By Jeremy Herb
10/24/16 08:30 AM EDT
With Zach Montellaro
OFFENSIVE ON MOSUL MARCHES ON AS CARTER DROPS IN: Defense Secretary Ash Carter flew into Iraq over a weekend to check on a swell of a Iraqi descent to retake Mosul (no warn given his scheduled stops in Turkey and a United Arab Emirates on his weeklong unfamiliar trip). Carter visited Baghdad and Irbil and met with Kurdish personality Masoud Barzani. The Associated Press has some-more here: “Carter visited Irbil on Sunday for a closer comment of a quarrel opposite a Islamic State organisation in northern Iraq and to hear from Kurdish leaders whose army launched a new descent in a operation to wring Mosul from a militants.
Story Continued Below
“The Pentagon arch pronounced Barzani reported some good news about peshmerga gains opposite IS in Bashiqa, about 15 miles northeast of Mosul. Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, a tip U.S. commander in Iraq, told reporters that a information he has collected suggests Barzani was scold and that there has been ‘considerable success’ in a town. … Carter pronounced he wants to see infantry operations to besiege IS fighters in Raqqa, Syria, to start ‘as shortly as possible.’ He pronounced there will be coexisting operations in Mosul and Raqqa, and that a United States would coordinate in Raqqa with a partners. The U.S. has been operative with Syrian insurgent fighters.”
— KURDS CAPTURE ANOTHER TOWN NEAR MOSUL, reports Reuters’ Saif Hameed and Babak Dehghanpisheh: “Kurdish fighters pronounced they had taken a city of Bashiqa nearby Mosul from Islamic State on Sunday as bloc army pulpy their descent opposite a jihadists’ final building in Iraq. Masoud Barzani, President of a Iraqi Kurdish region, told Carter that a Kurds had succeeded in liberating Bashiqa from Islamic State. Kurdish Peshmerga fighters told reporters during a stage that they had entered Bashiqa. Journalists were not being authorised into a town, that lies 8 miles northeast of Mosul.”
— TENSIONS RISING BETWEEN IRAQ, TURKEY, writes The New York Times’ Tim Arango and Michael R. Gordon: “A brawl between Iraq and Turkey has emerged as a thespian geopolitical sideshow to a difficult infantry debate to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, from a Islamic State. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has insisted on a purpose in a conflict for Mosul, perplexing to ramp adult an impasse in Iraq that has already dumbfounded a Iraqi government.”
— ISIL’S NEW TACTIC: SULFUR FIRES, The Washington Post’s Kareem Farhim and Thomas Gibbons-Neff have some-more here: “A glow set by Islamic State militants during a sulfur cave nearby a city of Mosul in new days sent plumes of noxious gases over a battlefield, descent hundreds of civilians and forcing Iraqi and U.S. infantry to wear protecting masks, health and infantry officials pronounced on Saturday. Firefighters were still struggling Saturday to put out a fire during a Mishraq sulfur mine, about 25 miles southeast of Mosul, according to Col. Abdulrahman Al-Khazali, a orator for Iraqi Federal Police who visited a mine.”
— CARTER’S NEXT STOP … PARIS: The invulnerability secretary flies to Paris today, where he’ll accommodate with invulnerability ministers from countries in a bloc fighting a Islamic State and have a press discussion with French Defense Minister Jean Yves Le Drian. Carter wraps adult his outing after this week in Brussels for a NATO ministerial.
KENDALL SAYS COST GROWTH DOWN, PUSHING BACK IN HILL FIGHT OVER ACQUISITION: The Pentagon’s arch weapons customer says cost expansion to weapons programs is during a “30-year low,” citing a new merger news out currently to quarrel behind opposite due Senate merger changes, writes a co-worker Ellen Mitchell: “The Senate Armed Services Committee’s pull to idle a position of a Pentagon’s tip merger central would be a ‘mistake’ that could also risk hard-won improvements in a unwieldy and dear routine for shopping new weapons, according to Frank Kendall, a undersecretary of Defense whose purpose is in a cranky hairs of tip lawmakers this year.
“Kendall, a undersecretary of invulnerability for acquisition, technology, and logistics, says a Pentagon’s element for shopping weapons, vehicles and services is many improved, and a cost expansion on vital programs is ‘at a 30-year low,’ citing a new 2016 Performance of a Defense Acquisition System news he common with reporters on Friday in allege of a recover Monday. ‘The final 6 years of work that we’ve put into this while I’ve been behind during a Pentagon has paid off,’ Kendall told reporters during a media roundtable to plead a annual report, partial of a Better Buying Power initiative. ‘During a final several years we’ve made, what we think, is flattering thespian swell in determining cost growth.’”
