Military

U.S. Navy officials are investigating the incident

U.S. Navy officials are investigating who secretly filmed female officers showering and changing clothes while aboard a submarine, according to a CNN report.

“Incidents that violate the trust of our sailors go against every core value we hold sacred in our naval service,” Navy Vice Admiral M.J. Connor wrote in a letter, according to CNN.

At least three female officers were videotaped over the course of a year aboard the USS Wyoming, and the recordings were sent to members of the crew, according to an incident report cited by CNN.

Read the full story from CNN.

His absence from White House ceremony highlights transition woes

Army Sergeant Chuck Hagel knew how to toss a hand grenade when he served in Vietnam in 1968. Friday he made clear he still knows how to do it, declining to attend the White House nomination announcement of his successor, Ashton Carter, after the Administration had let it be known he’d be there.

It’s the latest in a string of snafus that has marred the transition between President Obama’s third and fourth Defense secretaries.

In a nation engaged in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, such theatrics might be viewed by outsiders as mere distraction. But inside the Pentagon—and in ruling circles around the world—such drama is often seen as a national-security team fumbling the ball. If they can’t handle a handoff, the thinking goes, how can they run a war?

Perhaps Hagel felt that putting him on stage Friday alongside the President and Carter would only have highlighted the problem. Pentagon officials said Hagel didn’t want to shift attention from Carter’s debut alongside the President.

But the President dragged Hagel into the announcement, anyway. “A year ago, when Ash Carter completed his tenure as deputy secretary of defense, Secretary Hagel took to the podium in Ash’s farewell ceremony and looked out at the audience of our civilian and military leaders, and he said, ‘I’ve known Ash Carter for many years. All of us here today have benefited from Ash’s hard work, his friendship, from his inspiration, from his leadership.’ And Chuck then went on to express his gratitude to his partner for ‘what Ash has done for this country and will continue to do in many ways.’”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Obama added.

Hagel actually may have turned gun shy following his Thursday press conference at the Pentagon, where he rolled out the Defense Department’s latest sexual-assault report. After working for a year to reduce sexual assaults in the military—and actually having some good news to share on the subject—reporters only asked him about his impending departure, and the reasons for it.

Both Hagel and Obama have stressed that each felt it was simply time for a change. But White House officials made clear they were unhappy with his performance, which has driven Hagel loyalists bonkers. “This was a mutual decision based on the discussions that we had,” Hagel said Thursday of their discussions. “I don’t think there’s ever one overriding or defining decision in situations like this, unless there’s some obvious issue, and there wasn’t between either one of us.”

Yet Hagel put Obama in a tough spot by submitting his resignation Nov. 24, as soon as it became clear he had lost the President’s confidence. That put the White House in the awkward spot of hailing Hagel’s impending departure amid wartime without his replacement standing alongside.

So perhaps it was only fitting 11 days later—after background investigations into Carter finally wrapped up—that Hagel was the missing man this time around.

Former Secretary Chuck Hagel declined to attend the ceremony

President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Ashton Carter as his next Secretary of Defense Friday, to replace current Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel, who resigned last month under pressure from the White House.

Obama praised Carter, the former Pentagon No. 2 under Hagel and a respected technocrat, in a small Roosevelt Room ceremony, before an audience of administration officials and selected lawmakers, saying Carter “brings a unique blend of strategic perspective and technical knowhow.”

“With a record of service that has spanned more than 30 years as a public servant, as an adviser, as a scholar, Ash is rightly regarded as one of our nation’s foremost national security leaders,” Obama said.

In a brief statement, Carter thanked Obama for the nomination and promised to provide candid advice and to ensure that military commanders can do the same. “If confirmed, I pledge to you my most candid, strategic advice, and I pledge to you you will receive equally candid military advice,” he said.

In an awkward turn, Hagel, who was scheduled to attend the announcement, backed out of the ceremony Friday morning, leaving Obama to quote Hagel’s praise of Carter from a year ago when he resigned as Deputy Secretary.

“Secretary Hagel will not attend today’s ceremony at the White House,” a defense official said in a statement. “The Secretary believes strongly that this day belongs to Ash Carter and his nomination to be the next Secretary of Defense … The Secretary is proud of Ash and of their friendship and does not want in any way to detract from or distract the proper focus of the day.”

Obama closed with a call on the Senate to swiftly confirm Carter to the post.

President Obama made the announcement on Friday

President Obama nominated Ashton Carter as Defense Secretary on Friday, a week after Chuck Hagel announced he would resign from the post last week.

Carter comes with experience—he served as Deputy Defense Secretary until last December. As TIME’s Mark Thompson wrote earlier this week, he’s “by far Obama’s safest, most predictable choice”:

Carter’s 2011-2013 background as the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian, largely responsible for the building’s day-to-day management, primes him for the military’s tough budget environment. He’s also an expert on nuclear weapons and military technology, having served as the Defense Department’s top weapons buyer from 2009 to 2011.

