Iraqi army fighting to keep Islamic State out of rocket range of capital

KARMAH, Iraq — A young Iraqi soldier had barely finished explaining that this now “secure” area had recently been a no-man’s land because of sniper fire when four shots cracked overhead, sending him and others into the dirt.

For the past week his battalion, part of the Iraqi army’s 6th Division, has been fighting near the western edge of Baghdad to push Islamic State militants beyond the range where they could fire Grad rockets into two Shiite neighborhoods of the capital.

So far, they have succeeded in this modest-sized city less than 10 miles from the Islamic State stronghold of Fallujah in Anbar province, much of which is under extremist control.

“We took this area five days ago, and are preparing to push further with Sunni tribes,” said Abdel Amir Shamri, commander of the Baghdad Operations Center, which coordinates military operations to protect the capital.

“There used to be one or two rocket attacks every week, four or five rockets at a time,” he said of attacks on the Baghdad suburbs. “But since we came, they have stopped.”

The success in stopping attacks on the capital from Karmah comes as Iraqi government forces and Shiite militias have been making major gains against the Islamic State in the northern city of Tikrit — Saddam Hussein’s hometown and the gateway to the big prize, Mosul, which fell to the extremists when the Iraqi army collapsed last summer.

But Anbar province — which comprises nearly a third of Iraq’s land mass and extends from the western edge of Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia — could present an even bigger challenge than the north. Much of the province has fallen to the Islamic State, including Fallujah, which the insurgents have held since January 2014.

More than 90 percent of Anbar’s estimated 2 million people are marginalized Sunnis, many of whom oppose the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government. Anbar accounted for more than 40 percent of all American combat deaths in Iraq between 2004 and 2006, when many Sunni tribesmen turned against the Islamic State’s forebear, al-Qaida in Iraq.

Shamri doesn’t know when government forces will push ahead to Fallujah, though officials have said a push into Anbar is likely after the Islamic State is forced out of Tikrit. For now, Iraqi forces here on the eastern edge of Anbar appear to be concentrating on keeping extremists from threatening Baghdad with rocket fire.

Although the danger to Baghdad has been reduced, government forces trying to hold Islamic State militants at bay in Karmah still face threats from militant fire and from improvised explosive devices, which Islamic State fighters left behind when they pulled back.

During a recent Stars and Stripes visit, a felled palm tree next to a makeshift barracks still smoldered from an early morning mortar attack. Unexploded, exposed IEDs were scattered around the area, some just a few feet from where Iraqi soldiers were camped. Iraqi soldiers casually picked up and showed off live mortars that were used in IEDS, holding them in their hands like darts.

“The Iraqi army is dealing with the IEDs, but there are just too many and too few engineers,” said Maj. Muhammad Ali.

A soldier holding a mortar round in each hand said that he hasn’t been trained in explosive-ordnance disposal, but he’s gotten “plenty of practice.”

“Basically, when the guys see them from afar they just try and shoot them,” Ali said.

The result is a curious pattern of nearly constant gunfire heard across the front — two or three well placed shots at a time — with successful strikes on the ordnance triggering a deep boom as plumes of smoke rise in the distance.

As the daylight waned, Ali warned that staying any longer would mean having to stay the night hunkered down within the soldiers’ defensive positions. “Secure” is a relative term here.

Yet, just a short distance away, a wedding caravan decked in flowery ornaments, horns honking and music blaring, passed along the road, presenting a sharp contrast to the tense front where the soldiers keep watch.

For them, keeping the Islamic militants out of rocket-fire range of Baghdad is worth the risk.

“Thank God we’ve finally pushed Daesh out of here,” said Sgt. Areif Raed Hamood, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. “My family, my friends used to get hit by these rockets, and being out here, I know my family is safer, finally safer.”

sleiman.jad@stripes.com

Twitter: @JadASleiman

Powerful Cyclone Pam leaves trail of destruction in Pacific's Vanuatu

WELLNGTON, New Zealand — Winds from an extremely powerful cyclone that blew through the Pacific's Vanuatu archipelago were beginning to subside Saturday, revealing widespread destruction and unconfirmed reports of dozens of deaths.

Communication systems in many of the hard-hit outer islands remained down, meaning it could take some time before the full extent of the damage caused by Cyclone Pam is known.

Chloe Morrison, a World Vision emergency communications officer who is in Port Vila, said the capital's streets were littered with roofs blown from homes, uprooted trees and downed power lines. She said she's hearing reports of entire villages being destroyed in more remote areas.

She said there is no power or running water in the capital and that communication remains unreliable.

"It's still really quite dangerous outside. Most people are still hunkering down," she said. "The damage is quite extensive in Port Vila but there are so many more vulnerable islands. I can't even imagine what it's like in those vulnerable communities."

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the impact and scope of the disaster wasn't yet clear, but he feared the damage and destruction could be widespread.

"We hope the loss of life will be minimal," he said during a World Conference on Disaster Risk and Reduction in Japan.

Ban said he had met the president of Vanuatu, Baldwin Lonsdale, who is attending the conference, and conveyed the U.N.'s condolences and solidarity. The U.N. said it was preparing to deploy emergency rapid response units.

Morrison said the winds seemed to peak between midnight and 1 a.m. Saturday. She said she was in a fully boarded-up cyclone-proof house but still spent a frightening night as a tree and a tin roof from a nearby home hit her house.

A westward change of course put populated areas directly in the path of Cyclone Pam's 168 mph winds. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said there were unconfirmed reports of deaths in Vanuatu's northeastern islands after Cyclone Pam moved off its expected track.

Australia was preparing to send a crisis response team to Vanuatu if needed, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said.

"There are destructive winds, rain, flooding, landslides, sea surges and very rough seas and the storm is exceedingly destructive there," she said. "We are still assessing the situation, but we stand ready to assist."

Located about a quarter of the way from Australia to Hawaii, Vanuatu has a population of 267,000 spread over 65 islands. About 47,000 people live in the capital.

The tiny Pacific island nation has repeatedly warned it is already suffering devastating effects from climate change with the island's coastal areas being washed away, forcing resettlement to higher ground and smaller yields on traditional crops.

The cyclone has already destroyed some homes and caused damage to other Pacific islands including Kiribati and the Solomon Islands.

David Gibson, acting director of the Vanuatu meteorology and geo-hazards department, said the winds could cause severe damage to the nation's buildings.

Alice Clements, a spokeswoman for relief agency UNICEF who is in Port Vila, said Friday the capital was like a ghost town as people took shelter. She said the pelting rain was blown horizontally by the wind.

Authorities in New Zealand are preparing for the storm, which is forecast to pass north of the country on Sunday and Monday.

Associated Press writer Elaine Kurtenbach in Sendai, Japan, contributed to this report.

'Still work to do': Obama makes 1st visit to scandal-plagued Phoenix VA

WASHINGTON (Tribune Content Agency) — Almost a year after ordering a massive shake-up of the Veterans Affairs Department, President Barack Obama gave one troubled outpost a once-over Friday to see whether his massive staff housecleaning led to improvements.

In a trip to the VA hospital in Phoenix, where a whistleblower exposed the existence of waits so long that dozens of veterans may have died awaiting treatment, Obama declared that his new VA leadership is “chipping away at those problems.”

“We’ve brought in a new team that has been tackling these issues to make sure that wait times for scheduling, access to providers, is greatly improved,” the president told reporters. “But what we know is there is still more work to do.

“Trust,” he said, “is one of those things that you lose real quick, and then it takes some time to build.”

Aides to the president say the Phoenix center has shown progress since the revelations last April, as has the rest of the agency’s division charged with providing health care to American veterans.

Promising accountability, new VA Secretary Bob McDonald fired or disciplined hundreds of employees and hired a net increase of more than 8,000 doctors, nurses and other health care workers, according to administration figures.

But change hasn’t come quickly or thoroughly enough for some veterans advocates who hope Obama will see the job as only half done during his review.

The conservative Concerned Veterans for America warned the president publicly against the perils of a “whitewashed tour” by hospital administrators who were part of the problem. A whistleblower who helped bring attention to the problems said she has seen signs of improvement but also expressed hope that Obama would get an unvarnished view, not just a meeting with senior executives.

“The person that he should be meeting with is the person that works the night shift on the psychiatric floor or who works the busiest shifts in the ER or the housekeeper that is struggling to clean all these really important places,” said Katherine Mitchell, a physician who testified before Congress last summer that she suffered retaliation routinely for reporting health and safety concerns at the troubled facility.

“If they want to find out what’s going on in the hospital, they need to speak with the people on the front lines,” Mitchell said in an interview before Obama’s tour.

While at the center, Obama met with executives of the health care system and members of Congress as well as with two nurses, a mental health practitioner, a scheduler and a labor representative, according to the White House.

The overhaul at the VA came after a CNN report said that at least 40 veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system, many of them after being placed on a secret waiting list designed to hide their months-long delays in getting health care.

