National Security News | McClatchy Washington Bureau

National Security

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations General Assembly, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2018, at U.N. Headquarters.

National Security

Israel confounded, confused by Syria withdrawal, Mattis resignation

The abrupt resignation of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has left our closest ally in the Middle East shaken as Israel comes to grips with even greater implications after the United States announced it was leaving Syria.

Actress Caroline Lagerfelt showing her Guantánamo artwork at her home in Santa Monica, Calif. She is getting it re-framed to show the prison stamp of approval for release on the back.

Guantanamo

Did Pentagon ban on Guantánamo art create a market for it? See who owns prison art.

A year after the Pentagon halted the release of artwork by Guantánamo, there are signs that the hundreds of works of art that were already released have taken on a certain cachet.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks to reporters in Washington.

Congress

Graham, Trump go to war over Syrian troop withdrawal

Sen. Lindsey Graham and President Donald Trump Thursday traded barbs over Trump’s decision to pull back U.S. troops in Syria.

Congress

Lindsey Graham slams Trump for declaring victory over ISIS in Syria

Sen. Lindsey Graham is a staunch ally of President Donald Trump, but the South Carolina Republican sharply challenged the president’s assertion the United States has defeated ISIS in Syria.

Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat, is currently the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. Thanks to Democrats’ winning a House majority Tuesday, Smith is expected to become the panel’s chairman in January.

National Security

Military panel’s top Dem: War Powers Resolution won’t move White House on Yemen

Rep. Adam Smith, about to become the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday that Congress’ War Powers Resolution would do little to stop the White House from being involved with the conflict in Yemen.

Saudi dissident Ali Al-Ahmed poses for a photograph in his office in Washington in late October. Al-Ahmed says forensic researchers have determined that scores of emails he has received in the past year were attempts to infect his computer with spyware. He blames operatives working for the Saudi monarchy.

Cyber Security

Khashoggi’s friends, other foreigners, are being watched. The U.S. can do little about it

Friends of slain writer Jamal Khashoggi as well as other foreign nationals in the U.S., are beign spied on by their home countries. There’s little the U.S. can do about it.

Energy

Military’s push for solar backup power loses speed under Trump

The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps leased land to electric utilities for the installation of solar arrays under President Barack Obama to combat global warming and provide military bases with backup energy. But under Donald Trump it’s unclear the degree to which the Pentagon will make use of the solar projects.

The Justice Department Wednesday blamed two Iranian hackers for a cyber extortion campaign that has hit hospitals and other entities in 43 U.S. states. Iran is one of the major cyber adversaries of the United States.

Cyber Security

DOJ says Iranian hacking spree hit hospitals, other entities in 43 U.S. states

Federal prosecutors charge two Iranian hackers with being behind a sweeping cyber-extortion campaign against U.S. hospitals, city governments.

Coast Guard cutter breaks ice in the Arctic Circle 660 miles northeast of Barrow, Alaska

National Security

Fortify Mexican border or the Arctic? Congress split on funding icebreakers to counter Russia

Republicans are eager to fund the border wall with Mexico, but Democrats want some of that money to go toward a new icebreaker ship for the Coast Guard, in order to counter growing Russian influence in the Arctic.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions greets new immigration judges after outlining Trump administration policies, in Falls Church, Va., Monday, Sept. 10, 2018. To Sessions’ right is former Guantánamo war court judge Vance Spath..

Guantanamo

War court judge pursued immigration job for years while presiding over USS Cole case

Air Force Col. Vance Spath, the former judge in Guantánamo’s USS Cole death-penalty trial, spent more than half his tenure on the war court bench seeking a job as an immigration judge in the Department of Justice.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, at left, in a photo released by the CIA soon after his March 2003 capture in Pakistan. At right, a never-published mug shot soon after his September 2006 transfer to Guantánamo, shows dramatic weight loss during his time in CIA custody. The mug shot, which also shows the arms of two soldiers in camouflage holding him, was taken from a chart of cell assignments at the covert Camp 7 obtained by McClatchy.

Guantanamo

Lawyer floated life-sentence plea deal for alleged 9/11 plotter. The deal vanished.

Under questioning from a Marine judge, the lawyer for accused 9/11 plot mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed said he had a written, proposed plea deal in the summer of 2017 and had it delivered to the Pentagon official overseeing the war court. Another defense lawyer in the death-penalty case said it subsequently vanished.

