Tag: Lloyd Austin

Russia defense chief makes unfounded claims of Kyiv ready to use ‘dirty bomb’

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Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Sunday had telephone calls with his French, British and Turkish counterparts in which he made unfounded claims that Ukraine might be preparing to use a “dirty bomb,” according to Russian readouts of the conversations.

The conversations took place after Russian President Vladimir Putin recently raised the prospect of using nuclear weapons in the war he launched against Ukraine. And after Shoigu faced intensifying political pressure over a series of disorderly retreats in Ukraine.

The calls came as Russia continues a mass evacuation of civilians from occupied Kherson in southern Ukraine and defense analysts believe that the movement of people is setting the scene for Moscow to withdraw its troops from a significant part of the region. But among EU diplomats, there are fears that Moscow is only setting the scene for things to get worse.

During the call with French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu, they discussed the situation in Ukraine, “which is rapidly deteriorating,” according to the Russian readout of the call. And Shoigu conveyed “his concerns about possible provocations by Ukraine with the use of a ‘dirty bomb’,” the Russian ministry said without giving any further detail.

The same content of the readout was provided on the call with Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar.

The Russian readout of the call with U.K. Defense Minister Ben Wallace talks only about the risk of a “dirty bomb.” However, in none of the readouts does Moscow provide any evidence for its claims.

The U.K. said that “Shoigu alleged that Ukraine was planning actions facilitated by Western countries, including the U.K., to escalate the conflict in Ukraine,” according to a U.K. statement. “The Defense Secretary refuted these claims and cautioned that such allegations should not be used as a pretext for greater escalation,” it said.

No statement on the call was immediately made available by the defense ministries of France and Turkey.

On Friday, Shoigu spoke with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for the first time since May, and, according to a Pentagon readout, in the call “Austin emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication amid the ongoing war against Ukraine.”

Shoigu spoke with Austin again on Sunday, according to the Russian defense ministry. In this case, the Russian readout says only that “they discussed situation in Ukraine.”

A dirty bomb is a bomb that combines conventional explosives, such as dynamite, with radioactive materials. For Dara Massicot, an analyst at U.S. research company Rand Corporation, “this reads like Russian false flag groundwork.”

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Jacopo Barigazzi

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October 23, 2022
Europe’s looming Ukraine fear: What happens if the US pulls back?

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Europe is waking up to a troubling reality: It may soon lose its NATO benefactor in Ukraine.

With conservatives poised to make gains in the upcoming U.S. elections, NATO’s most generous donor to Ukraine’s war effort may suddenly seem much more parsimonious in 2023.

The possibility has put the spotlight on the gap between American and European aid.

Already, it’s been a tough sell to get all of Europe’s NATO members to dedicate 2 percent of their economic output to defense spending. Now, they are under increasing pressure from the U.S. to go even further than that. And that comes amid an already tough conversation across Europe about how to refill its own dwindling military stockpiles while simultaneously funding Ukraine’s rebuild.

Still, the mantra among U.S. Republicans — whom polls show are favored to take control of one of two chambers of Congress after the November elections — has been that Europe needs to step up.

“Our allies,” said Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, “need to start addressing the problem in their own backyard before they ask us for any more involvement.”

While European governments have opened their wallets and military stockpiles to Ukraine at record levels, Washington’s military assistance to Kyiv still dwarfs Europe’s efforts. It’s a disparity Republicans are keen to highlight as they argue Russia’s war in Ukraine is a much greater threat to Europe than it is to the U.S.

The result could be a changing tenor out of Washington if Congress falls into conservative control.

“It’s horrible what the Russians are doing,” Burchett added, but said he sees China and drug cartels as “more threatening to the United States of America than what’s going on in Ukraine.”

2 percent becomes the baseline

Since Moscow launched its assault on Ukraine, European capitals have pledged over €200 billion in new defense spending.

NATO allies pledged in 2014 to aim to move towards spending 2 percent of GDP on defense within a decade, and an increasing number of governments are taking this promise seriously. But the Biden administration wants them to go even further.

The 2 percent benchmark is just “what we would expect” from allies, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said earlier this month. “We would encourage countries to go above that 2 percent because we’re gonna have to invest more in expanding industrial bases and making sure that we’re doing the right things to replace” some of what was provided to Ukraine.

Washington’s recently released “National Security Strategy” codified those expectations.

“As we step up our own sizable contributions to NATO capabilities and readiness,” the document says, “we will count on our Allies to continue assuming greater responsibility by increasing their spending, capabilities, and contributions.”

It’s an aspiration that will be hard for many European policymakers, who themselves face economic woes at home. The U.K., for instance, has committed to hitting a 3 percent defense spending target but recently acknowledged the “shape” of its increase could change as recent policy changes roil the economy.