Other reviews showed long patient wait times at hospitals and clinics across the country with data manipulated to downplay the delays.

The White House responded by dismissing the VA secretary and bringing in McDonald, and pushing a reform law that included a new program to help veterans get appointments with private doctors when needed.

According to a report last week from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, 8.6 million veterans had signed up for the new program, Veterans Choice, in its first three months. Of that number, 26,662 had requested health care services from non-VA facilities, the overwhelming majority of whom received appointments.

But fewer than one in five veterans who qualified to get care outside the VA were offered that option, according to a survey conducted by the VFW. Local VA staff members were not sufficiently familiar with the program, the VFW found, but acknowledged that such problems are to be expected with the rollout of an “ambitious” program.

As part of Obama’s visit, the VA announced a new advisory committee of experts to make more recommendations for change.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was dismissive of the committee, calling it a “high-profile but empty gesture.”

During a roundtable discussion with the president Friday, McCain said, he questioned Obama about his administration’s “foot-dragging” on fully funding and implementing the reform law.

Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said he’s still worried about a lack of accountability for those who caused the problems, especially in Phoenix.

Noting that no one has been fired at the Phoenix hospital, Miller, a Republican, said a “dearth of accountability also exists at VA facilities across the nation, as evidenced by the fact that VA has not fired a single senior executive for wait time manipulation.”

“It’s becoming quite evident that this administration is either unwilling or unable to take accountability at VA seriously,” said Miller.

Mitchell, the whistleblower, said hiring and access to care and have improved significantly. But she said she still has concerns that potential informants fear retaliation if they report problems.

“I get calls every week describing problems and asking for help,” said Mitchell, who still works for the VA as the special care medicine coordinator for the VA Southwest Health Care Network. “At the Phoenix VA, even just in the last three weeks, I’ve had serious patient care issues that were brought to me. … People are just afraid to speak up.”

Though some high-profile officials have been disciplined, Mitchell said the retaliation employees fear most is at lower levels.

“What I don’t understand is why there is so few people being held accountable,” she said. “They really, really need to emphasize holding supervisors accountable for retaliation because that essentially drags the employee and prevents them from speaking out.”

Obama said he sees room for improvement but thinks it is possible.

“Just the fact that there have been a few bad apples, mistakes that have been made, systems that aren’t designed to get the job done,” he said, “I don’t want that to detract from the outstanding work being done.”

©2015 Tribune Co. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

In unannounced stop, Obama visits family of Kayla Mueller

16 minutes ago

By Margaret Talev

Bloomberg News (TNS)

Published: March 13, 2015

WASHINGTON (Tribune Content Agency) — President Barack Obama met with the family of American aid worker Kayla Mueller, who died while being held hostage by the Islamic State extremist group.

In an unannounced stop while he was in Phoenix for another event, Obama on Friday offered condolences to her parents, Carl and Marsha Mueller, and her brother, Eric, according to a White House spokesman.

“He appreciated the chance to hear from the Muellers more about Kayla’s compassion and dedication to assisting those in need around the world,” Eric Schultz, deputy press secretary, said in an e-mailed statement.

The U.S. confirmed Mueller’s death on Feb. 10. The Islamic State said she was killed by an airstrike carried out by the Jordanian air force, though there’s been no evidence made public showing how she died.

Mueller, 26, had been doing aid work in Syria when she was captured. She was held hostage for 18 months.

©2015 Bloomberg News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Child abduction treaty providing little help for fathers of lost kids

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — The last memory Donny Conway has of his daughter is watching her push him away just before putting her to bed.

“Momma told me if I hug you, she’s going be mad at me,” is what Conway recalls hearing from Christina, then 6.

Conway, who was a petty officer 2nd class at Lemoore Naval Air Station in California at the time, left his child’s room and told his soon-to-be ex-wife, Yumiko, never to say such a thing to his daughter.

A week earlier, Yumiko had returned from a trip to Japan and had asked for a divorce. Conway says she missed Japan and worried about his financial stability because he was among 3,000 sailors involuntarily released from the Navy because of what was then perceived as an overmanning problem.

In granting Yumiko’s divorce request, Conway expected resolution through the U.S. court system, he said.

Instead, on Aug. 9, 2012, the morning after seeing fear in his daughter’s eyes over a bedtime hug, he woke up to an empty house.

He later learned that his wife and daughter were in Japan, and he hasn’t heard from them since.

“I have no idea whether or not my daughter is even alive,” Conway said.

Conway’s case is not unusual — the State Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation have noted several dozen incidents of child abduction to Japan in recent decades.

Japan’s adoption of the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction in April 2014 offers some remedy to that trend, according to experts; however, cultural and legal obstacles remain among parents hoping for either child custody or increased visitation.

Parents can apply for help through either the State Department or the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the Hague Convention.

The Japanese will attempt to locate the child and set up a mediation process. If that fails, the parent seeking the child can petition family court.

In October, the new system returned its first child to a German parent abducted by a Japanese mother. Two more Canadian children were returned in December.

To date, five abducted children have been returned to Japan under the convention, according to Foreign Ministry data.

Parents whose children were abducted before Japan joined the convention can’t petition for a return, though they can petition for visitation.

The idea of joint custody remains an alien concept in Japan, said Colin P.A. Jones, a professor at Doshisha Law School in Kyoto. Jones has written extensively on Japanese family law for several years.

Until the 1960s, the father tended to get custody of a child following a divorce, Jones said. At that point, societal shifts tended to favor maternal custody, often to the point of excluding the father from the child’s life.

Meanwhile, what Americans have viewed as criminal abduction, Japanese society has viewed as a normal part of divorce.

When considering custody and visitation, judges wield a substantial amount of discretion over any factor they think might harm the child, Jones said. If a foreign parent gets an arrest warrant issued after an ex-spouse abducts a child, the judge might even rule against a return on the grounds that a parent’s potential arrest would scar the child.

“It’s very common to do whatever it takes to bring the child back,” Jones said. “But having an arrest warrant may actually be counterproductive in long run.”

Although Japan has returned a few children, it remains to be seen just how cooperative the country will be over the next few years, Jones said.

The main sticking point is enforcement, Jones said. If Japanese officials try to contact the parent of an abducted child, then it can be argued that they’ve fulfilled their Hague Convention obligations, Jones said.

If one parent doesn’t cooperate, the legal remedies remain unclear. Even if both parents cooperate, the Hague Convention’s applicability doesn’t guarantee a result.

“Where there has been something of a sea shift in courts is in accepting that visitation is good for children,” Jones said. “But the court can be completely on your side, and you still may not get very much.”

Petty Officer 1st Class Erik Schaefer, a Navy corpsman based in Okinawa, found out recently how difficult life can become when the court isn’t on a parent’s side.

Shortly before returning from Afghanistan in May, Schaefer’s Japanese wife emailed him, telling him she was divorcing him.

His ex-wife refused to speak with him or tell him where his 4-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter were living.

Schaefer says he went for help at Camp Foster’s legal office but said they couldn’t assist because his wife was already a client. He went to Kadena Air Base, where the legal office gave him a list of Japanese lawyers.

When court mediation began, Schaefer agreed to sign legal custody over to his ex-wife after being told joint custody wasn’t an option.

“The mediators involved in the process kept making it very clear at the time that they believed a child had the right to see a father, and they kept reassuring me on this,” Schaefer said.

Between his Afghanistan deployment and his wife’s actions, Schaefer hadn’t seen his children in about a year and a half, until he saw them again in court in December.

The children shied away from him, and the judge noted it. The judge also asked several questions about an alcohol-related incident in Schaefer’s past, though he sought counseling afterward and hasn’t gotten in any trouble since.

In January, Schaefer received the verdict: one hour of supervised visitation every two months. When Schaefer transfers to another duty station and comes to Japan to visit, he will still only get one hour to see his children.

Schaefer had two weeks to appeal the decision but didn’t know it because it had taken two weeks before he received the decision back from a translator, he said.

He has since hired a local lawyer to review the court proceedings in a desperate attempt to change the ruling.

“I’m not expecting the world,” Schaefer said. “Just enough that the kids feel like they have a dad.”

slavin.erik@stripes.com

Twitter: @eslavin_stripes

A painful recovery: Crews begin raising crashed Black Hawk

NAVARRE, Fla. (Tribune Content Agency) — The recovery effort following Tuesday's Black Hawk helicopter crash entered its final stage on Friday.

Around noon, a salvage barge owned by Resolve Marine Group in Mobile, Ala., slowly made its way down the Intracoastal Waterway to the site of the crash that killed four Louisiana National Guard soldiers and seven Marine Corps special operators.

Located approximately 3 miles east of the Navarre Beach Bridge, the wreckage site was thought to contain the remains of the only two servicemen whose bodies had not yet been recovered.

