Obama says he has the authority he needs for strikes

President Obama told congressional leaders Tuesday that he "has the authority he needs" to take action against the jihadist group known as the Islamic State, the White House said.

Obama, who addresses the nation Wednesday night, outlined a plan that includes continued U.S. air strikes, counter-terrorism actions, aid from other nations, and military training and assistance to moderates in Iraq and Syria, according to aides and a White House statement issued after the meeting.

Congressional leaders "expressed their support for efforts to degrade and ultimately destroy" the Islamic State, the White House said.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, one of four congressional leaders who met with Obama, expressed support for some of the president's options, "such as increasing the effectiveness of the Iraqi Security Forces and training and equipping the Syrian opposition,'' said an aide to the speaker.

Boehner also said "he would support the President if he chose to deploy the military to help train and play an advisory role for the Iraqi Security Forces and assist with lethal targeting" of the Islamic State leadership, said the aide who spoke on condition of anonymity because it was a private meeting.

The president will use the 9 p.m. speech to discuss "the progress that we have made thus far" against insurgents, including ongoing airstrikes in Iraq and formation of a national government in Baghdad, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Obama will focus on the "next phase," Earnest said, including help to the Iraq military and to moderate forces in Syria so they can "take the fight" to Islamic State insurgents. Obama, he said, will discuss assistance from other countries in the battle against the Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS.

Last week in Wales, Obama said a group of nine countries joined to fight the Islamic State.

Obama may raise the long-term potential for airstrikes in Syria, though there is no sign that any such action is imminent. Military surveillance flights have started over Syria, where Earnest said the Islamic State has a "virtual safe haven."

The administration does not plan to send American troops there or to act without support from allies, Earnest said.

Obama told NBC's Meet the Press over the weekend that he will not send ground troops into combat, and this strategy will not be the equivalent of the Iraq War launched in 2003.

This plan "is similar to the kinds of counter-terrorism campaigns that we've been engaging in consistently over the last five, six, seven years," Obama said.

He said, "The next phase is now to start going on some offense."

Leaders who met with Obama Tuesday included Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

"The President told the Leaders that he would welcome action by the Congress that would aid the overall effort and demonstrate to the world that the United States is united in defeating the threat from ISIL," the White House said.

Obama administration officials will brief all members of the House and Senate on Thursday, a day after the president's speech. The president and his aides have not said whether he will seek congressional authorization or extra money to pay for the next moves against the Islamic State.

The president is likely to praise the creation of a government in Iraq, which was announced Monday. Obama has called for a stable government as a precondition for increased U.S. military activity.

The Islamic State has captured large sections of Syria and Iraq. Obama and other Western officials say it plans to use its "caliphate" to launch attacks on U.S. and European interests.

The group has made threats against the West and murdered two U.S. journalists.

The speech is in the drafting phase, Earnest said Tuesday afternoon, and "it's likely to change between now and tomorrow night."

Obama said he wants the American people "to understand the nature of the threat and how we're going to deal with it and to have confidence that we'll be able to deal with it."

Wednesday night is the eve of the 13th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

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Fort Bliss tightens security

FORT BLISS, Texas — The Army is ramping up security at Fort Bliss, its sprawling West Texas post near the U.S.-Mexico border.

The tighter security will include random vehicle checks and limiting access to Defense Department personnel at some gates.

Fort Bliss Commanding Officer Maj. Gen. Stephen Twitty said Tuesday that the measures are being taken after a military assessment found the base was not fully in compliance with Department of Defense directives.

"In layman's terms, in a good old infantryman's terms ... we are improving our foxhole. Are you tracking me? When you go into an area you assess where you are. I made my assessment and now I'm improving my position," he said.

Twitty said that being out of compliance means that if something happened at Fort Bliss, the Army would not be able to control anyone going in and out of the installation.

The move comes a week after the leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees warned that the United States is being eyed as a target by militants of the group that calls itself the Islamic State. The new security measures also come ahead of the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in Washington and New York.

However, Twitty said the timing was a coincidence.

In a statement last week, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said there is no credible or specific threat to the homeland by that extremist group.

Twitty said he's talked to local and federal law enforcement agencies and has not received information about a threat to the installation.