Guantanamo

At Gitmo 9/11 trial, prosecutor gives lurid details of CIA prisons. Defense says: Not enough

Lawyers tackle fundamental pretrial hearing issues at Guantánamo with a new judge in the Sept. 11 mass murder trial. One of them: What level of detail will be heard on secret CIA prisons?

U.S. Reps. John Faso, R-New York, and Democrat Debbie Dingell of Michigan are two of dozens of lawmakers who use tracking tools on their campaign web sites.

Cyber Security

These legislators preach internet privacy, but they still use website tools that snoop

When Mark Zuckerberg came before Congress, legislators took him to task for violating the privacy of Facebook users. But some of those same lawmakers use tracking tools on their campaign websites.

Abu Wa’el Dhiab, from Syria, sits in front of the U.S. embassy on May 5, 2015 in Montevideo, Uruguay. Authorities reported on Monday, July 24, 2017, that Dhiab has returned to Uruguay after being deported from Morocco.

Guantanamo

Trump closed an office that tracked ex-Gitmo inmates. Now we don’t know where some went

The Obama administration struck deals to scatter cleared Guantánamo detainees across the globe. Under Trump, the office that tracked where those inmates went was shut down.

From left, Mustafa al Hawsawi, Ammar al Baluchi, Ramzi bin al Shibh, Walid bin Attash and Khalid Sheik Mohammed pray at their Guantánamo war court arraignment on May 5, 2012. This sketch was reviewed and approved for release by a U.S. military security official.

Guantanamo

Defense lawyers’ moldy offices don’t delay start of 9/11 hearing

Judge plunges ahead in pretrial hearings in the Sept. 11 case at Guantánamo despite the discovery of mold in defense lawyers’ top-secret work spaces.

Attorney Cheryl Bormann, representing an alleged 9/11 plotter, said she returned to the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Nov. 10, 2018 to find her team’s office caked in mold on “the files, the carpet, all of the furniture,” and also on the black traditional Muslim abayas she wears to court in consideration of her client’s cultural sensitivity. Lawyers were prohibited from sharing photographs of the moldy offices because that part of the makeshift war court complex built on nan abandoned airfield is rated Top Secret.

Guantanamo

9/11 trial lawyers find mold in their top-secret offices: Could it snarl Gitmo hearings?

Defense lawyers in the 9/11 case arrived at Guantánamo for a week-long pretrial hearing to find a mold infestation in their top-secret work spaces. Health and safety inspectors were on the scene Sunday, Veterans Day.

Rep. Adam Smith says Trump spending too much money on nukes

Congress

Military panel likely to get Adam Smith – and his desire for budget cuts – as chairman

Rep. Adam Smith, D., is set to become the chair of the House Armed Services Committee, and could push to cut U.S. military spending. Washingtonians who are involved with the military say he’d be a good choice.

The path between the court and holding cells at Camp Justice on the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in a military-approved June 19, 2014 photo.

Guantanamo

Unusual accommodation at Gitmo war court: A hospital bed for an al-Qaida suspect

Prison guards set up a hospital bed inside Guantánamo’s expeditionary war court so a new Marine judge could get through the preliminaries in a pretrial hearing for an alleged al-Qaida commander on painkillers.

Guantánamo prisoner Abd al Hadi al Iraqi, who says his true name is Nashwan al Tamir, poses for the International Red Cross in a 2014 photo taken for his family, and provided by his attorneys.

Guantanamo

Alleged al-Qaida commander taken by ambulance from Guantánamo war court

A Guantánamo hearing for an Iraqi accused of leading al-Qaida’s army in Afghanistan abruptly ended after the captive, who is recovering from 5 spine surgeries, had back spasms in court, was administered opiates and taken to the prison acute care unit by ambulance.

A line forms for early voting at the Hamilton County Board of Elections, Sunday, Nov. 4, 2018, in Cincinnati.

Midterms

Balky vote machines, long lines, internet trolls make for troubled Election Day

Voters had to wait as long as 4 1/2 hours to cast ballots in one Atlanta area polling place, one of many areas hit with problems with malfunctioning voting machines. Elsewhere, disinformation campaigns on social media sought to confuse citizens.

National Security

Trending Stories

Top Photos

Subscriptions

Learn More

Advertising