“It makes you sad to see that,” said Midway, Fla., resident Morgan Secrest, who watched from the deck of Juana’s Pagoda as the barge made its way toward the Navarre Beach Bridge.

The crash hit especially close to home for Secrest and his wife, whose brother-in-law was killed in a helicopter crash in 2003.

20th Special Operations Squadron aerial gunner Tech. Sgt. Howard A. Walters died when the Hurlburt Field, Fla.-based MH-53J Pave Low III helicopter he was aboard crashed in Afghanistan.

“It’s been very emotional for my wife and my son and me,” Secrest said.

By 4 p.m., the giant crane on the barge had lifted the helicopter’s rotor from its resting place under approximately 25 feet of water. Dive teams from the Army and Coast Guard were on hand to assist with the operation.

Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., spokeswoman Sara Vidoni anticipated that the salvage effort would take about eight hours, pending weather. She expected that the operation would continue throughout the night until it was completed.

“Saturday will mostly be a final clean-up day,” she added.

Col. Pete Schneider, a spokesman for the Louisiana National Guard, said the names of the four soldiers killed in the crash would not be released until 24 hours after the families of the remaining two soldiers were officially notified.

"We won't make the official notification until their bodies have been recovered," Schneider said.

A centralized investigation team under the auspices of the Army Combat Readiness Center (CRC) at Fort Rucker, Ala., is continuing its inquiry into the cause of the crash. The team is made up of four representatives from the CRC, one subject matter expert from the Army Aviation Center’s Directorate of Evaluation Standards, two representatives from the U.S. Navy, and two from the Army National Guard.

Mike Negard, a spokesman for the Combat Readiness Center, said it’s impossible to estimate how long the inquiry will take.

“There’s no such thing as a typical investigation,” Negard said. “The team is currently in the information gathering phase, which includes collecting as much evidence as possible from the scene.”

After the team returns to Fort Rucker, they will analyze the data and determine a preliminary cause of the accident.

“We look at three main factors: human, environmental, and material,” Negard said. “The cause could be due to human error, environmental factors like the fog, a mechanical or electronic problem with the aircraft, or a combination of those factors.”

Negard said a technical report will be prepared for the National Guard.

“From our perspective, we’re not trying to point fingers at anyone,” he said. “The purpose of our review is accident prevention. If there are applicable lessons learned, we want to apply them to other operations.”

While the recovery operation slowly winds down, Northwest Florida residents continue to be touched by the tragedy.

Destin, Fla., resident Jon Richards said he was shaken by the news of the crash.

“Just over 24 hours before it happened, I got to meet some of the guys,” he said. “On Monday, I was getting gas in Destin when I saw the two Black Hawks zooming overhead. I knew they had to be going to the Destin airport, so I raced over there as fast as I could, hoping that I could see them.”

Richards said the rotor on the UH-60 was still spinning when he pulled up near the helicopter.

“I called over to them and said, 'I guess you guys can't talk to me right now,’” Richards recalled. “But they said, ‘Sure, come on over.’ ”

Richards said the National Guard pilot he spoke to was very friendly. He told Richards his aircraft was “brand new,” and invited him to come back the next day to watch them take off.

“When I heard about the crash, I couldn't believe it,” he said. “I don't know if the guy I met was on the bird that crashed or the one that turned back.

"Either way, it makes you appreciate what these guys do for our country.”

©2015 the (Fort Walton Beach) Northwest Florida Daily News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Marine awarded Silver Star days before deadly Black Hawk crash

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — Just four days before he was killed in a helicopter crash, Staff Sgt. Andrew Seif was awarded one of the military's highest honors for heroism, a commendation he earned for his efforts to save a mortally wounded friend in heavy gunfire in Afghanistan.

Seif, 26, was given the Silver Star in a room full of his fellow Marines, walking arm in arm with his wife after the ceremony. The boy who grew up playing soldier in his Michigan backyard was hailed by one of his superiors, Maj. Gen. Joseph L. Osterman, as a selfless person who put himself in the line of fire so that Sgt. Justin Hansen wouldn't be left behind.

He and Hansen came under heavy fire as they closed in on a bomb expert in Afghanistan. His comrade was wounded; Seif moved him to safety, treated his wounds and fired back. At the ceremony, he deflected praise.

"There are definitely some individuals out there who deserve (the medal) just as well," Seif said. "But it's an honor to accept it on the behalf of the unit and on behalf of the rest of the men."

The young Marine's story emerged Friday when the Marines killed in the crash were publicly identified, some three days after the crash. The deceased had been students and husbands, officers and sons.

Four National Guard soldiers from Louisiana also were killed, though they have not been identified.

A salvage barge arrived at the crash site around noon Friday, Air Force spokeswoman Sara Vidoni said. Hauling the shattered helicopter core from about 25 feet of water was expected to take up to eight hours, she said. Despite some rain, she said the salvage crew expected to finish some time Friday night.

During a Friday news conference at Camp LeJeune, Osterman — who is commander of Marine Corps special operations forces — said the Marines were flying offshore to practice rappelling down ropes into the water and then making for land. He didn't know whether the Marines were planning to reach shore by swimming or in small rubber boats, but the same drill had been practiced hours earlier during daylight, Osterman said.

"They literally had done it hours before in daylight as part of the rehearsal for being able to do the nighttime operations, which inherently are more difficult," Osterman said.

The teams of Marines and Army-piloted choppers made a judgment call on whether conditions were sufficient for the training mission to go ahead. Then when they were heading out to start the mission, they tried to abort after deciding it was too risky, Osterman said.

Training is part of being ready for high risk operations. The seven Marines were members of the same team who constantly trained and faced danger together, he said.

Marine Special Operations Command, or MARSOC, has seen its members honored for valor and suffering with 19 Silver Star medals, 7 Navy Crosses, 189 Purple Hearts and 207 Bronze Stars, Osterman said.

"They really epitomized the silent warrior and the quiet professional that is really a hallmark of all the Marines here at MARSOC," Osterman said of the 2,500 MARSOC troops. He declined to cite specific instances of heroism or the missions accomplished by other Marines who were on the doomed chopper.

Like other clandestine services, a private ceremony remembering the special operations Marines will be held in the coming weeks to help surviving family members close the page on their deaths.

Jenna Kemp's husband, Kerry Kemp, was among the Marines killed. He was a "proud Marine, a loving husband and most wonderful father," with a child about to turn 1, said her sister, Lora Waraksa of Port Washington, Wis.

Another victim was Marcus Bawol, 27, from Warren, Mich., north of Detroit. His sister, Brandy Peek, said military officials told them his remains had been identified. Bawol "loved everything about the military," Peek said.

The other Marine victims were: Capt. Stanford H. Shaw, III, 31, from Basking Ridge, N.J.; Master Sgt. Thomas A. Saunders, 33, from Williamsburg, Va.; Staff Sgt. Trevor P. Blaylock, 29, from Lake Orion, Mich. and Staff Sgt. Liam A. Flynn, 33, from Queens, N.Y.

The National Guard soldiers, from Hammond, La., each did two tours in Iraq and joined in humanitarian missions after Gulf Coast hurricanes and the BP oil spill.

Lush reported from Tampa, Fla. Associated Press reporters Corey Williams in Detroit and Gretchen Ehlke in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

VA ordered to repay bonus to Phoenix VA director

WASHINGTON — In another hit to its reform effort, the VA was ordered to repay bonus money this week that it had reclaimed from Sharon Helman, the disgraced former Phoenix health care system director at the center of its nationwide wait-time scandal, according to court documents obtained by Stars and Stripes.

An administrative law judge ruled that the Department of Veterans Affairs must by Tuesday repay Helman $5,624 garnished from her wages while she was on administrative leave and faced termination.

The VA removed Helman in April and attempted to fire her after audits found secret patient wait lists in Phoenix and at facilities around the country used to hide long delays in care. But an appeals judge found it did not have grounds to fire her for hiding delays, and instead backed her firing for taking gifts including Beyonce tickets and a trip to Disneyland.

The garnishing of Helman’s wages to recoup the bonus pay was “premature” because the VA did not provide her a hearing first as required by federal law, Administrative Judge Alan Caramella wrote in the Feb. 25 decision.

The former director was notified in June that the VA was taking back the money, which is paid out to many of the department’s senior executives for good performance, according to the court documents.

That month, Helman told the VA she would request a hearing to dispute the move but the department spent several months directing her elsewhere for the case documents without explanation.

Meanwhile, it took the money from her pay from August to November, despite her official request for an appeal hearing in October, the court found.

The judge’s decision is a blow to VA efforts at accountability for the scandal at key time.

President Barack Obama traveled to the VA in Phoenix on Friday to announce a new advisory panel to lead reform efforts – the president had drawn criticism for not visiting the troubled hospital system last year – and the department is coming up on the one-year anniversary of the wait lists and health care delays being revealed by a whistleblowing doctor.

