Daily on Defense — Feb. 6, 2017 — CINC to CENTCOM

“While at MacDill, the president will receive command briefings from both CENTCOM and SOCOM, have lunch with the enlisted troops, and have an all-hands address to personnel,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Friday.” The president’s town-hall style meeting with the troops will be live-streamed at whitehouse.gov.

Trump will no doubt be briefed on the threat from Iran and what Flynn called its “malign actions” in Syria, Yemen and in the export of terrorism, along with the progress in the war against the Islamic State and the development of new options to step up the fight. And it will be the president’s first chance to get a classified after-action “hot wash” on what went wrong and right with the Jan. 29 U.S. commando raid against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen.

TRIUMPH OR FAILURE? There are two popular and contradictory narratives surrounding the first special operations ground assault ordered by Trump. The pessimistic, some might say cynical, view is that the raid was botched. A string of failures cost a brave U.S. Navy SEAL his life, resulted in the loss of a $70 million V-22 Osprey aircraft, killed a bunch of innocent civilians, and captured some 10-year-old videos that a Google search would have turned up on the Internet. This version has the raid taking place without adequate planning and intelligence.

The alternative, one endorsed by U.S. military officials, is far more nuanced, and argues that the raid, while not an unqualified success, accomplished its mission to obtain the kind of intelligence that will help the U.S. continue to thwart attacks against the West, attacks that will get little notice because they won’t happen. Pentagon and military sources describe a plan that was months in the making, anticipated stiff resistance, included rehearsals and back-up plans, and in the end was executed by a SEAL team that defeated the enemy and met its objective. Military officials strongly deny the SEALs lost the element of surprise, noting they were on the scene near the AQAP compound for some time and were not detected until they began their assault. Those officials also say that while some civilians, including children, were killed, it is unclear how they died, and they say many more civilians were left alive when the SEALs left.

THE BOTCHED PR MISSION: One thing that’s clear is that CENTCOM, in an attempt to reclaim the narrative, rushed to release some video clips Friday that were seized in the raid without having all the facts. Sources said while most of the captured intelligence is highly classified, and some has yet to be retrieved from encrypted hard drives, these clips were not sensitive and could be easily declassified and quickly released. Only after the videos were released did CENTCOM find out through what one official called “accidental crowdsourcing” that the DIY bomb-making videos were old and had been circulating on the Internet for years. “We were in a hurry to show the kind of data we get in these site exploitation missions,” the official admitted to the Washington Examiner. The videos were quickly taken down, but the damage was done, feeding the perception that the raid itself was bungled as badly as the hamfisted PR offensive.

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TRUMP’S SUPER BOWL INTERVIEW: Trump drew fire from his own party when told Fox’s Bill O’Reilly in a pre-Super Bowl interview he respects Russian President Vladimir Putin. “But he’s a killer though. Putin’s a killer,” O’Reilly said. “There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers,” Trump replied. “What do you think — our country’s so innocent?”

The exchange prompted Sen. Marco Rubio to tweet: “When has a Democratic political activists been poisoned by the GOP, or vice versa? We are not the same as #Putin,” the Florida Republican tweeted Sunday.

But perhaps the strongest rebuke came from Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, appearing on ABC. “Truth affirms freedom of speech. Putin is no friend of freedom of speech. Putin is an enemy of freedom of religion. The U.S. celebrates freedom of religion. Putin is an enemy of the free press. The U.S. celebrates free press. Putin is an enemy of political dissent. The U.S. celebrates political dissent and the right for people to argue free from violence about places or ideas that are in conflict. There is no moral equivalency between the United States of America, the greatest freedom living nation in the history of the world and the murderous thugs that are in Putin’s defense of his cronyism.”

In Trump’s interview, he said he would be standing up to Iran, which he said has been emboldened by the nuclear deal. “They follow our planes, they circle our ships with their little boats, and they lost respect because they can’t believe anybody could be so stupid as to make a deal like that.” But pressed on whether he’s considering any military moves, Trump says that something he never talks about. “I always criticized President Obama where they’d have an announcement that they’re going into Mosul or they’re going to some place and they give the name, the date, the time, I don’t believe in that.”

