according to a senator who met Tuesday with the Democratic presidential candidate's vice presidential vetting team. North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad told The Associated Press said the team asked him about potential candidates from three broad categories _ current top elected officials, former top elected officials and former top military leaders. Conrad would not disclose which names they discussed, and the Obama campaign has been keeping the process a closely guarded secret. "We talked about many names," Conrad said, including "some that are out...

A report commissioned in mid-1999 by Rep. Curt Weldon (R) looks into possible Chinese front companies in the US seeking technology for the Chinese military. Dr. Eileen Preisser and Michael Maloof are commissioned to make the report. Dr. Preisser, who runs the Information Dominance Center at the US Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) and will later become closely tied to Able Danger, uses LIWA's data mining capabilities to search unclassified information. According to Maloof, their results show Chinese front companies in the US posing as US corporations that acquire technology from US defense contractors. When the study is completed...

Weldon to reveal new 'Able Danger' details Unit reportedly provided info on terror danger prior to USS Cole attack Posted: November 9, 20051:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com WASHINGTON – Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., who says the Defense Department is maligning a special unit called "Able Danger" to cover-up warnings of terror attacks, will hold a press conference this morning to provide new details of his findings. The vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees will hold the press conference at 12:30 p.m. Eastern to discuss the latest findings of his own investigation. He claims Able Danger provided...

If you read the papers or watch TV , you’ve probably heard that an Army Intelligence unit called Able Danger (may have) identified four of the 9/11 hijackers as much as a year before they struck – but was unable to pass the information on to the FBI because Pentagon lawyers said it would be a “no-no”….but shouldn’t Richard Clarke have known about it ? Richard Clarke was President Clinton’s Counter-terrorism Director- but I suspect he was kept “out of the loop” as far as any real or valuable intelligence was concerned. I believe, had he known about Able Danger,it...

By 1999, Massoud was seen by some at the Pentagon and inside the Clinton Cabinet as a spent force commanding bands of thugs. An inner circle of the Cabinet with access to the most closely guarded secrets was sharply divided over whether the United States should deepen its partnership with him. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Henry H. "Hugh" Shelton -- reflecting the views of professional analysts in their departments -- argued that Massoud's alliance was tainted and in decline. But at the CIA, especially inside the Counterterrorist Center, career...

Press Release Source: Newsweek NEWSWEEK: Clark Ran Afoul of His Bosses While NATO Commander Because He Was Less Than Forthcoming, A Knowledgeable Source Says Sunday January 25, 9:57 am ET Clark Insists: 'The Buck Usually Stopped On My Desk' # NEW YORK, Jan. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- When Gen. Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters last September that General Wesley Clark was fired as commander of NATO because of "integrity and character issues" an uneasy pall was cast over Clark's presidential bid. Now, Newsweek has learned that Clark ran afoul of his bosses while NATO...

For Clark, there’s that little matter of Gen. Hugh Shelton’s comment — the one in which the former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman said Clark was relieved of his NATO command because of “character and integrity issues.” Yesterday, former U.S. Army Capt. Paul Bucha of Connecticut, a Medal of Honor winner and former president of that medal of honor society, campaigned here for Kerry. Bucha said he’s known Clark since the two attended West Point together in the 1960s. He had advised Clark to “go talk to Shelton” about the comment before it became a campaign issue. “You can’t dismiss...

<p>When retired General Wesley Clark announced his Presidential bid, former boss and Joint Chiefs Chairman Hugh Shelton was not enthused: "I've known Wes for a long time. I will tell you the reason he came out of Europe early had to do with integrity and character issues," he said. "Wes won't get my vote." The scrutiny of the Democratic primary contest is now revealing what General Shelton was getting at.</p>

NATO said it won a great victory, but the war did very little damage to Serb forces. By not conceding this, the Pentagon may mislead future presidents about the limits of U.S. power. A NEWSWEEK exclusive. It was acclaimed as the most successful air campaign ever. "A turning point in the history of warfare," wrote the noted military historian John Keegan, proof positive that "a war can be won by airpower alone." At a press conference last June, after Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic agreed to pull his Army from Kosovo at the end of a 78-day aerial bombardment that had...

I don't know whether Gen. Wesley Clark is qualified to be president, but Peter J. Boyer's profile in this week's New Yorker—which paints him as scarily unqualified—is an unfair portrait as well as a misleading, occasionally inaccurate précis of the 1999 Kosovo war and Clark's role in commanding it.Boyer relies heavily on some of Clark's fellow retired Army generals who clearly despise him. The gist of their critique, as Boyer summarizes, is that Clark, while a brilliant analyst, "had a certainty about the rightness of his views which led to conflicts with his colleagues and, sometimes, his superiors." I have...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Wesley Clark's campaign aides criticized rival presidential candidate John Edwards on Tuesday for using retired Gen. Henry "Hugh" Shelton as an adviser, saying it proves Shelton's recent criticism of Clark is not credible. Clark's communications director Matt Bennett wrote Edwards that he was astounded that the North Carolina senator had retained Shelton as an adviser. "This choice undermines the spirit of civility that you urged your fellow candidates to uphold," said Bennett's letter. Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in September that Clark was relieved of his assignment as NATO commander because of...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Wesley Clark, the retired four-star general who is running for president, got himself in hot water with his Pentagon bosses more than once in his 34-year military career.</p> <p>Clark matter-of-factly recounts when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff grumbled that Clark had "one foot on a banana peel and one foot in the grave." Less than a year later, Clark was yanked out of his job as NATO's supreme allied commander.</p>

Ex-Military Leaders Speak of Clark Flaws Sat Oct 11, 1:36 PM ET By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Wesley Clark, the retired four-star general who is running for president, got himself in hot water with his Pentagon bosses more than once in his 34-year military career. Clark matter-of-factly recounts a time when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was so irked he grumbled that Clark had "one foot on a banana peel and one foot in the grave." As it turned out, less than a year later Clark was yanked out of his job as NATO's...

The U.S. Army must be enlarged or its commitments scaled back, according to retired Gen. Henry Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1997-2001. "The Army cannot sustain the operations tempo they currently have," Shelton said in a telephone interview this week. "The Army currently has 232,000 soldiers deployed overseas. You cannot sustain 232,000 with an active force of only 485,000." Shelton will discuss the war on terror and peacekeeping in Iraq at a banquet sponsored by the Pittsburgh chapter of the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants on Oct. 21. A telephone interview with reporters was...