The VA on Friday declined to comment on the Helman bonus decision but said that it is moving ahead with reform efforts started last summer by Secretary Bob McDonald and is still looking into personnel and conduct at the facilities in Phoenix.

“There is an ongoing investigation by the Office of Accountability Review that is looking into leadership at the medical center,” spokeswoman Walinda West wrote in an email to Stars and Stripes. “Investigations and additional disciplinary actions at Phoenix remain pending.”

The department said it has proposed disciplinary actions “related to data manipulation or patient care” against over 80 employees throughout its nationwide system of hospitals and clinics.

But so far firings for keeping secret wait lists have been elusive, despite a law passed by Congress last summer that streamlined terminations and gave the VA secretary more power to get rid of employees implicated in such wrongdoing. Helman’s dismissal has been the most high-profile proceeding.

“It is important to note that the vast majority of VA’s more than 300,000 employees are committed to serving veterans effectively and well,” West wrote.

tritten.travis@stripes.com

Twitter: @Travis_Tritten

Japanese battleship blew up under water, footage suggests

TOKYO — Debris scattered over a large area at the bottom of the sea near the Philippines indicate that the massive Japanese World War II battleship Musashi had blown up in an undersea explosion 70 years ago after it sank beneath the surface.

Experts from a research team analyzing a live feed from an unmanned submersible Friday said they believe the Musashi suffered at least one explosion while sinking to the 1,000-meter (3,280-foot) deep seafloor. The 2 1/2 hour feed provided the first detailed images of the ship.

The research team, sponsored by Microsoft co-founder and entrepreneur Paul Allen, first found the remains of the ship in early March after searching for it for eight years.

The Musashi, one of Japan's biggest and most famous battleships, sank in October 1944 in the Sibuyan Sea during the Battle of Leyte Gulf, losing half of its 2,400 crew. It was last seen disappearing into the water in one piece after being struck by torpedoes, but what happened subsequently was never known.

"The wreck is actually very damaged," said David Mearns, a marine scientist on the team. "It appears she suffered at least one, if not two, magazine explosions which would have sheered off the bow and the stern, and its entire middle section of its super-structure."

The footage showed fish and other marine creatures occasionally swimming by the rusted debris scattered over a wide area, some chunks covered by coral.

There were holes in the bow area, apparently made by U.S. torpedoes, and the ship's stern is upside down. A propeller is torn off from a shaft and gun turrets and catapults are broken off.

The feed also showed a round teak base on the bow that held the Imperial chrysanthemum seal that only a few battleships were allowed to carry — a key finding that convinced Japanese experts and some survivors that this was indeed the remains of the Musashi.

Historian Kazushige Todaka, head of the Yamato Museum and an expert on warships, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he was "100 percent positive" the ship is the Musashi.

The upright bow section and the upside-down stern mean the ship had an explosion, he said. "It shows there was a tremendous impact that tore the ship apart."

Todaka said closer examination of the video would help explain what happened to the ship as it sank to the sea bottom. He also hoped this would lead to discovery of other sunken warships that are unaccounted for.

Shigeru Nakajima, a 94-year-old former electrical technician on the Musashi, one of only a few hundred aboard who made it safely back to Japan, told the AP he was deeply moved by the footage he saw Friday at a community center near his home in Kashiwa, near Tokyo.

"The captain and those who went down (with the Musashi) must be delighted in heaven by the news of the discovery," he said.

The team says it is collaborating with the governments of Japan and the Philippines over the wreckage. Experts here say it would be difficult to pull up the ship, though technically it may be possible. Some people consider the wreckage as a place where the spirits of the victims rest and should be left at peace.

The timing of the discovery, coming shortly before the 70th anniversary of the war's end, is particularly significant, said Todaka, "as if telling us not to forget the tragedy of the war."

Islamic State group tightens its grip on Mosul residents

BAGHDAD — Freedom from the Islamic State group comes at a steep price, as one newly wedded couple recently discovered. Eager to live a normal life, away from the harsh dominion of the militants' self-styled caliphate, the young pair is searching for ways to bypass the extremists' newly implemented departure taxes and escape the Islamic State-held city of Mosul.

"Life is unbearable with these people," the groom said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. "Do they really want me to give up the house my father spent years building to an Afghani or Chechen or to an Iraqi villager so that I can leave for good? They are dreaming."

Fearing the city might simply empty of civilians, or that fleeing residents may join the fight against them, Islamic State extremists are imposing tough measures to prevent people from leaving their territory.

Several residents, who spoke to The Associated Press by telephone on condition of anonymity to ensure their safety, said anyone seeking to leave must submit the title for their family home or car — if the vehicle is worth more than $20,000 — to be granted permission to leave for two weeks. If they fail to return within that period, their property will be confiscated.

"We are being governed by wicked and unscrupulous people," said the 29-year old groom, who stayed behind to protect his family home. Most of his family had already fled last June when a shocking Islamic State blitz overran Mosul.

Married earlier this year, they are finally ready to leave Mosul but trapped by the tough new restrictions, which were imposed in stages starting last October. The couple, who were engaged before Mosul fell, had dreamed of a lavish wedding with the traditional honking motorcade taking the bride from her father's home to the social hall for a celebration packed with friends and relatives.

"Instead we had a tiny wedding party with only three cars with modest decoration and almost no songs or music and only few relatives attended," said the 22-year old wife. "What bitterness."

The Islamic State group, which now controls about a third of Syria and Iraq, first banned all former police and army officers from leaving, for fear they would join the fight against IS-rule. Then the restrictions were tightened to allow only patients with urgent medical requirements or retirees who need to collect their pensions outside the city. In late February, the requirement for travelers to turn over their home or car title was imposed.

Mosul residents are watching with keen interest the ongoing offensive by the Iraqi army and allied Shiite militiamen to dislodge the Islamic State group from Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) southeast of Mosul. The retaking of Tikrit is seen as a crucial test for the Iraqi troops and a key step toward the ultimate recapture of Mosul.

The Iraqi forces entered Tikrit for the first time on Wednesday, from the north and south, and by Thursday, they were fighting their way through the city, along two fronts, hoping to reach the center within three to four days, according to commanders on the front-lines.

Meanwhile, in Mosul — Iraq's second largest city — many residents feel they have no choice but to endure under Islamic State rule.

"I can't leave here with my family because I have no other source for living," said a Mosul resident and father of four who sells wholesale cosmetics. "Every day when I come back home, I lock the house door on my family."

The restrictions apply only for those wishing to head south into government-held Iraq; residents can still travel to and from Turkey. Those leaving for urgent medical reasons now also have to provide collateral, and can only leave if their claim is approved by a special medical committee made up of Islamic State-loyalist doctors.

One resident told the AP that when doctors in Baghdad changed the date of his surgery, one of his companions had to travel back to Mosul to obtain an extension to his two-week leave or else he would have lost his home.

Unwilling to surrender the deed to the groom's family home, the young Mosul couple found a taxi driver who moonlights as a smuggler sneaking residents out of the city. But the pair, both civil servants, could not meet his $20,000 price tag.

Trapped in their hometown, they are chafing under the Islamic State group's harsh interpretation of Islamic law. The wife has to cover herself from head to toe with an enveloping niqab garment. When out in public together, they constantly have to show proof of their marriage at militant checkpoints.

"I'm fed up, I want to live a normal life with my husband where I can go out with him at any time without worrying about our safety, the marriage documents and even without being annoyed by the niqab when eating at a restaurant," she said.

Both are now looking for a more affordable smuggler, saying the most they can afford is $5,000.

Follow Sinan Salaheddin on Twitter @sinansm

Fog delays recovery in military helicopter crash in Florida

NAVARRE, Fla. — Grieving families and comrades of 11 soldiers and Marines whose Black Hawk helicopter slammed into the water during a training exercise can only wait until the dense fog clears and rough seas calm enough for their bodies to be recovered from the wreckage, which settled in just 25 feet of water.

The Army said it has recovered the bodies of two of the four soldiers from the Louisiana Army National Guard helicopter. The remains of two other soldiers and of seven Marines from North Carolina's Camp Lejeune were unaccounted for late Thursday.

The helicopter went down in thick fog Tuesday night during a routine training mission at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle. The cause of the crash — described as "high impact" by Eglin Fire Chief Mark Giuliano — is being probed by the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center out of Fort Rucker, Alabama.

Military officials said they need better weather before they can pull the UH-60's shattered core from the bottom of Santa Rosa Sound.

Jenna Kemp's husband, Kerry Kemp, was among the Marines killed. He was a "proud Marine, a loving husband and most wonderful father," with a child about to turn 1, said her sister, Lora Waraksa of Port Washington, Wisconsin.

Another victim was Marcus Bawol, 27, from Warren, Michigan, north of Detroit. His sister, Brandy Peek, said military officials told them his remains had been identified. Bawol "loved everything about the military," Peek said.

The tragedy struck hard in the beach towns near the Eglin Air Force Base and Pensacola Naval Air Station, where families often come to relax between difficult deployments.