"I do not know of any threat against Fort Bliss and I do not know of any threat against El Paso, and so because I'm doing things differently don't perceive there is a threat against Fort Bliss," Twitty said.

Twitty acknowledged the timing of the announcement about ramping up security on post was not the best.

"If there was a threat to Fort Bliss I would move toward all means possible. But I just don't see a threat and we have various agencies that we can tap into," Twitty said.

Early next year, he said, the installation will perform a drill involving all local and military law enforcement agencies and hospitals.

The post is working to improve security conditions after a sudden growth of residential and work facilities over the past few years that left increasing security measures for later.

He said the base needs extra road lanes to provide dedicated access to civilians and military personnel at some of the post's 17 gates and adequate space for random vehicle inspections.

Obama expected to seek arms, training for Syrian opposition forces

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will ask Congress to quickly authorize the arming and training of Syrian opposition forces but will press forward without a formal sign-off from lawmakers on a broader military and political effort to combat Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, administration officials said Tuesday.

Obama was to outline his plans Wednesday in a rare prime-time address to the nation, a format that underscores the seriousness of the threat posed by the Islamic State militants. The president's broader strategy could include more wide-ranging airstrikes against targets in Iraq and possibly in Syria, and hinges on military and political commitments from allies in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere.

Ahead of his address, the president huddled with congressional leaders at the White House. After the hour-long discussion, the White House said Obama told lawmakers that he "has the authority he needs to take action" against the Islamic State militants but would still welcome action from Congress that would "aid the overall effort and demonstrate to the world that the United States is united in defeating the threat."

Even before Obama's meeting with Senate and House leaders Tuesday, some lawmakers suggested a congressional vote on the president's plans was unlikely before the national elections in November when control of Congress will be at stake.

"As a practical matter, I don't really see the time that it would take to really get this out and have a full debate and discuss all the issues," said Republican Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

For Obama, a sustained U.S. intervention in the Middle East is at odds with the vision he had for the region when he ran for president on a pledge to end the war in Iraq, where the role of American fighting forces drew to a close almost three years ago. The timing of his announcement Wednesday night was all the more striking, with Obama's address to the nation scheduled just hours before anniversary commemorations of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Among the president's most urgent priorities will be seeking authorization from Congress to arm more moderate elements of the opposition fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad. The president asked lawmakers earlier this year for a $500 million train-and-equip program, but the plan stalled on Capitol Hill.

With Obama ruling out sending U.S. ground troops into combat in Iraq or Syria, bolstering the capacity of the Iraqi security forces and Syrian opposition will be crucial to efforts to root out the militant group that has moved freely across the blurred border between the two countries. U.S. airstrikes could help give the forces in both countries the space to make gains against the Islamic State fighters.

Administration officials said Obama sees a congressional authorization for a Syrian train-and-equip message as sending a strong signal to allies who are considering similar efforts. Secretary of State John Kerry was traveling to the region for discussions in Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

On Capitol Hill, there was little consensus on the scope of Obama's authority. While some lawmakers said the president has the authority he needs under the Constitution, others were seeking a more central congressional role in the effort.

"I think it is to his advantage and the country's advantage to have Congress buy into that," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said before joining other Republican and Democratic leaders in the Oval Office Tuesday afternoon for a meeting with Obama.

None of the leaders spoke to reporters as they left the White House.

However, an aide to House Speaker John Boehner said the Ohio Republican expressed support for efforts to increase the effectiveness of the Iraqi security forces and for equipping the Syrian opposition. Boehner also said he would support the deployment of U.S. military personnel to Iraq in a training and advisory role and to "assist with lethal targeting" of Islamic State leadership, according to the aide, who spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

The U.S. is already launching airstrikes against Islamic State targets inside Iraq, a mission undertaken at the invitation of the Iraqi government and without formal authorization from Congress. But the scope of the mission has been relatively limited to strikes that help protect American interests in the region and prevent humanitarian crises.

U.S. officials said Obama is expected to loosen those limitations and open a broader counterterrorism campaign against the militants in Iraq. And following the group's shocking beheading of two American journalists in Syria, Obama began more seriously considering extending strikes into Syria.