The Biden administration has taken a path of friendly encouragement toward Europe, rather than haranguing its partners.

But Republicans are not as keen to take such a convivial tone. And if they take control of Congress, Republicans will have more of a say over the U.S. pursestrings — and the tone emerging from Washington.

“I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy told Punchbowl news earlier this week.

“There’s the things [the Biden administration] is not doing domestically,” he added. “Not doing the border and people begin to weigh that. Ukraine is important, but at the same time it can’t be the only thing they do and it can’t be a blank check.”

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said earlier this month that the benchmark of 2 percent of GDP spent on defense is what is expected from allies | Omar Havana/Getty Images

Republicans are likely eyeing the polls, which show a slim but growing chunk of Americans saying the U.S. is providing too much support to Ukraine. The figure has risen from 7 percent in March to 20 percent in September, according to a Pew Research Center poll. And it now stands at 32 percent among Republican-leaning voters.

So while President Joe Biden continues to ask Congress to approve more Ukraine aid packages, observers say there could be more skepticism in the coming months.

“It’s becoming harder because the sense is that we’re doing it all and the Europeans aren’t,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

And while noting that “in some ways, that’s unfair” due to the economic cost of the war to Europe, he said that on the military side aid for Ukraine and spending on defense industrial capacity is now “the new 2 percent.”

In European capitals, policymakers are watching Washington closely.

“For Europeans, the idea that U.S. politics matters — that what happens in the midterm election will have implications for what will be expected of us from [our] U.S. ally — is something that is taken more and more seriously,” said Martin Quencez, a research fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Paris office.

The Brussels view

But back in Brussels, some officials insist there’s little reason for worry.

“There is broad, bipartisan support for Ukraine,” said David McAllister, chair of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

Indeed, while the more Donald Trump-friendly wing of the Republican Party is opposed to continuing aid to Ukraine, more traditional Republicans have actually supported Biden’s aid for Kyiv.

“If there was a Republican majority in congressional committees, I expect an impact on debates about which weapons to supply to Ukraine, for example,” McAllister said in an email. “Ultimately, though, the president maintains considerable control over foreign policy.”

McAllister, a member of Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union, said Europe is already increasing its defensive investments and aid to Kyiv, pointing to an EU initiative to train Ukrainian soldiers and a recent bump up for an EU fund that reimburses countries for military supplies sent to Ukraine.

Polish MEP Witold Waszczykowski, the Foreign Affairs Committee’s vice chair, also said in an email that he doesn’t expect a Republican-dominated Congress to shift Ukraine policy — while urging Washington to put more pressure on Europe.

“Poland and other Eastern flank countries cannot persuade Europeans enough to support Ukraine,” said Waszczykowski, a member of the conservative ruling Law and Justice party.

The “smell of appeasement and expectations to come back to business as usual with Russia,” the Polish politician said, “dominates in European capitals and European institutions.”

Cristina Gallardo contributed reporting.

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Lili Bayer

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October 19, 2022
EXPLAINER: US weapons systems Ukraine will or won’t get

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian leaders are pressing the U.S. and Western allies for air defense systems and longer-range weapons to keep up the momentum in their counteroffensive against Russia and fight back against Moscow’s intensified attacks.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Wednesday said allies are committed to sending weapons “as fast as we can physically get them there.” And he said defense leaders meeting in Brussels are working to send a wide array of systems, ranging from tanks and armored vehicles to air defense and artillery.

But there are still a number of high-profile, advanced weapons that Ukraine wants and the U.S. won’t provide, due to political sensitivities, classified technology or limited stockpiles.

A look at some of the weapons Ukraine will or won’t get:

WHAT WEAPONS UKRAINE IS GETTING

In a meeting with about 50 defense leaders this week, Austin and Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed plans to send more air defense weapons to Ukraine and also increase training for Ukrainian troops.

“We know that Ukraine still needs even more long-range fires, and air defense systems and artillery systems along with other crucial capabilities,” Austin said Wednesday. He said allies talked about a number of air defense systems.

The U.S. has already provided 20 of the advanced High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, and has promised 18 more.

And the Pentagon has said it will deliver the first two advanced NASAMS surface-to-air missile systems to Ukraine in the coming weeks, providing Kyiv with a weapon that it has pressed for since earlier this year. The systems will provide medium- to long-range defenses against Russian missile attacks.

Germany is now delivering its first IRIS-T surface-to-air missile system, which has a range of about 25 miles (40 kilometers). It has promised a total of four.

Overall, the U.S. has sent Ukraine $16.8 billion in weapons and other aid since the war began on Feb. 24. That aid has included hundreds of armored vehicles, 142 155mm Howitzers and 880,000 rounds of ammunition for them, plus thousands of Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft weapons and 60 million rounds of bullets.