Unlike Hagel—who served as an Army sergeant in Vietnam and was wounded twice—Carter has never worn a U.S. military uniform. And, also unlike Hagel—twice elected as a Republican senator from Nebraska—Carter hasn’t engaged in partisan politics.

Of course, given Hagel’s vague tenure and unceremonious dumping from his Pentagon post, the value such experience affords may be dubious.

[WSJ]

The Iranians reportedly attack ISIS targets in Iraq with U.S.-built 'Mad Men'-era F-4s

Think of it as the return of the Phantom.

Fly boys of a certain age perked up with reports Thursday that F-4 Phantom II’s belonging to the Iranian air force — or what’s left of it — have attacked targets belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) in recent days.

The strikes, confirmed by U.S. officials (but denied by Tehran), took place northeast of Baghdad in eastern Iraq. Conveniently, the U.S. military, which is also conducting air strikes against ISIS targets, has been confining its bombing runs to the western part of the country.

If true, the Iranian attacks represent a return to the spotlight for the McDonnell Douglas F-4. The plane was originally designed for the Navy, which flew it first in 1960. It last flew for the U.S. military, specifically for the Air Force, in 1996 (it also was the only aircraft flown by both services’ airshow outfits, the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds).

The two-seat fighter-bomber was the backbone of U.S. air power in the 1970s and ’80s before being replaced by Air Force F-15s and F-16s, and Navy F-14s and F-18s. Capable of flying more than twice the speed of sound, the F-4 could carry nine tons of bombs and missiles. It is the last plane to carry pilots who became “aces” by shooting down five enemy aircraft each over Vietnam.

The U.S. built 5,200 F-4s and sold many of them to 11 nations. Iran bought 225 in the ’60s and ’70s under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was overthrown in 1979’s Islamic revolution. But the mullahs kept his jets (along with the 79 F-14 Tomcats the shah had also purchased).

Nearly all the surviving F-4s have been retired for decades at the Pentagon’s boneyard at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Arizona. But some have gotten a second lease on life as targets for more modern warplanes. Over the past 16 years, more than 300 have been converted into QF-4 aerial targets. They can be flown both with and without pilots, and are used to train air crews to detect aircraft with radar and other technologies.

These repurposed QF-4s have flown more than 16,000 manned and 600 unmanned training missions. About 250 of the unmanned missions have ended with Air Force pilots actually shooting the QF-4s out of the sky.

There are only 39 QF-4s still flying. But not to worry: they’re being replaced with QF-16s.

But latest Pentagon survey shows some signs of progress

Just like the Pentagon’s recent real-world wars, its latest dispatch from the front in the battle against sexual assault contains both good and bad news.

There are enough numbers crammed into the document that military boosters can hail the progress that has been made, while critics can claim the Defense Department still isn’t doing enough.

“There have been indications of real progress,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said as he released the report Thursday afternoon, but “we still have a long way to go.”

According to that latest accounting, the bad news is that reported assaults continue to rise—from 3,604 in 2012, to 5,518 last year, and to 5,983 in 2014 (the report charts fiscal years, which end Sept. 30). That’s an 8% jump in the past year.

The good news, the 1,136-page report says, is that reforms in handling sexual assault have encouraged more victims to come forward and not cower in secret. The study estimates that while only 10% of alleged victims came forward in 2012, 25% did in 2014. The number of active-duty women complaining about unwanted sexual contract dropped from about 6.1% last year to 4.3% in 2014 (for men, the number fell from 1.2% to 0.9%).

An anonymous Rand Corp. survey of military personnel projected that approximately 19,000 had been subject to unwanted sexual contact in 2014 (55% of them male), 27% less than the 26,000 estimated in 2012. It was that spike—up from 19,300 in 2010—that focused attention on the problem and led to a host of changes into how the military investigates and prosecutes alleged sexual assaults.

Commanders are no longer free to reverse court-martial convictions, and each alleged victim is assigned a lawyer. When a commander and prosecutor disagree over whether a court martial is warranted, civilians are called in to review such cases. Statutes of limitations on such crimes have been scrapped. Anyone convicted of sexual assault in the U.S. military gets at least a dishonorable discharge.

But the tribal nature of military service persists: 62% of the women alleging unwanted sexual contact felt they had been shunned or punished for complaining. “The Department was unable to identify clear progress in the area of perceived victim retaliation,” the study said. “The news is a mixed bag,” says Elspeth Ritchie, a retired Army colonel who dealt with the issue as a military psychiatrist. “The numbers persist despite all the public education campaigns.” Reducing retaliation “is the key to further progress,” she adds. “It is very frustrating that so little progress has been made.”

The Pentagon has spent decades trying to rid its ranks of sexual predators—and encouraging victims to come forward—but progress has been slow. “An estimate of 20,000 cases of sexual assault and unwanted sexual contact a year in our military, or 55 cases a day, is appalling,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said. “There is no other mission in the world for our military where this much failure would be allowed.” Gillibrand plans to renew her push to take prosecution of such cases away from the alleged perpetrator’s commanders and give it to a corps of independent military lawyers.

