In a blow to al-Qaida fight, CIA pulls back in Yemen

WASHINGTON — The closure of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen has forced the CIA to significantly scale back its counterterrorism presence in the country, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said the evacuation represents a major setback in operations against al-Qaida's most dangerous affiliate.

The spy agency has pulled dozens of operatives, analysts and other staffers from Yemen as part of a broader extraction of roughly 200 Americans who had been based at the embassy in Sanaa, officials said. Among those removed were senior officers who worked closely with Yemen's intelligence and security services to target al-Qaida operatives and disrupt terrorism plots often aimed at the United States.

The departures were triggered by mounting concerns over security in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, where Houthi rebels have effectively toppled the government. Britain and France said Wednesday that they also would close their embassies, as news footage showed Houthi fighters driving off in vehicles that U.S. diplomats had abandoned at an airport during their exodus.

The collapse of Yemen's government had already disrupted some U.S. counterterrorism operations in Yemen. The closure of the U.S. mission compounds the challenges and "is extremely damaging" to the CIA's mission in Yemen, said a former senior U.S. official involved in the effort. That person said that the embassy had served as the primary base in Yemen for U.S. intelligence operations and that "the political turmoil in Sanaa and the closure of the embassy all play into the hands" of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, as the Yemeni franchise is known.

U.S. officials emphasized that not all CIA personnel were withdrawn from Yemen, saying that the agency would try to salvage an intelligence network that it had assembled in cooperation with Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other allies over the past five years.

But officials acknowledged that key intelligence arrangements and relationships have been at least temporarily severed. The embassy's closure, for example, involved the departure of key CIA and U.S. military personnel who in recent years have worked alongside Yemeni and Saudi counterparts at a counterterrorism center in Sanaa.

The CIA declined to comment. Senior U.S. lawmakers warned of significant damage to counterterrorism efforts.

"The coup in Yemen and the deteriorating security situation in Sanaa are particularly concerning because they will hinder the United States' campaign against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula," Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday in a written statement. "AQAP is a direct threat to the U.S. homeland that we must continue to hunt down with unrelenting persistence."

The al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen has been linked to a series of bombing plots targeting the United States, including the failed attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day in 2009. More recently, the group claimed responsibility for last month's terrorist attacks in Paris — although whether it was directly involved in the coordination of those assaults remains unclear.

The CIA has deployed teams of operatives and analysts to Yemen, and built an air base in Saudi Arabia for a fleet of armed drones that have carried out dozens of strikes against AQAP targets.

But that campaign has depended heavily on intelligence from informant networks and other sources developed in collaboration with Yemen's government. The CIA worked particularly closely with Yemen's primary intelligence services, the National Security Bureau and the Political Security Organization.

The CIA may still be in contact with officials at those agencies, many of whom have continued to report to work despite the chaos in the capital. And three CIA drone strikes in recent days showed that the agency's aircraft are still tracking AQAP, even if they are no longer doing so with the permission of Yemen's government.

But the embassy closure has made close coordination with Yemen's intelligence service all but impossible, prompting worries among U.S. officials that the intelligence streams that have sustained the drone campaign could soon evaporate.

"The issue would be whether you have the intelligence you need to know what to target," a senior U.S. official said in an interview before the embassy was closed. "To a large extent, that was a product of the cooperation we got from the Yemenis."

Pentagon officials have said that U.S. Special Operations teams are still in Yemen and continuing to work with that country's counterterrorism units outside the capital. But U.S. officials acknowledged that those operations also have been impaired by the political turmoil and said that any deterioration in intelligence would also affect a parallel drone program in Yemen operated by the U.S. military's Joint Special Operations Command.

As recently as September, President Barack Obama described the Yemen arrangements as a model for his administration's approach to counterterrorism. But the relationship unraveled in recent weeks as Houthi fighters backed by Iran toppled Yemen's government, dissolved its parliament and put the former president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, a staunch U.S. ally, under house arrest.

Members of a Shiite sect in Yemen's northernmost provinces, the Houthis are openly hostile to both al-Qaida and the United States, although senior members of the group signaled in interviews this week a willingness to consider limited counterterrorism cooperation.

Abdulmalek al-Ajri, a member of the Houthis' political bureau, described U.S. drone strikes as a violation of Yemeni sovereignty but said the group has not ordered the nation's intelligence services to halt counterterrorism coordination with the United States or demanded that the drone flights stop. Instead, he said those decisions would be left to revolutionary committees that the Houthis have formed in recent days to assume control of the government.