WHAT WEAPONS THE US HASN’T SENT

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly made it clear that his country needs more advanced weapons to continue the fight. Russia launched a barrage of attacks using drones, heavy artillery and missiles this week.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the attacks in response to an explosion last weekend on a crucial bridge linking Russia to Crimea. The Russians are also struggling to beat back a fierce counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces, who have just retaken five towns and villages in the southern Kherson region. It was illegally annexed by Russia along with the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, and Donetsk and Luhansk in the east.

Zelenskyy’s pleas for some weapons, however, are so far going unanswered.

A key request is for the Army Tactical Missile System. Known as ATACMS, it is one of the weapons that Zelenskyy has repeatedly requested. It would give Ukraine the ability to strike Russian targets from as far as about 180 miles (300 kilometers).

The system uses the same launchers as the HIMARS rockets that Kyiv has successfully used in its counteroffensive, but has as much as three times the range of those rockets.

A major U.S. concern is that the longer-range capability could be used against targets inside Russia and further provoke Putin, said Brad Bowman, the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute.

Similarly, the U.S. isn’t likely to send Ukraine the highly sophisticated surface-to-air Patriot missile system, which has the ability to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles.

J.D. Williams, a senior defense researcher at the Rand Corp., said the Patriots are connected to some of the United States’ most sensitive command-and-control networks and could require U.S. troops on the ground to operate them. The Biden administration has ruled out using U.S. combat forces inside Ukraine.

The U.S. has only a limited number of those systems.

Zelenskyy has also pressed the U.S. since March to provide fighter jets such as F-16s, but the U.S. has repeatedly rejected the idea to avoid further escalation with Russia.

The U.S. also has so far declined to send Ukraine more sophisticated longer-range drones, such as the Gray Eagle, which also would give Ukraine a longer-distance strike capability. There also are concerns about Russia gaining access to such advanced technology if one were to be shot down.

Follow AP’s coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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October 13, 2022
Navy admiral to seek community input on Red Hill fuel tanks

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JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii — The commander of the task force responsible for draining fuel from a World War II-era storage tank facility that leaked jet fuel and poisoned Pearl Harbor’s tap water last year said Monday he’s exploring ways to get community feedback.

Rear Adm. John Wade told reporters at a news conference he may establish an advisory group, but he’s not sure yet what form it will take.

He said getting input from the community will help him be more responsive. He said Hawaii’s elected officials told military leaders that it would be valuable for them to give the community a voice in their work.

“I don’t have the structure yet. It’s still a work in progress, but I think it’s something that’s important,” said Wade, the commander of Joint Task Force Red Hill.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Wade’s appointment last month.

In November, jet fuel spilled from a drain line at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, flowed into a drinking water well and then into the Navy’s water system serving 93,000 people in and around Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. Nearly 6,000 sought medical attention for ailments like nausea, headaches and sores. The military put about 4,000 families in hotels for several months.

The military plans to remove more than 100 million gallons (378.54 million liters) of fuel from the 80-year-old tanks by July 2024, and then close the facility afterward.

Wade said he’s started reaching out to Hawaii’s congressional delegation and other local leaders — including Ernie Lau, the chief engineer of the Honolulu Board of Water Supply and one of the strongest critics of how the Navy has managed Red Hill over the past decade.

Kathleen Pahinui, a spokeswoman for the Board of Water Supply, said Lau had a short introductory conference call with Wade on Friday and they expect to host Wade for an in-person meeting soon. She said the call went well and they look forwarding to meeting him and his team in person.

In addition to Lau, Wade said he also met with Hawaii Department of Health Director Dr. Libby Chair and her environmental deputy, Kathleen Ho.

Wade was already assigned to Hawaii last year when the spill occurred, as the person in charge of operations and training at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. He said he wasn’t among those that had to move out their homes, but he — like others — questioned the safety of his water.

Some military families have complained of continuing health problems like seizures and gastrointestinal issues and filed a lawsuit against the federal government in August.

As head of the task force, Wade will report to Austin through Adm. John. C. Aquilino, the Indo-Pacific Command commander.

Indo-Pacific Command said in a news release last month that this “will ensure awareness and support at the highest levels of the Department and as well as provide accurate and timely information to the local community.”

Austin met with Wade last week during a visit to Hawaii that also included meetings with his counterparts from the Philippines, Australia and Japan. Austin didn’t talk to local media afterward.

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October 3, 2022
Pentagon seeks to increase pressure on Tuberville to break hold on military nominations | CNN Politics

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CNN
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The Pentagon is seeking to increase pressure on Sen. Tommy Tuberville in an attempt to break the Alabama Republican’s one-man hold on hundreds of senior military nominations.

The effort includes back-channel conversations with Congress and members of the key oversight committees, but also a public campaign to increase awareness of the effects of the holds on the military and its families.

“Hill leadership knows this is a problem,” a Defense official told CNN.