The full news is here, for Pros.
HAPPY MONDAY AND WELCOME TO MORNING DEFENSE, where we’re always on a surveillance for tips, pitches and feedback. Email us during jherb@politico.com, and follow on Twitter @jeremyherb, @morningdefense and @politicopro.
MORNING D TRIVIA: Benjamin Braun was a initial to rightly answer that a initial womanlike officers were consecrated in a Navy on Oct. 15, 1948, interjection to a Women’s Armed Services Integration Act upheld several months earlier. Check behind Friday for a subsequent trivia question.
HAPPENING TODAY — CSIS LAUNCHES SPACE PROJECT: The Center for Strategic and International Studies hosts a initial eventuality of a Aerospace Security Project this afternoon. The panel discussion with Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for Space Policy Douglas Loverro and several attention executives will inspect how a infantry can precedence blurb space capabilities and support a space industry.
ALSO TODAY: The National Defense Industrial Association kicks off a four-day Systems Engineering Conference in Springfield, Va. The full report is here. And a Middle East Institute binds a panel discussion this afternoon on a landscape in subsequent boss will face with terrorism and informal turmoil.
INDUSTRY INTEL — DEFENSE LOBBYING STAYS FLAT: Lobbying spending for 20 of a largest invulnerability firms was effectively prosaic in a third quarter, down $230,000 compared to a same 3 months las year. But it’s moulding adult to be a down year on lobbying spending for a industry, as there was no vast emanate — like a Export-Import Bank reauthorization for Boeing final year — pushing a lobbying dollars.
Boeing spent a many on lobbying this past entertain during $3.6 million, a $100,000 boost compared with 2015, according to a newly lobbying filings. Lockheed Martin was second during $3.2 million, a $280,000 dump compared with 2015. General Dynamics was third during $2.6 million, followed by Northrop Grumman during $2.5 million and United Technologies during $2 million.
— ROCKWELL COLLINS TO ACQUIRE B/E AEROSPACE FOR $6.4 BILLION: Rockwell Collins announced Sunday it will acquire B/E Aerospace, that manufactures aircraft cabin interiors. The understanding was struck for $6.4 billion, along with a arrogance of $1.9 billion in debt, during $62 billion per share. Rockwell CEO Kelly Ortberg told Reuters that a merger will enlarge a company’s reach. “B/E is really clever in relations with airlines,” he said. “We’re stronger with aircraft makers as good as business aviation operators and a military. We’ll be means to sell a particular products into a many broader marketplace bottom than possibly of us could do independently.”
WAR REPORT — CEASE-FIRE EXPIRES IN SYRIA AND FIGHTING RESUMES, writes The Washington Post’s Hugh Naylor and Zakaria Zakaria: “A detonate of fighting in a flashpoint Syrian city of Aleppo on Sunday seemed to break a uneven Russian cease-fire, signaling a resumption of a government’s descent to seize rebel-held areas there. Warplanes — possibly operated by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s supervision or by Russia, an fan — targeted a antithesis neighborhoods of eastern Aleppo on Saturday evening, residents and rebels said. And, they said, pro-government fighters resumed shelling and belligerent attacks on insurgent positions overnight Saturday that continued until Sunday afternoon.”
— WHITE HOUSE SKEPTICAL OF PLANS TO SEND MORE WEAPONS TO CIA-BACKED REBELS, reports The Post’s Greg Miller and Adam Entous: “As rebel-held sections of Aleppo crumbled underneath Russian bombing this month, a Obama administration was personally weighing skeleton to rush some-more firepower to CIA-backed units in Syria. The proposal, that concerned weapons that competence assistance those army urge themselves opposite Russian aircraft and artillery, done a approach onto a bulletin of a new assembly President Obama hold with his inhabitant confidence team.
“And that’s as distant as it got. Neither authorized nor rejected, a devise was left in a state of ambiguity that U.S. officials pronounced reflects flourishing administration doubt about sharpening a growth CIA module that has lerned and armed thousands of Syrian fighters over a past 3 years.”