"If the Americans were to change their strategy and show respect for Yemen's sovereignty, we would not oppose the drones," Ajri said, although it was not clear how the United States might meet that standard.

Another Houthi political leader, Deif Allah al-Shami, expressed a similar view, saying that the group is "moving towards fighting al-Qaida, and if there is anything that can help Yemen while preserving its sovereignty and integrity, then we will take it into consideration."

In cities outside the capital, tens of thousands of Yemenis took part in demonstrations against the Houthis, who are part of the country's Shiite minority. At the same time, Houthi supporters rallied in neighborhoods in Sanaa, some waving placards bearing the slogan: "Death to America, death to Israel, damnation to the Jews."

The State Department said that diplomats and other U.S. Embassy staffers left Yemen on private jets provided by Oman, flying to the Omani capital, Muscat, before traveling Wednesday to Washington. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that operations at the embassy were "suspended" rather than terminated and that the mission would be reopened when the security situation permitted.

Psaki described the Houthi seizure of U.S. vehicles left at the airport as "unacceptable" and said that "we are requesting their return." Houthi officials confirmed that the group had taken as many as 20 vehicles left by departing U.S. diplomats, including the ambassador, but indicated that they would be returned to remaining Yemeni staff at the U.S. Embassy on Wednesday evening, with a U.N. official observing the handover.

News footage from Sanaa also showed abandoned weapons at the U.S. diplomatic compound. A U.S. military spokesman said that all weapons left at the embassy or airport had been destroyed or rendered inoperable.

----

Naylor reported from Sanaa. Washington Post staff writers Karen DeYoung and Missy Ryan in Washington contributed to this report.

US faces quandary: Will sending arms to Ukraine help or do harm?

(Tribune Content Agency) — President Obama says he is weighing the growing calls for U.S. military aid to badly outgunned Ukraine in its nearly yearlong struggle against separatists armed and instigated by Russia.

But whether sending antitank artillery, sophisticated radar systems and other arms and equipment to the beleaguered government forces would do more harm than good is a question still fiercely debated.

Even the most ardent advocates of sending weapons to Kiev say they have no illusions that more firepower will be enough to roll back separatists’ territorial conquests in the east of the country.

Many share the view of those opposed to arming Ukraine that such a move is likely to antagonize Russian President Vladimir Putin and prompt him to escalate what he sees as a war against American incursion into the Kremlin’s sphere of influence. More weapons will mean more death and destruction, warn critics, who include key European allies.

But Ukraine has the moral and legal right to defend itself, foreign policy analysts say. And Washington is supposed to be a guarantor of the nation’s security, they add, under a 1994 agreement in which Kiev surrendered its nuclear arsenal in exchange for promises from the United States, Britain and Russia to respect its sovereignty.

Fighting intensified on the eve of another diplomatic quest for a cease-fire, this time bringing the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France to Minsk, Belarus, on Wednesday. At least 15 people were killed, most of them civilians, in a missile attack in the eastern Ukrainian town of Kramatorsk on Tuesday. The separatists and the Ukrainian government blamed each other for the latest bloodletting.

Obama has said he will consider arming Kiev if the diplomacy fails. But he clearly remains skeptical that sending U.S. arms would bring the two sides closer to a negotiated peace. At a Monday news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Obama observed that weapons could fall into the wrong hands or lead to “over-aggressive actions that can’t be sustained by the Ukrainians.”

Merkel has said repeatedly that arming Ukraine risks provoking Putin and escalating a conflict that has already taken more than 5,300 lives.

Some foreign policy experts have increasingly called for stronger action by the U.S. administration to counter Russian aggression. Among the voices urging military aid for Ukraine is Defense Secretary-designate Ashton Carter, who said at his Senate confirmation hearing last week that he was “very much inclined” to deliver the assistance Kiev has requested.

Supplying U.S. arms to Ukraine carries a “very high” risk of escalating the conflict, but the price of inaction may also be steep, leading Putin to believe he can violate international borders with impunity, said Kori Schake, a Hoover Institution fellow and National Security Council member in the George W. Bush administration.

“It’s a delicate pedal and clutch operation,” she said of the correct U.S. stance in the conflict.