As of July 7, Tuberville’s hold was impacting 265 senior military officers. An internal assessment put together by the Pentagon and obtained by CNN says the holds affect the families of 84 officers awaiting confirmation, including officers who have paid out of pocket to move their families, military spouses who have left their jobs anticipating new assignments, and children unable to enroll in new schools.

The Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, Sabrina Singh, highlighted several of these examples at a press briefing Monday.

“This is having an incredible impact not just to our general and flag officers but to our families,” Singh said, “and we certainly urge Senator Tuberville to lift these holds.”

The assessment has been shared with lawmakers and is expected to be updated weekly as the number of holds grows. By the end of the year, Defense officials expect more than 600 senior officers to be up for nomination, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and other top military leaders.

Publicizing the assessment and the effects the holds have on military families is a way of generating awareness of the blocked nominations, the defense official said, and the military services are compiling the increasing the numbers.

“We obviously keep up the pressure, because we don’t want anyone to forget about it,” the Defense official said.

Speaking with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday, Tuberville insisted he is not blocking confirmations and that the Senate had plenty of time to take up the nominees.

“I’m just stopping them from confirming hundreds at a time,” Tuberville said. “They can confirm as many as they want, during the day. We’re just sitting around, twiddling our thumbs most of the time during the week and should be confirming people.”

Though Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has only spoken once with Tuberville, the senator said, the Pentagon’s legislative affairs team has been in regular contact with the Hill and the Senate Armed Services Committee, where the nominations are stalled. Tuberville has not backed down from maintaining his block on nominations as he protests the Defense Department’s reproductive health policies, claiming there is no impact on national security and no risk to US military readiness.

“I’m not gonna change my approach,” Tuberville said Monday.

Instead, Defense officials are trying to get Republican senators to put pressure on Tuberville to lift his holds. Sen. Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that “We need these officers in place.” Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader, has said in the past that Tuberville’s hold “is not the best way to go about it.”

But the criticism has done little to shift Tuberville’s position.

The hold disrupts what is typically a routine process of confirming hundreds of military nominations at once known as unanimous consent. With Tuberville’s hold in place, the Senate would need to take each nomination to the floor for an individual vote, which could take months and hundreds of hours of floor time to complete. 

“It’s a Senate question, and it’s really a Republican question,” the Defense official told CNN.

Gen. Charles Q. Brown, whose nomination to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is on hold, was asked about the effects of the holds repeatedly in his confirmation hearing Tuesday. Brown spoke about the impacts on military readiness and retention, as well as the cascading effects on junior officers who can’t get promoted because of a blocked spot.

“The area that hits us, I think that we do need to think about is how it impacts our families, because it has an impact not just for the senior officer, but you know, all their staff and all those below them it has an impact,” Brown said in response to a question from Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

On Monday, Austin reiterated those concerns at the relinquishment of command ceremony for Gen. David Berger, the Marine Corps Commandant. Berger’s nominated successor, Gen. Eric Smith, has not yet been confirmed alongside the more than 200 other military officers stalled in Tuberville’s hold. 

Austin said Monday that smooth transitions of leadership “are central to the defense of the United States,” and crucial “for our military readiness” and “our military families.” 

“[O]ur military families give up so much to support those who serve. So they shouldn’t be weighed down with any extra uncertainty,” Austin said. “We have a sacred duty to do right by those who volunteer to wear the cloth of our nation. And I remain confident that all Americans can come together to agree on that basic obligation to those who keep us safe. I am also confident that the United States Senate will meet its responsibilities.” 

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April 12, 2021
Inside the furious week-long scramble to hunt down a massive Pentagon leak | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Jack Teixeira, wearing a green t-shirt and bright red gym shorts with his hands above his head, walked slowly backward toward the armed federal agents outside his home in North Dighton, Massachusetts, who took him into custody on charges of leaking classified documents.

The carefully choreographed arrest of the 21-year-old Air National Guardsman stood in stark contrast to the Biden administration’s scramble one week earlier to deal with the fallout from the revelation that highly classified documents had been sitting publicly on the internet for weeks.

Those leaked documents, which appeared to catch the Biden administration flat-footed, disclosed a blunt US intelligence assessment of the war in Ukraine, as well as details revealing US intelligence collection on allies.

The Biden administration raced to determine the identity of the leaker who had posted pictures of folded-up documents online, to understand the full scope of what had been leaked and to soothe allies who were varying degrees of angry that their secrets had spilled out for the world to see.

While the suspected leaker has been arrested, the administration’s damage assessment is still ongoing. It remains unclear whether the full extent of the impact of the leaks is known, as details from additional classified documents continued to be published throughout the week – even on Friday morning, the day after his arrest.