"My heart is really hurt right now knowing these people were here just on training — knowing they went and left their family members and did not give that goodbye, you know, because they weren't going off to war," a tearful Dolly Edwards, herself the wife of a Marine, said at a community vigil Wednesday night.

The National Guard soldiers, from Hammond, Louisiana, each did two tours in Iraq, and joined in humanitarian missions after Gulf Coast hurricanes and the BP oil spill. Their passengers were "seasoned combat veterans" with the 2nd Marine Special Operations Battalion, said Capt. Barry Morris, a command spokesman at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

The bad news has arrived in stages to Hammond, where a chilly drizzle and flags at half-staff cast a dark tone on the town, also home to Southeastern Louisiana University. First the chopper was missing, then they learned that four Louisiana soldiers were on board. Thursday, they learned that two of the bodies remain submerged with the wreckage.

"The thing is, yesterday, you kind of had a little hope," Rickie Brocato, owner of the Crescent Bar. "Today there's really no hope."

Brocato's bar is a regular haunt for members of the lost men's unit. They even donated an American flag that once flew over their barracks in Iraq. He was bracing for more bad news.

Associated Press writer Kevin McGill contributed from Hammond, Louisiana.

Islamic State accepts Boko Haram's pledge of allegiance

BEIRUT — Islamic State militants have accepted a pledge of allegiance by the Nigerian-grown Boko Haram extremist group, a spokesman for the Islamic State movement said Thursday.

The development comes as both movements, which are among the most ruthless in the world, are under increasing military pressure.

Islamic State seized much of northern and western Iraq last summer giving it control of about a third of both Iraq and Syria. But it is now struggling against Iraqi forces seeking to recapture Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, while coming under fire from U.S.-led coalition air strikes in other parts of the country and in Syria.

Boko Haram, meanwhile, has been weakened by a multinational force that has dislodged it from a score of northeastern Nigerian towns. But its new Twitter account, increasingly slick and more frequent video messages and a new media arm all were considered signs that the group is now being helped by Islamic State propagandists.

Then on Saturday, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau posted an audio recording online that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. On Thursday, the militant group's media arm Al-Furqan, in an audio recording by spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, said that Boko Haram's pledge of allegiance has been accepted, claiming the caliphate has now expanded to West Africa.

Al-Adnani had urged foreign fighters from around the world to migrate and join Boko Haram.

"We announce our allegiance to the Caliph of the Muslims ... and will hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity, in hardship and ease, and to endure being discriminated against, and not to dispute about rule with those in power, except in case of evident infidelity regarding that which there is a proof from Allah," said the message.

The Boko Haram pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State comes as the militants reportedly were massing in the northeastern Nigerian town of Gwoza, considered their headquarters, for a showdown with the Chadian-led multinational force.

Boko Haram killed an estimated 10,000 people last year, and it is blamed for last April's abduction of more than 275 schoolgirls. Thousands of Nigerians have fled to neighboring Chad.

The group is waging a nearly 6-year insurgency to impose Muslim Shariah law in Nigeria. It began launching attacks across the border into Cameroon last year, and this year its fighters struck in Niger and Chad in retaliation to their agreement to form a multinational force to fight the militants.

Boko Haram followed the lead of the Islamic State in August by declaring an Islamic caliphate in northeast Nigeria that grew to cover an area the size of Belgium. The Islamic State had declared a caliphate in vast swaths of territory that it controls in Iraq and Syria.

The Nigerian group has also followed the militant group in publishing videos of beheadings. The latest one, published March 2, borrowed certain elements from Islamic State productions, such as the sound of a beating heart and heavy breathing immediately before the execution, according to SITE Intelligence Group.

In video messages last year, Boko Haram's leader sent greetings and praise to both Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and leaders of al-Qaida. But Boko Haram has never been an affiliate of al-Qaida, some analysts surmise because al-Qaida considers the Nigerians' indiscriminate slaughter of Muslim civilians as un-Islamic.

Recent offensives have marked a sharp escalation by African nations against Boko Haram. An African Union summit agreed on sending a force of 8,750 troops to fight Boko Haram.

Military operations in Niger's east have killed at least 500 Boko Haram fighters since Feb. 8, Nigerien officials have said.

Members of the U.N. Security Council proposed Thursday that the international community supply money, equipment, troops and intelligence to a five-nation African force fighting Boko Haram.

Navy to homeport USS Gerald R. Ford in Virginia, lawmakers say

The USS Gerald R. Ford gets underway beginning the ship's launch and transit to Newport News Shipyard pier 3 for the final stages of construction and testing. Ford was christened Nov. 9, 2013.
Aidan P. Campbell/U.S. Navy

By BROCK VERGAKIS

The Associated Press

Published: March 12, 2015

NORFOLK, Va. — The Navy plans to homeport its newest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in Virginia when it joins the fleet in 2016, according to members of Virginia's congressional delegation.

The decision to base the USS Gerald R. Ford in Norfolk will provide a temporary boost to the region's economy. The USS Abraham Lincoln isn't expected to return to the West Coast after its mid-life refueling and overhaul in nearby Newport News until 2018, according to a joint statement from Virginia's senators and the Hampton Roads congressional delegation.

That means for about two years, the crews of six of the Navy's 11 aircraft carriers will be based in Virginia instead of the usual five. All other U.S. aircraft carriers are based in California, Washington and Japan. The Navy has said it wants 60 percent of its ships based in the Pacific, and sending the Lincoln to one of its homeports there would restore that balance.

Each aircraft carrier has a crew of several thousand sailors and contributes millions of dollars to the region's economy.

"We are very glad to learn that the Navy's newest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford will be home ported in Norfolk, home of the U.S. Navy," Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim said in a statement issued by the region's congressional delegation. "The long-standing defense policy of stationing five nuclear aircraft carriers in the Atlantic at Norfolk is also confirmed. ... All and all a signature day for Norfolk and the Navy."

The Navy has been down to 10 aircraft carriers since 2012, when the Norfolk-based USS Enterprise was inactivated. The Ford is the Navy's numerical replacement for the Enterprise, although it is the lead ship in a new class of carriers.

The Ford features a new nuclear power plant, a redesigned island, electromagnetic catapults, improved weapons movement and an enhanced flight deck.

The statement also says the Navy has agreed to homeport four amphibious ships in Virginia Beach at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story through 2020.

Slasher aimed to kill ambassador over US military drills, Seoul police say

SEOUL, South Korea — An anti-U.S. activist arrested last week for allegedly stabbing U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert had intended to kill the envoy to highlight his protest against ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills, police said Friday.

The suspect, Kim Ki-jong, could face charges of attempted murder, assaulting a foreign envoy and obstruction as his case has been sent to prosecutors for possible indictment, senior Seoul police officer Kim Chul-jun said in a televised briefing.

Police say Kim Ki-jong attacked Lippert with a knife during a breakfast forum last Thursday that left deep gashes on the envoy's face and arm. Lippert left a South Korean hospital Tuesday where doctors closed an 11-centimeter (4-inch) wound on his face and operated on his left arm to repair damaged tendons and nerves.

Kim Ki-jong has told investigators he had no intention of killing Lippert and only tried to hurt him, according to police. But police believe Kim attempted to kill the ambassador because he knifed Lippert more than twice with a force that was enough to penetrate the envoy's arm as he tried to block the attack, police officer Kim Chul-jun said.

Police believe Kim's anti-U.S., pro-North Korea views are believed to have led him to taken an "extreme action" on the U.S. ambassador, Kim Chul-jun said.

During questioning, Kim Ki-jong said South Korea is a semi-colony of the U.S. and North Korea has an independent, self-reliant government, Kim Chul-jun said. Shortly after his arrest, Kim Ki-jong shouted that the U.S.-South Korea war games are an obstacle against a Korean unification, he said.

The South Korean-U.S. springtime training is a source of tension, with North Korea describing it as a rehearsal for an invasion. Seoul and Washington say their annual exercises are defensive in nature. Earlier this month, the North's army threatened to launch unspecified "merciless strikes" against the allies in protest of the drills.

Kim chose Lippert as a target because he considered him "a symbolic figure who represents the U.S." and his computer records show that he searched Lippert's blog, articles on the military drills and South Korean criminal law, according to police.

Police said they were investigating whether Kim Ki-jong violated an anti-Pyongyang security law after finding that some of the books found at his home supported North Korea. Police said Kim visited North Korea seven times on South Korean government-approved trips between 1999 and 2007, during a previous era of inter-Korean reconciliation.

Kim has said during questioning he acted alone but police said they are looking into whether there were any accomplices.

The U.S., which fought alongside South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War, stations about 28,500 troops as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea.

In coalition of many, US air power is doing the heavy lifting

AL-UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar — American refueling planes rumble into the air from this desert air base around the clock to top up coalition aircraft bombing Islamic State militants, whether they're Arab fighters flying out of regional bases or French warplanes catapulted off an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf.