People who have spoken with Obama in recent days said it appeared likely he would take that step. At a private dinner Monday night with foreign policy experts, Obama emphasized the importance of viewing the Islamic State as one organization, not two groups separated by a border.

Administration officials and others familiar with Obama's thinking spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to be named.

Obama's spokesman has said the president is willing "to go wherever is necessary to strike those who are threatening Americans." However, Obama has continued to rule out sending U.S. troops into ground combat operations in the Middle East.

In a shift for a war-weary nation, new polls suggest the American people would support a sustained air campaign. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released Monday showed 71 percent of Americans support airstrikes in Iraq, up from 54 percent just three weeks ago. And 65 percent say they support extending airstrikes into Syria.

Taking that latter step would raise legal and geopolitical issues that Obama has long sought to avoid, particularly without formal congressional authorization.

Unlike in Iraq, Obama would not be acting at the invitation of a host government in Syria. However, some international law experts say airstrikes could be justified as a matter of self-defense if Obama argues the Islamic State group poses a threat to the U.S. and its allies from inside Syria, whose government is unwilling or unable to stop it.

Another possibility: Although the U.S. has said it will not coordinate with Syrian President Bashar Assad, his government could give back-channel consent to American strikes. The U.S. has a similar arrangement with the Pakistani military for U.S. drone strikes there, even though Pakistani officials publicly condemn the American actions.

Obama would still have to contend with the notion that American strikes against the Islamic State militants were actually helping Assad, who has overseen Syria's bloody civil war. The U.S. has long called for Assad to leave power, and the Islamic State is one of the groups inside Syria that is seeking to oust him.

Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Bradley Klapper, David Espo, Alan Fram and Robert Burns contributed to this report.

Despite denials, US, Iran again discuss Islamic State

32 minutes ago

An aircraft handler directs the pilot of an F/A-18 Hornet to the catapult of the USS George H.W. Bush, underway in the Persian Gulf, Aug. 11, 2014. The carrier has been the key launching pad for strikes against Islamic State fighters in Iraq.
Hendrick Simoes/Stars and Stripes

By Paul Richter

Tribune Washington Bureau (MCT)

Published: September 9, 2014

WASHINGTON — Despite their repeated insistence that they are not cooperating in Iraq, U.S. and Iranian officials again discussed the militant group Islamic State during a high-level meeting last week, the State Department disclosed Tuesday.

Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, said Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns discussed the issue with Iranian officials “briefly, on the margins” of a meeting that was held last Thursday and Friday in Geneva to discuss the international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

Burns and Iranian officials also touched on the issue during a meeting last June in Vienna on the nuclear negotiations.

“Discussion of these kinds of threats does arise from time to time on the margins of these meetings, and it did in this latest round as well,” Harf said.

U.S. and Iranian officials continue to insist that they are not working together in Iraq, even though each is trying to halt the advance of the al-Qaida spinoff group in northwestern Iraq.

Both the United States and Iran are advising and equipping Kurdish forces in the region, and U.S. warplanes have struck more than 150 Islamic State targets since Aug. 8.

Cooperation is a highly sensitive subject because most of the important players in the region — the Iraqis, the Sunni Arab states and Israel — fear a U.S.-Iranian collaboration that would work to their disadvantage.

U.S. and Iranian military personnel working with Kurdish forces in northern Iraq have been separated by only a few kilometers.

U.S. officials won’t discuss publicly what they have said to the Iranians about Islamic State. But analysts and diplomats say they think U.S. officials are laying out their general plans and goals in Iraq, in part to avoid any unintended but dangerous clash between the longtime adversary governments.

Harf said the Geneva meeting was “an in-depth exchange” on the two countries’ stalled effort to reach a deal over Iran’s disputed nuclear program. The United States and five other world powers are trying to reach a deal that would ease sanctions on Iran’s economy, in exchange for concessions aimed at preventing Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon.

©2014 Tribune Co. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Results unclear for new sex assault safeguards at Air Force facilities

The U.S. Air Force has implemented most of the steps recommended two years ago to reduce sexual assault of recruits during basic training, but the service has not evaluated the effectiveness of those actions, according to a report released Tuesday.

All but seven of the 46 recommendations of a 2012 Air Force Commander’s report have been fully implemented, the Government Accountability Office, a Congressional research agency, found.