Inside the Pentagon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley was “pissed” at the leak and “deeply concerned” about its national security implications, a US official told CNN. The Defense Department has been holding daily meetings on the leak since Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was first briefed last Thursday.

The episode represents the most egregious disclosure of classified documents in years. The leaked documents have exposed what officials say are lingering vulnerabilities in the management of government secrets, even after agencies overhauled their computer systems following the 2013 Edward Snowden leak, which revealed the scope of the National Security Agency’s intelligence gathering apparatus.

It is unlikely, however, that those safeguards would have prevented the most recent leak, sources said. “All classified systems have multiple levels of risk controls, but a determined insider will find the weak points over time,” said a former US official.

The Pentagon has already taken steps to clamp down on who can access sensitive classified material, while Austin has ordered a review over access to classified documents. And Congress is vowing to investigate exactly what happened and why the US intelligence community failed to discover its secrets were sitting on a public internet forum for weeks.

In a statement acknowledging the extent of the problem that the leaks exposed, President Joe Biden said Friday that he had directed both the military and intelligence community to “take steps to further secure and limit distribution of sensitive information.”

“This is a breakdown,” Chris Krebs, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency, told CNN. “There’s no question that there will be a lot of introspection inside the intelligence community and across the government of where were those breakdowns? How do we ensure that we tighten that system of military discipline that that was referred to earlier to ensure that these things do not happen?”

According to charging documents unsealed on Friday, Teixeira allegedly began posting classified information on the Discord server in December 2022.

Teixeira is believed to be the head of obscure invite-only Discord chatroom called “Thug Shaker Central,” multiple US officials told CNN, where information from the classified documents was first posted.

One of the users on the Discord server told FBI investigators that Teixeira began posting photographs of documents that appeared to be classified in January 2023, according to the affidavit unsealed Friday after Teixeira was arraigned.

Investigators wrote in the affidavit that at least one of the documents that described the status of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, including troop movements, was classified at the TS-SCI level, meaning it contains top-secret, sensitive compartmentalized information.

“The Government Document is based on sensitive U.S. intelligence, gathered through classified sources and methods, and contains national defense information,” the affidavit states.

Teixeira, an airman first class stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base, was assigned to the 102nd Intelligence Wing, which is a “24/7 operational mission” that takes in intelligence from various sources and packages it into a product for some of the most senior military leaders around the globe, a defense official said.

His job was not to be the one packaging the intelligence for those senior commanders, but rather to work on the network on which that highly classified intelligence lived. For that purpose, the official said Teixeira would be required to have a TS/SCI clearance, in the instance that he was exposed to that level of intelligence.

“It’s not like your regular IT guy where you call a help desk and they come fix your computer,” the official said. “They’re working on a very highly classified system, so they require that clearance.”

CNN has reviewed 53 documents that were posted on social media sites, which include US intelligence assessments of Ukrainian and Russian forces, as well as details about other countries providing weapons to Ukraine and other intelligence matters. The Washington Post has reported on an additional tranche of documents from the server.

The photos showed crumpled documents laid on top of magazines and surrounded by other random objects, such as zip-close bags and Gorilla Glue, suggesting they had been hastily folded up and shoved into a pocket before being removed from a secure location.

A Discord user told investigators that Teixeira had become concerned “he may be discovered making the transcriptions of text in the workplace, so he began taking the documents to his residence and photographing them,” according to the affidavit.

Four Discord users active in a different Discord chatroom where the documents later appeared told CNN they began circulating on Thug Shaker. Another user who was in the Thug Shaker chatroom told CNN they saw the original posts of classified documents but declined to speak further about them.

While the documents were being shared on Discord, there’s no indication that the US intelligence community was aware they were on the internet. Discord servers are typically small, private online communities that require an invitation to join.

On April 6, The New York Times first reported on the leaked documents and the Pentagon having launched an investigation into who may have been behind the leak.

The investigation into finding the leaker quickly moved into the hands of the Justice Department, while the Pentagon investigation focused on a damage assessment of the leaks themselves.

But the number of leaked documents continued to grow in the hours and days that followed the initial disclosure, revealing new intelligence assessments on everything from South Korea’s hesitance to provide the US weapons that might be sent to Ukraine to intelligence suggesting Egypt planned to supply rockets to Russia.

US diplomats were forced to deal with the fallout. Seoul said it would hold “necessary discussions with the US” following the leak.

The documents that were leaked appear to be part of a daily intelligence briefing deck prepared for the Pentagon’s senior leaders, including Milley, the top US military general. On any given day, the slides in that deck can be properly accessed by hundreds, if not thousands, of people across the government, officials said.

Last Friday’s announcement of a Justice Department investigation underscored just how high a priority the leak was considered.

By Monday, FBI agents from Washington to California to Boston were combing through evidence, conducting interviews and tracking volumes of computer data that within days pointed to Teixeira. They worked with Army CID investigators experienced in classified document probes.