The al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar is the regional nerve center for the air war against the militants who have taken over almost a third of Iraq and Syria. That makes it the main hub for coordinating warplanes from the U.S. and 11 other nations in the coalition carrying out bombing raids.

While the U.S. is doing the heavy lifting in the airstrikes, American officials say the allies' contributions are vital.

"This is dangerous stuff. This is not political theater," said Lt. Col. David Haworth, chief of the current operations division for the Combined Air Operation Center.

"I don't think what we are doing today would be even remotely possible without the coalition partners," he told The Associated Press, making a rare media visit to the base. "To say that we want to or we are capable of going it alone I think would be a terrible mistake."

The low-rise Combined Air Operation Center, packed with rows of computer terminals with big-screen monitors overhead, brings together officers from across the coalition to help share information and plan missions.

Intelligence gathered by coalition members helps give commanders a deeper understanding of how the Islamic State group operates on the ground, Haworth said. For example, at times its fighters mass together like a traditional army unit, while in other situations they behave more like insurgent guerrillas.

All information will be key in preparations for an eventual offensive by Iraqi troops and Kurdish fighters to retake the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the biggest city under the extremists' control. The coalition will no doubt be backing the assault, though officials here would not discuss plans for future operations.

"If they (the militants) want to try and reinforce, whether it's Mosul or some other location, we want to make sure we're ready," Haworth said. "If they want to flee, we'll want to make sure that we have that contingency covered as well."

American planes in general hit more of what the military refers to as "dynamic" targets — ones that are not pre-planned — and a mobile insurgency such as the Islamic State group makes for a lot of dynamic targets.

The Air Force estimates that half of all strikes in the battle stem from close air support for Iraqi ground forces. Another 30 percent involve hitting Islamic State militants traveling between Iraq and Syria.

Many coalition members, meanwhile, might drop multiple bombs on a single preset target, such as a militant-held compound or mobile oil refinery.

Since the bombing campaign began, American warplanes have handled 80 percent of the 2,780 airstrikes carried out as of Tuesday in Iraq and Syria, according to the most recent figures provided by the U.S. military.

Primarily Western allies including Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan and the Netherlands operate over Iraq, and have handled about three of every 10 airstrikes there.

The share of American strikes is even greater in Syria. There, Arab coalition members have conducted just 93 airstrikes, compared with 1,137 by American aircraft. The countries operating alongside the U.S. over Syria include Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

By the military's definition, an airstrike refers to a particular target, regardless of how many planes are involved in hitting it and how much ordnance is fired at it. By another measure — strike sorties — three out of five times that a warplane takes off on a strike mission in the campaign, it's an American plane. Or by yet another measure, other coalition members have dropped a fifth of the munitions used so far in the campaign.

Part of the reason for the large American role in Syria comes down to the monthslong battle for Kobani, where relentless pounding from the air helped Kurdish fighters finally fend off the Islamic State group's offensive trying to take the town, on the border with Turkey.

Longer-range American aircraft like the swept-wing B-1 bombers that operate out of al-Udeid were particularly well suited for that fight. They are able to spend hours over the battlefield loaded with up to 24 tons of bombs that can be used in multiple airstrikes.

"We brought a lot of loiter time, a lot of weapons" over Kobani, said Lt. Col. Joe Kramer, 34th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron commander.

The number in Syria was also affected by the Emirates' decision to sit out the fight for several weeks after Jordanian fighter pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh went down behind enemy lines in December. He was eventually killed by the militants.

The UAE, which boasts one of the region's most capable air forces, resumed airstrikes last month after the U.S. moved search-and-rescue teams closer to the battlefield. It and Bahrain have deployed some aircraft to Jordan, bringing them closer to the fight.

Arab allies also give the coalition access to much-needed bases dotted around the Gulf. Canadian warplanes operate out of Kuwait, for example, while Australia has deployed F/A-18 fighters to an air base outside Dubai.

In addition to Qatar, American planes fly out of bases in the Emirates, Kuwait and Jordan, as well as off the carrier USS Carl Vinson.

Al-Udeid also hosts a forward headquarters for U.S. Central Command, which directs military operations throughout the region, including those still ongoing in Afghanistan, as well as Patriot missile batteries to protect regional allies against missile attacks.

The base continues to grow: New ramp space to handle additional American aircraft opened just last month, and more dormitory buildings are being raised. A second runway is under construction.

Without other countries' support, the coalition would not be able to sustain as many missions and would have less intelligence on militants' operations on the ground, officials say.

Even less-heralded tasks such as refueling bombers and fighters — a crucial mission because of the long distances aircraft need to fly from bases outside the combat zone — would be harder without the allies' help.

"To look at just strikes would be like to look at a baseball game of just home runs," Haworth said, describing the battlefield intelligence and other resources coalition members bring as "not just wanted, but necessary."

'In a word, reprehensible:' USAID contractor billed US $1.1M for luxury parties, retreats

WASHINGTON — The largest nonprofit contractor working for the U.S. Agency for International Development during the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan billed the government $1.1 million for staff parties and pricey retreats — three of them held at one of the poshest destinations on the East Coast, Nemacolin Woodlands Resort in Pennsylvania.

International Relief and Development Inc. of Arlington, Va., collected hundreds of millions of dollars to work in the war zones and help impoverished nations around the world. At the same time, its executives were using IRD's government overhead account to fund the parties and retreats between 2007 and 2010, according to financial records provided by IRD to The Washington Post.

The previously undisclosed retreats to Nemacolin were the fanciest by far. The five-star spa and resort, 180 miles northwest of Washington, is nestled high in the Allegheny Mountains near Fallingwater, the famous home designed over a waterfall by Frank Lloyd Wright. IRD spent $484,338 on those retreats at the height of U.S. war spending, billing the expenses to the government as "training" and "staff morale," according to the records and current and former employees.

Attendance was compulsory; hundreds of IRD employees went. Among the perks they received at Nemacolin: private rooms; open bars; gala dinner parties; free iPods at one retreat, Nikon Coolpix cameras at another; skeet-shooting outings at the resort's Field Club; extreme-driving classes at its Jeep Off-Road Driving Academy; and complimentary $50 gift certificates to spend on clothing, jewelry, massages — whatever the employees wanted.

"It was scandalous," said Andrea Clarke, IRD's former media and communications officer who attended the 2008 retreat. "I remember thinking: 'We're dealing with issues where people are actually dying overseas, and here we were at this five-star resort and we are living it up.' There were alarm bells going off every day. It was no way to run a nonprofit."

In January, USAID suspended the nonprofit from receiving any more federal work, citing other spending that involved "serious misconduct." The suspension came in the wake of allegations of misspending highlighted in a Post investigation in May 2014.

USAID officials said they are cracking down on contractors who misspend tax money.

"Waste, fraud, and abuse of American taxpayer funds are completely unacceptable, and USAID is taking every measure at our disposal to recover misspent funds," USAID spokesman Ben Edwards said in a statement to The Post. "The Agency suspended International Relief and Development in January from receiving U.S. Government awards based on our ongoing review of IRD's performance, management, and financial controls."

IRD's new chief executive, Roger Ervin, who took over in December, has forced seven of the nonprofit's longtime officers to resign and removed its board members. The nonprofit's annual revenue from USAID has plummeted from $587 million in 2010 to $78 million last year.

Under federal contracting rules, charges for parties and retreats are deemed to be "allowable" overhead costs if the money is used to train staff and build morale. Open bars are not allowable.

In addition to the retreats at Nemacolin, IRD spent $58,828 on "leadership" meetings at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay Golf Resort, Spa and Marina in Cambridge, Md. The nonprofit also billed the government $63,746 for an awards reception in October 2010 at the Newseum in Washington and $72,530 for a holiday party that December at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on the Mall.

"This is, in a word, reprehensible," said Doug White, an expert on nonprofit organizations at Columbia University. "I can't imagine that an organization that holds itself out as helping poor people in foreign lands would spend money this way."

The couple who presided over IRD — Arthur Keys, an ordained minister, and his wife, Jasna Basaric-Keys — retired from the nonprofit last summer. Attorneys for the couple have denied any wrongdoing, saying, "Dr. Keys made sure that things were charged correctly."

Ervin, the new chief executive, said he is streamlining IRD and shoring up its finances and hopes to persuade USAID to lift the suspension. He also said IRD is cooperating with investigators from three federal agencies — the inspectors general for USAID and the State Department and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

Citing the investigations, Ervin declined to discuss IRD's previous spending.

"I deplore any allocation of resources that detracted from IRD's ability to deliver vital programming for beneficiaries," Ervin said in a statement to The Post. "IRD's number one priority since I became CEO has been providing the strongest possible support to our field staff and partners around the world to empower vulnerable communities."