Their effectiveness at this point remains unknown, however.

“Without fully establishing an oversight framework for evaluating the effectiveness of its actions to prevent sexual assault during basic training, the Air Force will not know whether to sustain the efforts it has implemented or undertake different actions,” the report concluded.

The reforms were intended to better prevent, investigate and respond to incidents of sexual assault in basic-training settings.

Since 2011, 34 instructors from the basic training program at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas have been investigated for alleged sexual assault or sexual misconduct with new recruits, the report said. One of those training instructors, Luis Walker, died this month from an apparent suicide at Fort Leavenworth, where he was serving 20 years for 28 counts of rape, sexual assault and improper contact with recruits.

The problem of sexual assault, however, has cut across all services, with new recruits particularly vulnerable.

Based on a 2012 survey of active-duty servicemembers across all services, the Department of Defense estimated that about 6 percent of women had experienced “unwanted sexual contact.” Six percent of those incidents occurred during basic training and another 19 percent happened during early career training.

Of the 1.2 percent of men reporting unwanted sexual contact, 13 percent of them said it had happened during basic training.

Among the recommendations only partially implemented by the Air Force were improving surveillance and entry-control procedures; increasing the number of training instructors; shortening instructors’ tour length; and ensuring that trainees understand that there would be no negative consequences for reporting unwanted sexual contact or behavior.

The Air Force told the GAO that a $2 million upgrade of surveillance equipment was operational in three facilities and that the system would be expanded to other basic training facilities in 2015.

Although the Air Force had not established performance goals and measures to evaluate the effectiveness of changes, officials maintained that the service had achieved its desired results because there had not been a report of sexual assault against a recruit by an instructor since 2012, the GAO said.

“However, the two Air Force command-directed investigations that focused on basic training revealed that the series of sexual assaults and other incidents of misconduct that were uncovered were not initially reported by trainees to authorities, and were only uncovered by subsequent investigations by Air Force Office of Special Investigations and Security Forces Office of Investigations,” the report said.

olson.wyatt@stripes.com

Twitter: @WyattWOlson

Blast kills most leaders of largest Islamist rebel group in Syria

ISTANBUL — An explosion of uncertain origin Tuesday killed almost all the leaders of the largest rebel group fighting to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

At least two dozen senior leaders of Ahrar al-Sham, a conservative Islamist group, died in the blast, which came 10 days after the group had distanced itself from al-Qaida’s official Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front. The death toll, by some accounts, was as high as 75.

Activists and witnesses gave varying versions of what took place at a former government agricultural research center outside the town of Ram Hamdan near the Turkish border that had become a major Ahrar al-Sham base. One account attributed the blast to a car bomb.

But a senior member of Ahrar al-Sham who tweets under the pseudonym Mujahid al-Sham posted on Twitter that the explosion had originated in a workshop for manufacturing bombs that was adjacent to the room where the Ahrar al-Sham leaders were meeting. He said the explosion detonated huge amounts of TNT.

Among the dead was the group’s top leader, Hassan Abboud, and its military leader, Abdulnaser al-Yassin, al-Sham tweeted. Only one survivor was reported, Allam Abboud, Hassan Abboud’s younger brother. He was reportedly hospitalized in critical condition.

Al-Sham said in his Twitter account that the devastated meeting room had no windows and had quickly filled with acrid black smoke from the blast. He said it took 10 minutes for rescuers to reach the blast site and that by that time, most of the leaders and their bodyguards had suffocated.

Zaki al-Idilbi, a reporter for the opposition Orient TV, told McClatchy that doctors who’d examined the dead told him that most had died from smoke inhalation and that injuries from the explosion itself were few.

Al-Idilbi said that most of the bodies had already been buried hours after the explosion, though a few were still waiting to be claimed by relatives.

Al-Idilbi said the meeting of so many key leaders apparently had been called to consider whether Ahrar al-Sham should join a new rebel coalition, the Council for Leading the Revolution, that would unite moderate rebels, including those receiving U.S. aid. The decision to join the coalition, whose formation was announced hours after the explosion, would have been a major change for the group, whose ties to the Nusra Front were so close that some U.S. intelligence officials have advocated that Ahrar al-Sham be classified as an international terrorist organization.