She said she favors sending arms, as Ukrainians have the right to defend themselves and Russia should be made to pay for the damage it has inflicted.

“But I’m not sure I’m in favor of arming them if it costs us German leadership on the issue,” she said, alluding to Merkel’s objections.

Putin has used the conflict in Ukraine to cast the United States as an enemy and to rally Russians to the cause of defeating the alleged threat to their security, said Michael McFaul, who was U.S. ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration’s “reset” of relations with Russia.

The last straw for Putin was the ouster of his ally Viktor Yanukovich from the Ukrainian presidency a year ago by pro-European demonstrators who wanted to reorient Ukraine’s economic and political alliances from Russia to Western Europe. Putin’s pet project to create the Eurasian Economic Union to rival the European Union depended on keeping Ukraine in the post-Soviet bloc, McFaul said.

Now a political science professor at Stanford University, McFaul supports sending arms to Kiev but doubts that will lead to resolution of the conflict.

He sees little chance of the Ukrainian army recovering the territory it has lost and expects a violent reaction from Putin.

“But at some point we should let the Ukrainians have a say in their own security,” McFaul said. “They are the ones who are going to bear the brunt of this escalation.”

Other Russia experts worry that arming Ukraine will validate Putin’s view that Washington wants to depose him.

“Russia thinks there is a real security risk coming from the change of power in Kiev, and the more Kiev looks like it is going to be a military client of the United States, the more Russia feels that risk and the more it is willing to put on the line to counter it,” said Keith Darden, a professor of international relations and Eurasia expert at American University.

Darden sees the fighting in eastern Ukraine as a war of attrition that Russia, with its $350 billion in currency reserves, will surely be able to survive longer than Ukraine, which is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy with massive debt and $5.4 billion on hand.

The government could face renewed unrest if it runs out of money to fund the army or pay salaries, and it has failed to undertake the reforms it promised in exchange for financial aid, Darden said.

“They’re saying, ‘You really don’t want us to collapse,’ and we’re saying, ‘We really want you to reform,’ ” the professor said. “They are playing a dangerous game of chicken with us.”

The arms Russia has provided the separatists so far are heavy armor and advanced electronics, but the Kremlin has vastly superior air power it could bring to the fight, Darden said.

“That would be a huge escalation and it would be devastating for the Ukrainian military,” he said.

©2015 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Lawyer: 'American Sniper' Chris Kyle said vet was 'straight-up nuts'

STEPHENVILLE, Texas — Shortly before he was shot to death by a troubled former Marine at a Texas gun range, legendary Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle texted a buddy, "This dude is straight-up nuts," a defense attorney told jurors Wednesday.

A lawyer for Eddie Ray Routh said in opening statements of the man's murder trial that Routh's insanity was so evident that Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield exchanged texts expressing alarm as the three rode together in February 2013 to a Texas shooting range.

"He's (sitting) right behind me, watch my six," Littlefield texted back, using a military reference for watching one's back.

But a prosecutor said Routh still knew right from wrong, even with a history of mental illness.

The first day of the highly anticipated trial also included sometimes tearful testimony from Kyle's widow, who spoke about her husband's passion for helping veterans, gun safety and opposition to mixing alcohol with gun use.

The case has drawn intense interest, largely because of Kyle's memoir about being a sniper who served four tours in Iraq. The Oscar-nominated film based on the book has grossed nearly $300 million.

Erath County District Attorney Alan Nash described the 27-year-old Routh as "a troubled young man" who on the morning of the killings numbed himself with marijuana and whiskey. He said a history of mental illness should not absolve Routh of being accountable for the deaths.

"The evidence will show that mental illnesses, even the ones that this defendant may or may not have, don't deprive people from being good citizens, to know right from wrong," Nash said.

Tim Moore, an attorney for Routh, said Kyle and Littlefield's text exchange shows how Routh was spiraling out of control. He told jurors that Routh was suffering from severe mental strain that day and thought he needed to kill the two or they would turn on him.

"He thought he had to take their lives or he was in danger," Moore said.

Kyle's widow, Taya Kyle, choked up and occasionally wiped away tears during her testimony. She said her husband had been approached by Routh's mother to help her son and that he chose to take Routh to Rough Creek partly because the hour-and-a-half drive could give him time to talk things out.

She said that as her husband left to the range, "we just said we loved each other and gave each other a hug and kiss."