IRD was one of the biggest beneficiaries of U.S.-financed projects in Iraq and Afghanistan designed to rebuild the countries and quell the insurgency after the U.S. invasions. Of the more than $2.4 billion IRD has collected from USAID since 2007, 82 percent went toward projects in the battle zones.

That year, the nonprofit held a "Leadership Meeting" at the Hyatt resort in Cambridge along the banks of the Choptank River. That five-day meeting, attended by 57 employees, cost $37,770.

In December 2007, the nonprofit held an "Annual Staff Conference" at Nemacolin. The three-day conference, attended by 78 employees, cost $129,902.

"It was heartbreaking," said one former IRD employee who attended the Nemacolin conference and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigations. "We had all of these people working on programs in Third World countries, and then there were all of these people trying to get as much money as they could out of the programs."

Owned by the founder of 84 Lumber, Nemacolin is a 2,000-acre playground for the well-to-do. The main lodge is designed after the Ritz Hotel in Paris. It features Tiffany lamps and Baccarat crystal chandeliers, and works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alexander Calder and Norman Rockwell adorn the walls.

A short walk away is the Holistic Healing Center and the Woodlands Spa, where a guest can pay $460 for "The High Roller Deluxe," which includes a Swedish massage, facial, scrub, manicure, pedicure and shampoo and style. Down the lane is the Wildlife Academy, home to one of the world's few remaining white tigers, and the Lady Luck Casino, filled with 600 slot machines and 28 gambling tables.

Clarke, the former IRD communications officer, joined the nonprofit in May 2008 and quickly became concerned by its free-spending culture. Clarke said she met with a "crisis communications expert" and cautioned that the spending could become a news story.

"If IRD has a big enough reputational crisis which is not managed properly," she warned in the July 14, 2008, memo, "it is likely to suffer a funding crisis that could threaten the very foundation of the organization."

Five months later, IRD returned to Nemacolin for another leadership conference. It was a seminal year for the nonprofit. Keys, IRD's president, held a champagne toast celebrating the nonprofit's most recent award, a $300 million project to improve agricultural production in Afghanistan.

It was also IRD's 10th anniversary. To mark the occasion, IRD handed out iPod Shuffles to its employees at Nemacolin inscribed: "IRD Celebrating Ten Years."

During the day, there were buffet breakfasts and lunches and work-related seminars. At night, there were gala dinners, open bars, sing-a-longs in the karaoke bar and late-night parties in the hotel rooms of the staffers, according to former employees.

The cost of the 2008 retreat for 123 employees: $178,000.

In 2009, IRD executives held another leadership conference at Nemacolin; 110 employees attended, including workers who were flown in from posts around the world.

Several former employees said they were troubled by the luxurious surroundings.

"It was like an amusement park for adults," said one former IRD employee who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the investigations. "There was a fully open bar. There was karaoke. So many people got really drunk. They were on a spending spree."

Jean Hacken had been hired that year as the nonprofit's chief compliance officer.

"They were spending so much money," said Hacken, who left IRD in December. "I really didn't understand. It seemed very lavish to me. I didn't think a nonprofit organization should be doing that."

Beverly Morris Armstrong was another new employee invited to Nemacolin in 2009. She had been hired as IRD's chief financial officer. After the retreat, Armstrong warned Keys that he could not bill the open bars as overhead, according to former and current IRD employees.

Armstrong later removed those charges and other costs associated with the 2009 retreat, reducing the bill from $358,160 to $176,436. Keys eventually asked Armstrong to leave IRD. She recently declined to comment.

In 2010, when the nonprofit reported a record $704 million in annual revenue, the organization held a "Leadership Meeting" in Gulfport, Miss. Also that year, IRD threw the parties at the Air and Space Museum and the Newseum. The nonprofit spent $522,737 on the three events.

In the four years after 2010, spending on parties ended and expenses for retreats dropped by nearly two-thirds to $475,579.

During this time, IRD's work was coming under fire. The media and government auditors were examining reports of fraud and waste in its programs in Iraq and Afghanistan. USAID ended several of those projects.

The nonprofit launched a public relations offensive. IRD hired one of Washington's most influential lobbying firms, Wexler & Walker.

On May 21, 2010, the firm provided IRD with its media strategy.

The most important message for senior IRD officials to remember: "We help the most vulnerable people in some of the most insecure parts of the developing world."

Washington Post researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Dragoon Ride will send US troops through eastern Europe in show of support

STUTTGART, Germany — U.S. Army soldiers with the 2nd Cavalry Regiment will soon begin a 1,100-mile convoy through six countries en route to their home station in Vilseck, Germany as they wrap up months of training with allies in Poland and the Baltics, Army officials said.

Troops will be taking their Strikers on a “road march,” dubbed Dragoon Ride. They will be accompanied by aerial reconnaissance support provided by the Army’s 12th Combat Aviation Brigade, U.S. Army Europe said.

Normally, military vehicles would be shipped back to their home base by rail after such a training mission, not by road in a high profile convoy.

To reassure countries on Russia’s western periphery, the U.S. and other NATO allies have been training continuously in the Baltics and Poland since Moscow annexed Crimea from Ukraine last year

“This is a complex mission involving a significant amount of international diplomatic and military cooperation,” Lt. Col. Craig Childs, a USAREUR spokesman, said in a statement. “It will allow all units involved an opportunity to test their unit maintenance and leadership capabilities while simultaneously providing a highly visible demonstration of U.S, commitment to its NATO allies and demonstrating NATO’s ability to move military forces freely across allied borders in close cooperation.”

The journey will take soldiers with the 3rd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, from separate training locations in Estonia, Lithuania and Poland and convoy them through Latvia, the Czech Republic and finally to their home base at Rose Barracks in Vilseck, Germany, according to USARUER.

Along the way, the troops will be camping out during a series of planned stops where they will meet with local community members.

“For those participating in it, Dragoon Ride is a unique opportunity,” Childs said. “Soldiers and their leaders will have numerous opportunities to engage with local communities along the route, deepen their appreciation for the cultural diversity within the alliance and enhance the relationships that are essential to building and maintaining mutual admiration, respect and trust among allied militaries.”

The 4th Infantry Division deployed a headquarters element to Europe in February to command and control U.S. land forces supporting Operation Atlantic Resolve, the military’s effort to train and reassure allies while sending a message of deterrence to Russia. The 4th Infantry Division will be responsible for overseeing the road march from the Joint Multinational Training Command at Grafenwöhr, Germany, and from mobile command group locations forward in operational area, USAREUR said.

Before Dragoon Ride begins, troops will hand over responsibility for USAREUR’s land force training mission in the Baltics and Poland to soldiers with the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, from Ft. Stewart, Georgia, USAREUR said.

On Monday, hundreds of tanks and other military vehicles arrived in Latvia. They will be followed by 3,000 troops from the Georgia-based unit. Their rotation is expected to last until June.

vandiver.john@stripes.com

Officials studying civilian use of Georgia's Robins Air Force Base

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — Houston County officials have launched an effort that could put civilian businesses inside Georgia's Robins Air Force Base and potentially allow the runway to serve both military and civilian customers.

It’s far too early to tell if the effort will pan out, but U.S. Air Force officials are interested in learning more, said Charles Stenner, a retired lieutenant general who is CEO of the 21st Century Partnership. Agreements for such partnerships take about two years to complete.

“We think we’ve got a start (on getting) a handle on all the things that will be required, and now we’ve got to get on down the road,” Stenner told The Telegraph on Wednesday.

The 21st Century Partnership hired Jack Metz about a month ago as a project manager to work on the issues, which the military refers to as civilian-civilian or civilian-military partnerships. Such partnerships are commonly referred to as P4.

Angie Gheesling, executive director of the Houston County Development Authority, briefly spoke about the efforts in an authority meeting Wednesday. She later told reporters that similar agreements exist at some other bases, and at Robins Air Force Base such partnerships could help the base weather another round of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, or BRAC, process.

“We’re always looking for ways to enhance the mission of the base,” Gheesling said.

The Warner Robins government has long been talking about what it’s been calling the Georgia-Robins Aerospace Maintenance Partnership, planned for a tract of land just outside Robins’ fence. Warner Robins Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Gary Lee said Monday that the G-RAMP name is no longer valid but no new name has been picked. The agency has discussed creating a civilian freight hub at the site, which ultimately could have about 91 buildable acres, in a civilian-military partnership that could divert cargo aircraft from Atlanta’s busy airport.

Stenner said such partnerships can turn underused base land into money, and can also create synergies through related civilian industries, such as aircraft maintenance and overhaul.

Stenner said he’s talked with base officials who are receptive, responding with an attitude of “That’s interesting. Let’s keep moving forward.”

But with probably two years to go before any agreements could be finalized, Stenner said that “nobody can commit to anything until they know what they’re committing to.”

———

©2015 The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Ga.)