Most of the dead were members of Ahrar al-Sham's moderate wing, al-Idilbi said.

The explosion was likely to prove fatal to the organization, which was once thought to have had as many as 35,000 fighters. Those fighters now are likely to drift to one of the other groups fighting in Syria — the Free Syrian Army, Nusra or the Islamic State, the extremist group that has declared an Islamic caliphate in Syria and Iraq.

McClatchy contacted one of the group’s surviving leaders and asked whether there was an official statement on what took place.

“No one is left to issue an official statement,” he said, asking that he not be identified by name for security reasons. “We are waiting for our brothers who are still alive to regroup so we can hold a meeting.”

©2014 McClatchy Washington Bureau. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Federal agency to end contracts of background-check contractor USIS

WASHINGTON — The federal Office of Personnel Management plans to terminate its massive contracts with USIS, the major security clearance contractor that was targeted last month by a cyberattack, several officials said Tuesday. The computer network intrusion compromised the personal files of as many as 25,000 government workers.

An OPM official said Tuesday that agency officials decided not to renew USIS' background investigations and support contracts "following a careful and comprehensive review." The OPM oversees background investigation contracting for most federal agencies, but the official said that the move would not immediately preclude some other agencies from still working with the firm.

The early August cyberattack against USIS' computer network compromised the files of 25,000 Homeland Security Department workers and is under investigation by the FBI. The OPM official spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter remains a criminal investigation. USIS has said it was targeted by what it described as a "state-sponsored attack."

Marnee Banks, spokeswoman for Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said OPM officials notified Tester's office earlier in the day that the agency had decided to sever its relationship with USIS by the end of September. Tester also confirmed the move, saying: "This news is a welcome sign that the federal government is finally beginning to hold contractors accountable for taking millions in federal money and then failing to get the job done for the taxpayer."

USIS also acknowledged the OPM move late Tuesday, saying it was notified by the agency that OPM "is declining to exercise its remaining options on USIS' background investigation fieldwork and background investigation support services" expiring on Sept. 30.

"We are deeply disappointed with OPM's decision, particularly given the excellent work our 3,000 employees have delivered on these contracts," the firm said through a spokeswoman, Ellen Davis. "While we disagree with the decision and are reviewing it we intend to fulfill our obligations to ensure an orderly transition."

The agency temporarily halted all of USIS' fieldwork last month after the cyberattack in early August from an unidentified foreign nation that exposed thousands of personal and financial records belonging to DHS workers. DHS officials also issued "stop-work orders halting the provision of additional sensitive information" to USIS in August. That order was to remain in place until the agency regained confidence that the contractor could protect its sensitive material, DHS officials said.

The OPM move to sever its relationship with USIS was a stunning development for a company that itself started out as a branch of OPM and then went private as the federal government relied increasingly on contractors to assess the backgrounds of its growing cadre national security officials.

At its height, the Virginia-based USIS performed background investigations on almost half of 5 million government workers who require national security clearances. The firm also provides office and logistics support for numerous federal agencies.

The firm has been repeatedly on the defensive in recent months. The Justice Department filed a civil complaint in January against USIS alleging that the firm defrauded the government by submitting at least 665,000 security clearance investigations that had not been properly completed and then tried to cover up its actions. USIS replied in a statement at the time that the allegations dealt with a small group of employees and that the company had appointed a new leadership team and enhanced oversight and was cooperating with the Justice probe.

The firm has also been criticized in Congress for its handling of the background investigations into NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden and Aaron Alexis, the military contract employee who killed 12 people during a mass shooting spree at the Washington Navy Yard in September 2013.

The company responded earlier this week on its website that its investigations of Snowden and Alexis were conducted properly and tied the company's previous problems to company officers no longer with the firm. USIS also emphasized that it had "self-reported" the cyber strike to federal officials and hired a forensics computer firm to investigate the attack.

USIS also claimed that other contractors were taking advantage of its recent problems to take over its government work. FCi Federal, which had previously performed security checks for the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, filed a protest against the immigration agency's decision earlier this year to switch to USIS.

Tester noted in his statement that "as OPM shifts this workload to federal employees and other contractors, the agency must ensure high-quality and timely investigations."