Anthony Ferrante, a former FBI agent, said that the “first few hours are critical” in a case like the Discord leaks as investigators rush to preserve digital evidence before it becomes harder to find online or vanishes altogether.

FBI agents likely worked backward from the initial Discord posts to build a profile of the leaker, combing through his other online accounts to “put a human behind a keyboard,” Ferrante, who is now global head of cybersecurity at FTI Consulting, told CNN.

Even though Teixeira emerged quickly as the most obvious suspect, counterintelligence agents trained in uncovering foreign spies looked through Teixeira’s background to try to find any sign that he could be working with a foreign intelligence service.

The FBI agents’ work was made more urgent because the trove of documents had set off a media frenzy and reporters found ready interviews among members of Teixeira’s Internet social circle.

On Monday, the FBI interviewed a user of the Discord chatroom where the classified information had been posted, according to the affidavit. That person told investigators that a user who went by “Jack” and said he was in the Air National Guard was the server’s administrator.

A day earlier, the investigative news outlet Bellingcat posted an interview with a member of that same chatroom.

On Wednesday, a day before Teixeira’s arrest, the FBI obtained records from Discord that included the subscriber information of the server’s administrator, which had Teixeira’s name and address, according to the affidavit.

By day 5 of the FBI’s search, agents believed they had enough to charge Teixeira, and they began surveilling him.

In a different scenario, without the intense public attention, agents might have watched him for weeks to see if he was meeting anyone suspicious or if he had accomplices.

Instead, they moved to make an arrest Thursday, as news helicopters flew above.

Teixeira was charged under the Espionage Act with unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information and unauthorized removal of classified information and defense materials. He will next appear on Wednesday in federal court in Massachusetts.

For the Biden administration, the episode has already prompted the Pentagon to begin to limit who across the government receives its highly classified daily intelligence briefs, amid lingering questions over why a 21-year-old junior Air National Guardsman had access to such classified information – and why it wasn’t discovered more quickly.

Austin and Milley spent time on the phone speaking with US allies and partners around the world regarding the sensitive intelligence and top-secret documents suddenly thrust into the public sphere. Those conversations were expected to continue through the end of the week, another US official said.

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman was tapped to lead the diplomatic response to the leaked US intelligence documents, according to a US official familiar with the matter.

Biden was continually briefed on the state of the investigation while abroad, as well as the efforts of his top officials to engage with allies over the leaked information, officials said. Behind the scenes, that effort was a reality that loomed over a deeply personal and important foreign trip for Biden, one official acknowledged. 

Still, the leaks didn’t arise when Biden met Wednesday with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a Five Eyes intelligence sharing ally.

Biden publicly downplayed the significance of the leak when he made his first comments on the matter. “I’m concerned that it happened, but there is nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence,” Biden told reporters Thursday.

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April 12, 2021
Exclusive: Senior US general ordered Twitter announcement of drone strike on al Qaeda leader that may have instead killed civilian | CNN Politics

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CNN
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The senior general in charge of US forces in the Middle East ordered that his command announce on Twitter that a senior al Qaeda leader had been targeted by an American drone strike in Syria earlier this month – despite not yet having confirmation of who was actually killed in the strike, according to multiple defense officials.

Nearly three weeks later, US Central Command still does not know whether a civilian died instead, officials said. CENTCOM did not open a review of the incident, officially known as a civilian-casualty credibility assessment report, until May 15 – twelve days after the strike. That review is ongoing.

One defense official with direct knowledge of the situation told CNN that some of CENTCOM Commander Gen. Erik Kurilla’s subordinates urged him to hold off on the tweet until there was more clarity on who was actually killed.

Two other officials denied that, and said they were not aware of any staffers voicing consternation or disagreement with the announcement.

Either way, the statement ultimately posted to Twitter from the official CENTCOM Twitter account did not identify the supposed senior al Qaeda leader, raising more questions about what had occurred.

“At 11:42 am local Syrian time on 3 May, US Central Command Forces conducted a unilateral strike in Northwest Syria targeting a senior Al Qaeda leader,” the tweet read. “We will provide more information as operational details become available.”

The tweet has not been taken down and CENTCOM has not tweeted about the strike again.

The episode raises questions about how thoroughly CENTCOM has implemented the military’s civilian harm mitigation policy – a process for preventing, mitigating and responding to civilian casualties caused by US military operations.

The policy was developed in 2022 after a botched US drone strike in Kabul killed 10 civilians in August 2021.

Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Tuesday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is “absolutely” confident in the Defense Department’s civilian harm mitigation efforts.

“In terms of CENTCOM’s strike, as you know, they conducted that strike on the third of May. They are investigating the allegations of civilian casualties,” Ryder said at a Pentagon news briefing. “So, you know, I think our record speaks for itself in terms of how seriously we take these. Very few countries around the world do that. The secretary has complete confidence that we will continue to abide by the policies that we put into place.”