Visit The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Ga.) at www.macon.com

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Suit against Army in couple's murder gets 2016 trial date

A federal judge has set a July 2016 trial date in a lawsuit filed against the Army by the parents of a Marysville man and his girlfriend killed by a group of renegade soldiers in Georgia in 2012 to protect a plot to assassinate President Barack Obama.

The wrongful-death lawsuit, filed in December in U.S. District Court in Seattle by the parents of Michael Roark, 19, and his girlfriend, 17-year-old Tiffany York, of Georgia, alleges the Army allowed a secret militia called "FEAR" — Forever Enduring, Always Ready — to "form and fester within its ranks" at Fort Stewart, Ga., where Roark was stationed as a private.

It also claims the Army had plenty of warning that the leader of the group, Pvt. Isaac Aguigui of Cashmere, Chelan County, was a "dangerous and mentally unstable" soldier — including evidence that he had murdered his wife, an Army sergeant, just five months earlier.

The lawsuit alleges that, despite suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of Sgt. Deirdre Aguigui in July 2011, the Army paid Isaac Aguigui $500,000 in death benefits, which he used to finance his plan, including the purchase of $32,000 in assault-style rifles and handguns from a Wenatchee gun shop.

The group also plotted to buy land in Washington as a compound and discussed poisoning the state's apple crop and planned to kill the president.

The civil trial is expected to last two weeks.

Aguigui was sentenced to life without parole in March 2014 by a military judge after he was convicted of killing his wife. He was court-martialed only after a second autopsy found evidence she had been strangled.

The Army bungled the first autopsy, according to the lawsuit.

Aguigui pleaded guilty last May to the murders of Roark and York and received two more life terms.

York was shot by another member of the group, former Sgt. Anthony Peden, a heroin-addicted combat veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars who as a cavalry scout had suffered traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. He was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole last May, with the judge acknowledging his service record.

Roark had been discharged from the Army after getting in trouble, and Aguigui and other members of the group feared he might talk about its plans.

According to prosecutors, Aguigui, Peden and the others, Pvt. Christopher Salmon and Pfc. Michael Burnett, lured Roark and York into the woods near the base and shot them. Peden shot the woman and Salmon shot Roark on his knees, according to evidence at their trials.

Salmon is also serving life without parole.

Burnett pleaded guilty to reduced charges of manslaughter in 2012, when he agreed to testify against the other soldiers.

The lawsuit alleges the Army should have been on notice that Aguigui and Peden were troubled soldiers who talked openly of plans to form a militia and carry out terrorist operations.

Shortly after the suspicious death of his wife, the lawsuit alleges, the Army investigated Aguigui in a plot to kill local drug dealers so Aguigui could take over the trade.

The plaintiffs include Tracy Jahr, Roark's mother, of Marysville; his father, Brett Roark, of Daytona Beach, Fla.; and York's parents, Timothy York of Kerman, Calif.; and Brenda Thomas, of Richmond Hill, Ga.

(c)2015 The Seattle Times

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Vigil held in Florida town for 11 presumed killed in Black Hawk crash

NAVARRE, Fla. — This tranquil beachside enclave normally provides a respite for soldiers, airmen and Marines who come here to relax or to train between dangerous deployments.

But the hotels and bars where good times are shared with friends became places of shared grief Wednesday as boats and helicopters searched the waters and beachfront for seven marines and four soldiers presumed to have died after a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in dense fog during a routine training exercise.

"My heart is really hurt right now knowing these people were here just on training — knowing they went and left their family members and did not give that goodbye, you know, because they weren't going off to war," a tearful Dolly Edwards said. The 35-year-old wife of a Marine was among hundreds who attended a vigil held at the end of a pier jutting into the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday night.

The same thick fog that plagued the Black Hawk on Tuesday night engulfed the pier. Combined with the crashing of the Gulf's waves, it created a somber backdrop to the songs, tears and prayers of the large gathering, which included many with strong ties to the military in a part of Florida that is home to the sprawling Eglin Air Force Base.

"We just need to be here to pay respects," said Norman Caron, a retired airman, as he held a candle.

The vigil came after a long and difficult day for searchers who struggled in thick banks of fog to find the remains of the 11 soldiers believed to have been killed in the crash of the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter.

The military has provided few details about the crash, which happened about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. The names of the soldiers have not been released.

On Wednesday it was learned that a second helicopter turned back safely shortly before the crash.

Military officials haven't said what caused the crash, but the weather was bad enough for the other crew to return to land, said Maj. Gen. Glenn H. Curtis, adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard.

Jack Cullen, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Mobile, Alabama, said Thursday would likely bring more dense sea fog and a good chance of rain. He said the foggy conditions could stick around through Friday, a common phenomenon this time of year as warmer southern air encounters cold water near land.

The helicopter that crashed had a veteran crew from Hammond, Louisiana, that served multiple tours in Iraq and helped humanitarian missions after Gulf Coast hurricanes and the BP oil spill.

They were carrying "unconventional warriors" from the Marines Special Operations Command. Like the Army's Green Berets and the Navy's SEALs, they were highly trained to endure grueling conditions and sensitive assignments on land and at sea, from seizing ships to special reconnaissance missions and direct action inside hostile territory.

Tuesday night's training involved practicing "insertion and extraction missions," using small boats and helicopters to get troops into and out of a target site, said Capt. Barry Morris, spokesman for the Marine Corps Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

The helicopter crashed in the Santa Rosa Sound, a strip of water between the mainland of the Florida Panhandle and a long barrier island facing the Gulf. Military officials said search crews were focused on a 6-mile stretch of the sound.

Kim Urr, 62, who works at the Navarre Beach campground near the Eglin Air Force Base training area, said she heard a strange sound, followed by two explosions about 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.

"It sounded like something metal either being hit or falling over, that's what it sounded like. And there were two booms afterward, similar to what you hear with ordnance booms, but more muffled," Urr said.

Human remains were found Wednesday before the weather deteriorated again, and all 11 service members were presumed killed. But it was still considered a search and rescue mission.

All through the day Wednesday, debris from the crash was seen floating in the sound.

"We saw gloves, a uniform with a last name on it," said Alan Collinsworth, a hotel desk clerk. He said that when he got to work at 6:30 a.m. lots of debris was floating by the hotel's waterfront. "We were very shocked."

"It's a big military community here and something like this hits home," said Paul Castillo, a former airman who, along with his 15-year-old son, brought 11 white roses that they laid at a memorial for the crash victims at the pier's entrance. Under his arm he carried a folded American flag.

Earlier in the day, President Barack Obama expressed his condolences to the families and said he is confident a detailed and thorough investigation will take place, said his spokesman, Josh Earnest.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families as the search and rescue continues," Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Capitol Hill.

Associated Press contributors include Lolita C. Baldor in Washington; Jason Dearen in Gainesville, Florida; Freida Frisaro in Miami; Kevin McGill and Stacey Plaisance in Hammond, Louisiana; and Emery P. Dalesio at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

Officials studying civilian use of Robins Air Force Base

WARNER ROBINS (Tribune News Service) — Houston County officials have launched an effort that could put civilian businesses inside Robins Air Force Base and potentially make the runway serve both military and civilian customers.

It’s far too early to tell if the effort will pan out, but U.S. Air Force officials are interested in learning more, said Charles Stenner, a retired lieutenant general who is CEO of the 21st Century Partnership. Agreements for such partnerships take about two years to complete.

“We think we’ve got a start (on getting) a handle on all the things that will be required, and now we’ve got to get on down the road,” Stenner told The Telegraph on Wednesday.

The 21st Century Partnership hired Jack Metz about a month ago as a project manager to work on the issues, which the military refers to as civilian-civilian or civilian-military partnerships. Such partnerships are commonly referred to as P4.

Angie Gheesling, executive director of the Houston County Development Authority, briefly spoke about the efforts in an authority meeting Wednesday. She later told reporters that similar agreements exist at some other bases, and at Robins Air Force Base such partnerships could help the base weather another round of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, or BRAC, process.

“We’re always looking for ways to enhance the mission of the base,” Gheesling said.

The Warner Robins government has long been talking about what it’s been calling the Georgia-Robins Aerospace Maintenance Partnership, planned for a tract of land just outside Robins’ fence. Warner Robins Redevelopment Agency Executive Director Gary Lee said Monday that the G-RAMP name is no longer valid but no new name has been picked. The agency has discussed creating a civilian freight hub at the site, which ultimately could have about 91 buildable acres, in a civilian-military partnership that could divert cargo aircraft from Atlanta’s busy airport.

Stenner said such partnerships can turn underused base land into money, and can also create synergies through related civilian industries, such as aircraft maintenance and overhaul.

Stenner said he’s talked with base officials who are receptive, responding with an attitude of “That’s interesting. Let’s keep moving forward.”

But with probably two years to go before any agreements could be finalized, Stenner said that “nobody can commit to anything until they know what they’re committing to.”

———

©2015 The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Ga.)

Visit The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Ga.) at www.macon.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC