Next US defense chief will not gut military: Pentagon

Robert Gates' Armed Services Farewell Ceremony
© AFP/Getty Images Chip Somodevilla

AFP

Incoming US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is determined to avoid gutting the American military despite the prospect of difficult budget decisions looming, a Pentagon spokesman said Thursday.

"He (Panetta) believes that it is a false choice between fiscal responsibility and national security," spokesman Douglas Wilson told reporters.

Amid mounting fiscal pressure, the defense budget "will be an important item on his agenda," Wilson said.

"He will take that very seriously. He knows there are difficult decisions to be made," he said.

Panetta "has said publicly, and he will say again, that he intends that there will be no hollow force on his watch."

Panetta: Escalate Shadow Wars, Expand Black Ops

Wiki Commons

Spencer Ackerman
Wired

Icing Osama bin Laden? Just the beginning, once Leon Panetta makes it to the Pentagon.

At his Thursday confirmation hearing to become secretary of defense, CIA Director Panetta made a broad case for expanding the U.S.’ already extensive shadow wars. Now that bin Laden is dead, “we’ve got to keep the pressure up,” Panetta urged senators. Expect a lot of drone strikes and a lot of special ops raids — some conducted by future CIA Director David Petraeus. In a lot of places.

Panetta said he wants to hit al-Qaida’s “nodes” from Pakistan to North Africa, “develop[ing] operations in each of those areas,” so terrorists have “no place to escape.” That means working with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the elite commandos that executed the raid on bin Laden’s Abbotabad compound. And Panetta has some specific ideas about how that should work.

In his written responses to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Panetta endorsed a command scheme that would place select U.S. military personnel temporarily under the authority of the CIA director for the most sensitive counterterrorism operations. Panetta told the committee that it’s “appropriate for the head of such department or agency [read: CIA] to direct the operations of the element providing that military support while working with the Secretary of Defense.” A “significant advantage of doing so,” he continued, “is that it permits the robust operational capability of the U.S. Armed Forces to be applied when needed.”
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US feared Pakistan might 'alert' Bin Laden about raid: CIA

Leon Panetta, director of CIA
© AFP/File Saul Loeb

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - CIA Director Leon Panetta said in an interview Tuesday that officials ruled out informing Islamabad about a planned raid against Osama bin Laden's compound as they feared their Pakistani counterparts might alert the Al-Qaeda chief.

Panetta told Time magazine that "it was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission: They might alert the targets."

For years Pakistan's government denied suspicions that bin Laden was hiding inside its borders, but a US assault force found him a mere 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the Pakistani capital living near a military academy.

Al-Qaeda may seek vengeance for bin Laden: US

Editor's Note: And here is the police state capitalizing on the contrived news of the assassination of Osama bin Laden.  Perfect reason to now ram through the See Something Say Something Act, which will help create a Stasi-like citizen spy network and present the CIA and Homeland Security as our saviors.  The bill's sponsor, Peter King, stated, "Al Qaeda is gonna want to avenge this as quickly as they possibly can." 

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
© AFP/Getty Images/File Michael Loccisano

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US government urged police and the public to be on high alert Monday for possible terrorist plots to avenge slain Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, warning Western targets around the world were at risk.

CIA director Leon Panetta, a key architect of the daring US special forces raid that left bin Laden dead at a secretive Pakistan compound, warned "terrorists almost certainly will attempt to avenge him."

"We must -- and will -- remain vigilant and resolute," Panetta said, as concerns about retaliation tempered exuberant celebrations of bin Laden's slaying nearly 10 years after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

In New York, where Al-Qaeda suicide operatives used passenger airplanes as guided missiles to destroy the World Trade Center Towers, beefed-up police patrols carried assault rifles at "Ground Zero" and subway stations.