She later called him around the time he arrived at Rough Creek and noticed her husband was unusually terse in their conversation. "It was short, like, `I wish I could say more,'" she said.

The widow testified that Littlefield and her husband were close, and enjoyed spending time with veterans as a way to help them ease back into civilian life. She detailed her husband's own struggles after leaving the battlefield, saying he had post-traumatic stress disorder, was irritable and slowed by physical ailments.

The defense asked whether her husband could recognize when someone had been drinking before firing weapons, suggesting that Chris Kyle and Littlefield should have known as they rode with Routh that he was intoxicated.

Taya Kyle said her husband didn't condone drinking while using weapons, and testified that he was upset when he once attended an event where people who had consumed alcohol were firing weapons.

The intense attention on the case has brought renewed focus to the mental struggles former military members face.

Routh was a small arms technician who served in Iraq and was deployed to earthquake-ravaged Haiti before leaving the Marines in 2010. Authorities say that after the February 2013 shooting, Routh drove to his sister's house in Kyle's truck, admitted to the killings and told his sister "people were sucking his soul."

Routh faces life in prison without parole if convicted.

Yemen rebels seize US vehicles as Western embassies close

SANAA, Yemen — The United States, Britain and France said Wednesday they were closing their embassies in Yemen amid the turmoil in the wake of the Shiite rebels’ takeover of the country.

The closures — which come as Yemen marks four years since the start of its own Arab Spring uprising that eventually ousted the country’s longtime autocratic ruler — were an ominous sign for the faltering U.N.-brokered negotiations between the Houthi rebels and their political rivals.

This impoverished Arabian Peninsula country has been in crisis for months, with the Iran-linked Houthis besieging the capital, Sanaa, and then taking control. In January, the rebels put U.S.-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and all his Cabinet ministers under house arrest, leading to their resignations. Subsequently, the Houthis — who are followers of the Shiite Zaydi sect in the Sunni-majority Yemen — dissolved parliament and declared they were taking over the government.

On Tuesday, the State Department announced it suspended operations at the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa and relocated remaining diplomatic personnel “due to the ongoing political instability and the uncertain security situation.” The embassy had been operating with only a skeleton staff for some weeks amid deteriorating conditions.

U.S. defense officials said that all of the U.S. troops who were guarding the Embassy departed Yemen on commercial aircraft with the diplomatic staff. There had been a robust security detail at the Embassy, including members of a new Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force based in Kuwait and Bahrain, according to U.S. defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the evacuation. SPMAGTF-Crisis Response-Central Command was stood up last year to respond to crises in the Middle East. One senior defense official said that an extra contingent of Marines had been at the Embassy in Sanaa for months because of the unrest. The officials would not say exactly how many American troops had been guarding the Embassy.

During the evacuation, U.S. military drones circled overhead to monitor the situation, and AV-8 Harrier fighter jets from the USS Iwo Jima — which had been stationed off the coast of Yemen as the crisis there deepened — were airborne if needed, according to the senior defense official.

No military personnel were left behind to guard the vacated Embassy compound, contrary to what some news outlets have reported, officials said.

Before they departed, the Marines who were guarding the Embassy destroyed or rendered inoperable their heavier crew-served weapons, such as machine guns.

Military vehicles were left behind at the Embassy, but Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren did not know how many or what types.

Troops took their personal weapons with them when they left the compound because “the movement from the Embassy to the airport required armed Marines,” Warren said.

CNN, citing a Yemeni airport official, reporter that Houthi rebels at the airport wouldn’t allow the Marines to leave the country with their weapons.

Warren confirmed that the Marines handed over their sidearms and rifles, but he said he didn’t know to whom.

“It’s unclear, frankly. We believe they turned them over to government officials at the airport prior to boarding the aircraft,” he told reporters.

When asked why U.S. troops surrendered their weapons, Warren said: “They flew out on commercial aircraft, and as everyone knows, weapons are generally not authorized on commercial aircraft.”

The decision to evacuate the Embassy staff and military guards via commercial aircraft instead of military planes was made following consultations between the Pentagon and the State Department, according to the senior defense official. The official said that sometimes commercial air is deemed preferable because it is more “discreet” than bringing in American military aircraft.

Warren was asked about the risks of leaving behind vehicles and weapons that could be used by hostile forces. “Certainly plans have to be made … for all equipment,” he said. But “when evacuating, you can only do so much.”