CENTCOM acknowledged last week following a Washington Post report questioning the strike that the operation may have resulted in a civilian casualty and said in a statement that it was “investigating” the incident. The civilian casualty review was not launched until a week after the Post began presenting information to CENTCOM suggesting that the strike had killed a civilian.

CENTCOM still has not opened a formal investigation into the strike, known as a 15-6 investigation, defense officials told CNN. The officials said the civilian casualty review first needs to determine that a noncombatant was indeed killed in the strike. Then, a commander needs to decide that there are other unanswered questions remaining about the operation that require a more thorough investigation. A 15-6 investigation was launched less than a week after the errant Kabul strike.

Defense officials told CNN that in the immediate aftermath of the strike, Kurilla and his staff had high confidence that they had killed the senior al-Qaeda leader, though they declined to say why they were so convinced. But they also knew it would likely take a few days to confirm the person’s identity definitively. The US has no military footprint in northwest Syria, an area still recovering from the effects of a devastating earthquake.

But as the days passed, CENTCOM still could not determine the identity of who they had killed. Some defense officials considered that a red flag, they told CNN.

By May 8, CENTCOM still had not confirmed the person’s identity, and began receiving information from the Washington Post that raised questions about whether a civilian had been killed, defense officials said. The Post’s information led CENTCOM to open a review into the strike, and whether it had killed a civilian, on May 15.

There is still some disagreement within the administration about the identity of the person killed, defense officials told CNN. Some intelligence officials continue to believe that the target of the strike was a member of al-Qaeda, even if he wasn’t a senior leader. But there is a growing belief inside the Pentagon that the man – identified by his family as Loutfi Hassan Mesto, a 56-year-old father of ten – was a farmer with no ties to terrorism.

Mesto’s family told CNN that he had been out grazing his sheep when he was killed. Loutfi never left his village during the Syrian uprisings and did not support any political faction, his brother said.

Mohamed Sajee, a distant relative living in Qurqaniya, also told CNN that Loutfi was never known to be in favor or against the Syrian regime.

“It’s impossible that he was with al Qaeda, he doesn’t even have a beard,” he said.

The Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, told CNN they arrived on the scene of the strike after being contacted on their local emergency number.

“The team noticed only one crater caused by the missile, which was next to the man’s body,” the White Helmets said, also confirming that the man had been grazing his sheep.

“When the team arrived, his wife, neighbors, and other people were at the location,” the group added.

The White Helmets tweeted on May 3 that they had recovered the body of Mesto, who they described as “a civilian aged 60” who was killed in a missile strike while grazing sheep. CENTCOM was aware of the White Helmets’ tweet, officials said, but the group’s information was not considered solid enough yet to open a review.

The May 3 incident bears a stunning similarity to another CENTCOM operation: a US drone strike in Kabul during the closing days of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which killed 10 Afghan civilians, including 7 children. The Pentagon initially claimed it had eliminated an ISIS-K threat and defended the operation for weeks, with Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley going as far as to call it a “righteous” strike in a Pentagon briefing two days later.

A suicide bombing at Kabul’s international airport three days earlier, which killed 13 US service members, had added pressure on CENTCOM to act against any potential threats, and officials believed at the time that another attack was imminent.

Austin ultimately decided no one would be punished over the botched operation, even as he instructed Central Command and Special Operations Command to improve policies and procedures to prevent civilian harm more effectively.

Austin committed to adjusting Defense Department policies to better protect civilians, even establishing a civilian protection center of excellence in 2022.

“Leaders in this department should be held to account for high standards of conduct and leadership,” Austin said at the time.

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April 12, 2021
Pentagon increases security screenings following leak of classified documents | CNN Politics

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The Pentagon has increased its security screenings following a massive leak of classified documents allegedly by a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard that exposed sensitive information online, according to a Defense Department spokeswoman.

The Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA) conducts routine screenings of employees coming in or out of the Pentagon for classified information, but the number and frequency of these screenings have increased after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a review of procedures around the handling of sensitive and classified material last month.

“The Pentagon Force Protection Agency routinely screens employees entering and exiting the Pentagon for prohibited items and to ensure classified information is protected and handled in accordance with current security requirements,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sue Gough said in a statement. “PFPA has increased these security screenings and measures in response to the immediate review of information security procedures directed by Secretary of Defense Austin on April 17, 2023.”

In that memo last month, Austin wrote, “It is therefore essential to carefully examine the sufficiency of, and compliance with, all security policies and procedures.”

NBC News first reported on the increased screenings.

Austin also directed the under secretary of defense for intelligence and security to work with the department’s chief information officer and director of administration and management to conduct a 45-day review of Defense Department security programs, policies and procedures. That review should be concluded in the coming days.