TOP TALKER — THOUSANDS OF CALIFORNIA TROOPS FORCED TO REPAY ENLISTMENT BONUSES, reports a Los Angeles Times’ David S. Cloud: “Short of infantry to quarrel in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade ago, a California National Guard enticed thousands of soldiers with bonuses of $15,000 or some-more to reenlist and go to war. Now a Pentagon is perfectionist a income back. Nearly 10,000 soldiers, many of whom served mixed fight tours, have been systematic to repay vast enlistment bonuses — and slapped with seductiveness charges, salary garnishments and taxation liens if they exclude — after audits suggested widespread overpayments by a California Guard during a tallness of a wars final decade.”
WIKILEAKS EMAILS — FLOURNOY WAS ON DECK TO BE NO. 2 AT DoD UNDER GATES: Michele Flournoy, mostly bandied about as Hillary Clinton’s intensity initial invulnerability secretary, was a Pentagon’s No. 3 municipal for a initial several years of a Obama administration. But she was in a using to be a emissary invulnerability secretary, during slightest according to a collection of John Podesta’s emails expelled by WikiLeaks over a weekend. “Michele Flournoy is solitary Deputy since [William] Lynn forsaken out,” reads an email dated Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008, from Sarah Sewall to Podesta, Denis McDonough, Susan Rice and others. “Are we ok with that as a full element of care for DOD? Seems like a lot for one chairman day to day.”
Lynn eventually wound adult being tapped as a emissary invulnerability secretary, though usually after he was granted a waiver from Obama’s ethics manners since he had been a lobbyist. In another email, aides were environment adult a assembly between Obama and then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates a week after a election, where they emphasized “ensuring discretion.” Gates remained during a Pentagon into a initial two-plus years of a Obama administration.
THE FIRST MOSUL CASUALTY — NAVY TECH DIED DIRECTING SEALS, IRAQIS AWAY FROM ROADSIDE BOMB, writes Stars and Stripes’ Tara Copp: “Chief Petty Officer Jason Finan, a Navy explosives bidding ordering technician who was a initial American killed in a conflict to retake Mosul from a Islamic State group, died while warning a army he was ancillary about a roadside bomb, a tip commander for U.S. army in Iraq and Syria pronounced Sunday. Finan, 34, died on Oct. 20 from injuries postulated when his possess car strike a roadside bomb.”
SPEED READ
— The Pentagon expects a asset of comprehension papers from a Islamic State in Mosul: NYT
— Turkey’s infantry strikes both Islamic State and Kurdish targets in Syria: Reuters
— The Islamic State’s chemical weapons arsenal is diseased though instills fear: Military Times
— Airstrikes resume in Yemen as a cease-fire there expires: Reuters
— WikiLeaks backers explain credit for a large cyberattack in a U.S. Friday, though researchers are skeptical: POLITICO
— A grand jury indicts a Russian male suspected of hacking LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring: NYT
— Russia keeps inching into Georgia on a changeable border: NYT
— Palestinians who attended a Jewish holiday jubilee are arrested by Palestinian confidence forces: The Washington Post
— Service members doubt a subsequent boss can repair a military’s tip issues, according to a poll: Military Times
— A self-murder explosve hits a Somali capital: Reuters
— Eighty-three Nigerian soldiers are blank after Boko Haram pounded a remote infantry base: AP
— Russian scientists learn a tip Nazi infantry bottom in a Arctic: The Independent
— The Defense Department cements a cyber “bug bounty” program: C4isrnet
— Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) raises concerns that a agreement for internet use to deployed infantry could concede a use of Russian satellites: The Washington Post
— Defense officials are seeking for a initial time a opinions of spouses on morale, gratification and recreation: Military Times
— Marines wish new record to improved take rivalry beaches: Marine Times
— The Air Force is study Ohio State football players to assist special forces: Dayton Daily News
About The Author
Jeremy Herb is a invulnerability contributor for POLITICO Pro. Prior to fasten POLITICO, he lonesome invulnerability and inhabitant confidence for The Hill, and lonesome a Minnesota congressional commission and 2012 Republican presidential primary as a Washington match for a Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Herb is a local of San Jose, Calif. He graduated with a bachelor’s grade from Santa Clara University and perceived a master’s grade from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Politico Magazine
In a Land of Raw Firepower, a Feeling That Trump Is Out of Ammo
By James Higdon
Penetrating a Police Brotherhood
By Frank Serpico
Debate Night With a Unswayables
By Julia Ioffe