U.S. officials said the Embassy’s closure would not affect counterterrorism operations against al-Qaida’s Yemen branch — considered by Washington to be the world’s most dangerous offshoot of the global terror group. Yemeni officials, however, say the move was likely to curtail U.S. military operations in the country.

Yemeni officials said Wednesday that embassy staffers destroyed files and documents and disposed of firearms belonging to the embassy guards. They also handed over Sanaa’s Sheraton Hotel, where staffers had resided for several years, to the United Nations.

Also Wednesday, Britain’s Minister for the Middle East Tobias Ellwood urged British citizens still in Yemen to “leave immediately” as his country’s embassy evacuated its staff. The French Embassy said it would close on Friday.

“The security situation in Yemen has continued to deteriorate over recent days,” Ellwood said. “Regrettably, we now judge that our embassy staff and premises are at increased risk.”

Germany urged its citizens to leave Yemen, Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said Wednesday.

The diplomatic missions of many Gulf Arab countries, who have backed Hadi and opposed the Houthis, have already evacuated their staff.

In Sanaa, the Houthis patrolled the streets armed with Kalashnikov rifles and dressed in a mix of police uniforms and civilian clothes. They sealed off main boulevards and drove around in pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns. Shops closed early and people mostly stayed home.

The rebels dispersed several scattered anti-Houthi protests, beating the demonstrators and attacking them with knives as they tried to march toward the U.N. offices, according to witnesses. Several people were arrested, they said. The Yemeni officials and witnesses spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media.

Away from Sanaa, the Houthis pressed on with their power grab after taking control the previous day of the central province of Bayda, a gateway to the south. The Houthis now control 10 out of 22 provinces in Yemen.

Thousands flocked to the streets in the southwestern city of Taiz — Yemen’s third largest and not under Houthi control — to denounce the rebels.

The rise of the Houthis began last year when they descended from their heartland in northern Saada province, fighting their way toward the capital and defeating tribal and military rivals along the way. In September, they flooded into Sanaa, and raided major state institutions and military bases.

With Yemen military in shambles and plagued with tribal rivalries, Houthis won the backing of ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh — himself also a Shiite Zaydi — whose loyalists in the military are suspected of enabling the Houthis’ advances.

To defuse the crisis, the United Nations has been trying to broker a power-sharing deal between the Houthis and other political forces but with little headway.

Critics say the Houthis are only buying time while making more territorial gains and setting their sights on the south, where there is a strong secessionist movement that has been demanding autonomy and a return to an independent state that existed before 1990.

The rebels’ leader, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, warned his enemies Tuesday not to stand in his movement’s way and denounced foreign governments for removing their diplomats.

“Whoever harms the interest of this country could see that their interests in this country are also harmed,” al-Houthi said, speaking on the rebel group’s own Al-Masirah TV network.

The Houthis, traditionally based in northern Yemen along the border with Saudi Arabia, are believed to be backed by Shiite powerhouse Iran, a charge they deny.

Stars and Stripes reporter Jon Harper contributed to this report.

3 rear admirals forced out amid massive Navy bribery investigation

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — The commander of naval forces in Japan and two other admirals are retiring following letters of censure issued by the secretary of the Navy in connection with a wide-ranging bribery scandal in the Asia-Pacific region.

Naval Forces Japan commander Rear Adm. Terry Kraft, along with rear admirals Michael Miller and David Pimpo, were censured by Secretary Ray Mabus to “document their failure of leadership” related to dealings with Glenn Defense Marine Asia between 2006 and 2007, according to a Navy statement.

Navy officials spanning the ranks from enlisted to commanding officers, as well as high-placed civilians, have pleaded guilty since December 2013 to trading classified information in exchange for luxury travel, cash and prostitutes with ship support contractor GDMA and its owner, Leonard Glenn “Fat Leonard” Francis.

Francis, 50, pleaded guilty to bribery charges in San Diego federal court in January.

Prosecutors say that Francis, with help from his naval contacts, bilked the U.S. government out of more than $20 million by guiding ships to preferred ports in the Asia-Pacific region and then overcharging them for various services.

The three admirals do not face any criminal charges at this time, according to the statement. In April, Mabus appointed Adm. John Richardson, who heads the Navy’s nuclear propulsion program, to convene a Consolidated Disposition Authority.