“It is unfair to the commanders to put them in this position,” said Don Christensen, who recently retired as a top Air Force prosecutor. “It is a system set up for failure.”

Dealing with sex among young men and women—especially when there is a commander-commanded relationship, and liquor, or other such substances, are involved—is difficult under the best of conditions. And the military lacks the best of conditions, given its stresses, its work-hard, play-hard ethos, and the fact that the service attracts its fair share of dolts (like the sailor, according to a report Wednesday, who allegedly filmed female officers showering aboard their shared submarine).

As women have become an increasing share of the U.S. military—they now account for 15 of every 100 Americans in uniform—the service’s macho culture hasn’t kept pace. “Sexual harassment stems from certain widespread cultural attitudes that have been prevalent through the ages,” a 1993 Army report said. “Women have lived under male protection–benevolent or otherwise–thereby being forced to live by the rules of men who dominate them.”

That’s slowly changing, with the emphasis on slowly.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has threatened to kill photojournalist Luke Somers

The United States attempted to rescue an American hostage being held by an Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, according to the Pentagon.

Luke Somers, a 33-year-old photojournalist and interpreter, was captured in Yemen 14 months ago, reports ABC News. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula released a video of Somers Wednesday night, threatening to kill him in three days if President Obama doesn’t “meet our demands.”

The Pentagon issued a statement Thursday to “provide accurate information” after The Washington Post, among others, reported an operation to rescue Somers and other hostages held in Yemen.

“The United States attempted a rescue operation recently to free a number of hostages, including U.S. citizen Luke Somers, held in Yemen by Al-Qaida [sic] in the Arabian Peninsula,” said a statement by Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby. “This operation was conducted in partnership with the armed forces of Yemen and involved air and ground components. Some hostages were rescued, but others — including Somers — were not present at the targeted location. Details about the mission remain classified.”

A Nov. 26 report in the New York Times said that eight hostages, including two Yemenis, had been rescued in the operation. It did not name Somers.

Woman Sues Bill Cosby Alleging Child Sexual Abuse

A southern California woman sued Bill Cosby on Tuesday, becoming the latest of more than a dozen women to allege sexual assault, claiming the comedian molested her around 1974 when she was 15 in a bedroom at the Playboy Mansion

Who Should Be Person of the Year?

Cast your vote for the person you think most influenced the news this year — for better or worse. Voting closes at 11:59 p.m. E.T. on Dec. 6

Israeli Leader Looks to Reboot

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s move to sack two ministers and call for elections cemented his interest in establishing a right-wing government

Transgender Teen Awarded $75,000

A court in Maine awarded the family of a transgender teenager $75,000 in a lawsuit against a school district that forced the student to use a staff restroom rather than one for pupils. The district was told to let students use restrooms “consistent with their gender identity”

National Guard Pulls Back From Ferguson

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon announced a National Guard drawdown in Ferguson as protests continue to subside in the St. Louis suburb, roughly a week after boosting security following the announcement that a grand jury would not indict police officer Darren Wilson

China Tumbles in Annual Corruption Index

China fell 20 spots in this year’s corruption rankings, despite President Xi Jinping’s massive campaign to weed out graft that has disciplined more than 60,000 government officials. Denmark held onto first place as the country seen as least corrupt

Walking Dead Spinoff Casts First 2 Actors

The Walking Dead companion series has cast its first two victims, er, actors: British actor Frank Dillane and Alycia Debnam Care. The young actors will play the kids of one of the show’s main characters, a female guidance counselor who is not yet cast

Obama Renews Calls for $6 Billion Ebola Fund

U.S. President Barack Obama renewed his call for Congress to approve more than $6 billion in funding to help tackle the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. “If we want other countries to keep stepping up, we will have to continue to lead the way,” said Obama

Decision in Chokehold Case Imminent

A decision is expected soon on whether or not to indict New York City police officer Daniel Pantaleo over the death of Staten Island man Eric Garner. Garner died in July after being put into what appeared to be a banned chokehold by Pantaleo

Rolling Stones Sax Player Bobby Keys Dies at 70

Bobby Keys, the saxophone player who performed with the Rolling Stones on many of their biggest hits, along with other acts like The Who, Lynyrd Skynyrd and John Lennon, died on Dec. 2 at his home in Franklin, Tenn.

Texas to Kill Schizophrenic Man

Scott Panetti, who is scheduled to die on Wednesday, becoming the state’s 11th execution this year, has a long history of severe mental illness. In 1992, Panetti shaved his head, dressed himself in camo and fatally shot his in-laws in front of his wife and daughter

Bipartisan Push to Improve Military’s Handling of Sex Assault

The former chief prosecutor of the Air Force has thrown his weight behind Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s second push to change how the military handles sexual-assault allegations. The bill needed only five more votes last time

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