The review came after a massive leak of classified documents. Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard who had access to highly sensitive information, has been accused of posting the trove of documents.

Teixeira, a junior enlisted Guardsman, was arrested in April after he allegedly posted the classified information on Discord, a social media platform popular with gamers. He was charged under the Espionage Act with unauthorized removal of classified information and defense materials, and unauthorized transmission of national defense information.

A judge decided this month that he would remain behind bars until his trial. He has not yet entered a formal plea.

Teixeira was serving as a cyber systems journeyman with the Massachusetts Air National Guard at the time of the alleged leak. Documents released this month showed that Teixeira’s enlisted leaders in his unit were aware of three separate occasions when he was discovered viewing classified intelligence unrelated to his job. It’s unclear what actions, if any, were taken against him.

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April 12, 2021
CIA director visited China last month as US seeks to reset relations | CNN Politics

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CIA Director Bill Burns secretly traveled to China last month, a US official told CNN Friday, amid efforts by the United States to reset relations with Beijing after a year of extremely heightened tensions.

According to the US official, Burns “met with Chinese counterparts and emphasized the importance of maintaining open lines of communication in intelligence channels.”

Another US official explained that the trip was was an intelligence to intelligence engagement, not a diplomatic mission.

But Burns’ visit comes as the US has repeatedly signaled that Washington is seeking to diminish tensions with Beijing, particularly after the spy balloon incident earlier this year, which inflamed the bilateral relationship and caused Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a planned trip to China.

Burns’ trip, which was first reported by the Financial Times, is the highest-level visit by a US official to date, and comes as the Biden administration has sought to resume cabinet-level engagement with Chinese officials, to varying degrees of success.

The specific intelligence matter that Burns discussed in Beijing is unclear.

US officials – including Burns – have been warning for months that US intelligence indicated Chinese leadership was considering provide lethal support to Ukraine, but so far Beijing has not moved ahead with that support.

US officials have also warned about a possible Chinese effort to takeover Taiwan.

“Our assessment at CIA is that I wouldn’t underestimate President Xi’s ambitions with regard to Taiwan,” Burns said earlier this year.

On Friday, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu “spoke briefly” in Singapore, a Pentagon spokesperson said, after Beijing rebuffed a US request for a formal meeting between the two officials.

“Secretary Austin and PRC Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu spoke briefly at tonight’s opening dinner of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. The two leaders shook hands, but did not have a substantive exchange,” Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement.

“The Department believes in maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication with the PRC — and will continue to seek meaningful military-to-military discussions at multiple levels to responsibly manage the relationship,” the statement said.

Other than the brief encounter, Austin had not spoken with his counterpart, who is under US sanction, in months despite other requests. Earlier this year, China refused to take a call after the US shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that had traversed across the country.

China’s Defense Ministry blamed the US in a statement this week about the deteriorating communication, saying that responsibilities “for the current difficulties faced by the two militaries in their exchanges lies entirely with the US side.”

“The US claims that it wants to strengthen communication, but in reality it disregards China’s concerns and creates artificial obstacles, seriously undermining mutual trust between the two militaries,” said ministry spokesperson Tan Kefei.

The break in communication has extended past the most senior levels of the two countries’ militaries. Adm. John Aquilino, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told lawmakers in April that Chinese officials have also declined to accept a standing invitation to meet with the eastern and southern theater commanders of the People’s Liberation Army.

Asked in Japan on Thursday about China’s turning down the meeting request, Austin warned that the ongoing lack of communication could result an “incident that could very, very quickly spiral out of control.”

Other US officials, however, have had engagements with Chinese officials in recent weeks. National security adviser Jake Sullivan met with top Chinese official Wang Yi in Vienna for “candid” and “constructive” talks in mid-May.

A US senior administration official said the meeting was an attempt to put communications back on track after the spy balloon incident.

“I think both sides recognized that that unfortunate incident led to a bit of a pause in engagement. We’re seeking now to move beyond that and reestablish just a standard normal channel of communications,” the official said on a call with reporters after the meeting.

“We made clear where we stand in terms of the breach of sovereignty, we’ve been clear on that from the very get-go. But again, trying to look forward from here on,” the official added, noting they focused on “how do we manage the other issues that are ongoing right now and manage the tension in the relationship that exists.”

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and US Trade Representative Katherine Tai both met with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao last week.

“I had a productive meeting Thursday of last week in person with Minister Wang, the commerce secretary, who came to D.C. And it was a candid, direct, productive exchange where we tackled head on some of our issues related to economic coercion and other irritants, but also where we agreed to keep the channel of communication open in the hope that increased dialogue would lead to de-escalation of tension and an ability to solve problems,” Raimondo said at a press availability in Sweden earlier this week.

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April 12, 2021