The authority is convened “to ensure that individuals are held appropriately accountable when less than criminal allegations are substantiated,” according to the Navy statement.

During the investigation time frame, Kraft served as commander of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, while Miller served as carrier strike group commander and Kraft’s superior.

Pimpo, who currently heads Naval Supply Systems Command’s weapons support department, was the carrier’s supply officer at the time.

Richardson’s investigation concluded that all three officers violated Navy ethical conduct standards after they improperly accepted gifts from Francis. One of the admirals, who was not named, was also censured for soliciting gifts from GDMA.

Two of the admirals were also cited for improperly endorsing a commercial business.

The admirals’ actions and overly familiar relationship with Francis “cultivated an unacceptable ethical climate within the respective commands,” according to the statement.

Kraft will retire next month, Naval Forces Japan officials said Wednesday. Kraft was not immediately available for comment.

Rear Adm. Matthew J. Carter, who currently heads the Patrol and Reconnaissance Group Pacific at Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan, has been appointed to assume Kraft’s present command.

Rear Adm. Paul J. Verrastro, currently assigned to the Office of Chief of Naval Operations, will replace Pimpo. Miller has been serving as an assistant to the Naval Academy superintendent, and his successor has not yet been named.

Vice Adm. Ted Branch and Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless have remained under investigation for their connections with GDMA for more than year but have not yet been charged.

slavin.erik@stripes.com

Twitter: @eslavin_stripes

Brian Williams suspended from NBC News for 6 months without pay

WASHINGTON — NBC has suspended Nightly News anchor Brian Williams for six months without pay for fabricating stories about his time in Iraq and elsewhere, the network announced late Tuesday.

"We have decided today to suspend Brian Williams as Managing Editor and Anchor of NBC Nightly News for six months," the president of NBC News, Deborah Turness, wrote to the staff. "Lester Holt will continue to substitute Anchor the NBC Nightly News."

RELATED: Text of note from NBC News president to staff on Brian Williams' suspension

The Iraq issue erupted online when Iraq veterans took umbrage at a news report in which Williams used a ceremony honoring a retired command sergeant major at a New York Rangers hockey game to repeat the story that his aircraft was forced down in Iraq.

Days later, Williams admitted the claim was false after Stars and Stripes reporter Travis J. Tritten contacted NBC News to ask for comment to statements by some servicemembers challenging the veteran anchor’s version.

But Williams’ apology, delivered on NBC Nightly News, failed to stem the criticism. He admitted his helicopter was not hit but claimed that he “was instead in a following aircraft” and said he had bungled the tribute to a veteran.

The apology was met with scorn and derision, particularly online, and deeper scrutiny followed.

NBC noted its review of Williams' reporting was ongoing.

"While on Nightly News on [Jan. 30], Brian misrepresented events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War in 2003, Turness wrote in her memo to staff Tuesday. "It then became clear that on other occasions Brian had done the same while telling that story in other venues. This was wrong and completely inappropriate for someone in Brian’s position.

"In addition, we have concerns about comments that occurred outside NBC News while Brian was talking about his experiences in the field."

Days after his on-air apology, several news organizations reported that NBC News had launched an internal investigation into Williams’ reporting.

The next day, it was reported that Williams sent a note to the NBC News staff in which he wrote:

“[It] has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due to my actions.

“As Managing Editor of NBC Nightly News, I have decided to take myself off of my daily broadcast for the next several days, and Lester Holt has kindly agreed to sit in for me to allow us to adequately deal with this issue.”

Soon, his recollections of Hurricane Katrina were called into question. He told anecdotes about his hotel being overrun by armed gangs and described seeing a body floating down the street from his hotel window in the French Quarter of New Orleans, which was not severely flooded.

He also told a story, also now in doubt, of being in an Israeli Black Hawk helicopter and watching Katyusha rockets pass underneath him. On The Daily Show, he concluded the story by telling Jon Stewart, “Any time you want to cross over to the other side, baby, travel with me.”

Williams did not say in his reports from Iraq in 2003 that his Chinook had been hit by ground fire.

But by 2013, he told Alec Baldwin on Baldwin's public radio show that “I had no business being in in Iraq with rounds coming into the airframe.”

When Baldwin asked whether Williams thought he would die, he replied, “Briefly, sure.”

Weeks later, he told David Letterman on air that “two of the four helicopters were hit, by ground fire, including the one I was in” — “No kidding!” Letterman interjects — [by] “uh, RPG and AK-47.”

When the hockey game report hit the air, some soldiers called him on it.

The claims bothered several soldiers aboard the formation of 159th Aviation Regiment Chinooks that were flying far ahead and did come under attack March 24, 2003, Tritten wrote.

One of the helicopters was hit by two rocket-propelled grenades — one did not detonate but passed through the airframe and rotor blades — as well as small-arms fire.

“It was something personal for us that was kind of life-changing for me. I know how lucky I was to survive it,” said Lance Reynolds, who was the flight engineer. “It felt like a personal experience that someone else wanted to participate in and didn’t deserve to participate in.”

Reynolds said Williams and the NBC cameramen arrived in a helicopter 30 to 60 minutes after his damaged Chinook made an emergency landing at an Iraqi airfield near Objective Rams, a temporary base being hastily set up near Najaf in southern Iraq.

Soon after the Stars and Stripes report, a media feeding frenzy began. Tritten appeared on several news shows as cable news followed up. Social media users mocked Williams mercilessly.

Reactions among the soldiers contacted again after the issue exploded were mixed. Some thought the record had been corrected and just wanted to move on. Others said the apology was half-hearted and perhaps forced on a man who never would have come forward otherwise.

dickson.patrick@stripes.com

Twitter: @StripesDCChief

Obama: Time has come for Iran to decide on nuclear deal

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Monday that the time has come for Iran to decide whether to accept a nuclear deal, and he acknowledged "very real differences" with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the negotiations.

In a campaign speech, Netanyahu criticized the international negotiations with Iran and portrayed his scheduled address to the U.S. Congress next month as an attempt to describe Israel's objections.

"A bad deal with Iran is forming in Munich that will endanger Israel's existence," Netanyahu said, referring to talks over the weekend in Germany between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart. "Therefore I am determined to go to Washington and present Israel's position before the members of Congress and the American people."

Obama said the world powers negotiating with Iran are unified in their offer, while acknowledging the forceful opposition from Netanyahu.

"I don't want to be coy — the prime minister and I have a very real difference around Iran's sanctions," Obama said at a White House news conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, another party to the talks.

The president defended his decision not to meet with Netanyahu while he's in town at the invitation of Republican House Speaker John Boehner. Obama cited the precedence for U.S. presidents not to meet with foreign leaders who are facing an upcoming election, to avoid the perception of trying to influence the outcome.

"As much as I love Angela, if she was two weeks away from an election, she probably would not have received an invitation to the White House, and I suspect she wouldn't have asked for one," Obama said to a smile from Merkel, although she did not weigh in with her own perspective.

Democratic lawmakers fear Netanyahu will use the speech to lawmakers to try to embarrass Obama and further his own re-election prospects. The list of House Democrats who have said they will skip the speech grew Monday to six, and liberal Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont became the first senator to announce he won't attend.

"The president of the United States heads up our foreign policy and the idea that the president wasn't even consulted — that is wrong," Sanders said in a statement. "I am not going. I may watch it on TV, but I'm not going."

Israel has long claimed a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a grave threat to world peace and security. Israel views a nuclear-armed Iran a threat to its very existence, noting calls by Iranian leaders for destruction of the Jewish state. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but critics in the West dismiss such explanations.

Obama warned Tehran that he sees no reason to further extend negotiations for a basic agreement next month.

"We're at a point where they need to make a decision," Obama said. He said the only question remaining is, "Does Iran have the political will and desire to get a deal done?"

Iranian officials on Sunday signaled a willingness to come to an agreement. "This is the opportunity to do it, and we need to seize this opportunity," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif told a gathering of the world's top diplomats and defense officials. He said an extension would be in no one's interests.

Obama argued the extended negotiations with Iran have been time "well spent."

"The program has not only been frozen, but with respect to, for example, 20 percent enriched uranium, they've reversed it, and so we're in a better position than we were before the interim program was set up," Obama said.

Boehner's office objected to that assessment. "President Obama tried to clean up his debunked claims on Iran's nuclear program today but he still couldn't help but repeat a false claim. Now more than ever, it's critical that the American people hear the truth about the threat posed by Iran's nuclear program," said Boehner spokesman Cory Fritz.

___

Ian Deitch in Jerusalem and Andrew Taylor in Washington contributed to this report.