NO MIDEAST TROOP SURGE, YET: Meanwhile, Trump’s defense secretary has signaled that there will be no build-up in the Persian Gulf for now. Speaking Saturday in Japan, Mattis said that there is no need for extra United States military forces in region — despite the threat of terrorism from Iran. “I do not see any need to increase the number of forces we have in the Middle East at this time,” Mattis said at a news conference in Tokyo.

The Trump administration imposed sanctions against Iran Friday in retaliation for the Tehran’s test of a ballistic missile, which the U.S. says violates a U.N. resolution. The sanctions apply to 13 people and 12 companies in Iran, a move senior administration officials said were the result of “careful consideration” after repeated incidents of support for terrorism and weapons testing.

Later on Friday, the White House declined to rule out the option of using military force against Iran in response to its decision to test ballistic missiles and back groups that are attacking U.S. allies. “I would never rule anything off the table,” Spicer said.

Spicer expanded during an interview on MSNBC on Friday night, saying “Iran should not be provoking us. They got a sweetheart deal. They’re getting a lot from the United States. And I think the United States needs to make sure that they understand that if they act out of provisions of the agreement, that we are going to act,” Spicer said on MSNBC. “I think Iran’s going to feel the might of the sanctions, and if they continue to act so, I think the president’s been very clear that there’s more to come and they’re playing with fire.

“I think for eight years they got away with it. And I think there’s some degree to which they want to know how much has changed,” Spicer added.

GOOD REVIEWS: House Speaker Paul Ryan, along with Sens. Tom Cotton and Bob Corker, applauded the move. “The president said we were putting Iran on notice, and I’m glad to see he’s as good as his word,” Cotton said. “Iran’s ayatollahs will stop their provocations only if the U.S. shows strength and resolve. These sanctions are long overdue, and they’re sending the right message to the regime in Tehran: Cease and desist immediately.”

A DONE DEAL: The Pentagon announced on Friday that it has come to an agreement with Lockheed Martin on the 10th batch of F-35s, bringing the cost per F-35A to under $100 million for the first time. The U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, in addition to a number of international partners, are all getting jets in the 90-plane lot. Lockheed Martin released a statement following the announcement of the agreement, saying that Trump’s personal involvement “accelerated the negotiations and sharpened our focus on driving down the price,” though much of the savings was previously expected.

The statement stopped short of actually giving Trump credit for the lower prices, something he claimed earlier he had done. But industry will most likely shrug off those claims, as long as the deals get done, experts said. “For the president of the United States to engage a company, no matter how big it is, has got to send shivers up and down the spine of that company and anybody else in the defense industry,” said J.V. Venable, a senior research fellow for defense policy at the Heritage Foundation. “His engagement will have an impact and it will drive things to happen faster than they would have otherwise.”

The F-35A, meanwhile, is in the midst of its first Red Flag exercise at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and is performing well, according to service members participating in the training. Thirteen F-35As from Hill Air Force Base are participating in Red Flag, which continues this week.

BUDGET ROADBLOCK AHEAD: Mattis has issued sweeping guidance to military services to propose big spending hikes to increase readiness in the short term, and build a bigger stronger military in the long term. There’s only one big problem: Congress, specifically the Budget Control Act of 2011, which created across-the-board spending caps for 10 years.

ARMY PICK PUNCHES OUT: Trump’s nominee for Army secretary, Vincent Viola, withdrew his name for the position late Friday. Viola said he backed out because he was not able to navigate Defense Department rules regarding his family businesses. The nominee is the first Trump nominee back out after being named. “I appreciate the confidence President Trump showed in me,” Viola said. Mattis is “disappointed but understands and respects Mr. Viola’s decision,” according to Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis.

From Military Times, which first reported the story: “Sources familiar said Viola had been looking for ways to divest from his businesses — including ownership of [his] hockey team — to take the top civilian Army post. He had planned to transfer ownership to other family members but turn over operations responsibilities to the team’s vice chairman, but that arrangement did not meet Pentagon requirements, according to sources.”

IT’S A HIT! Take note North Korea and Iran. The United States and Japan successfully hit a missile with a missile off the coast of Hawaii, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency reported over the weekend. The test was the first intercept of a ballistic missile target using Raytheon’s Standard Missile-3 Block IIA, which is being developed cooperatively by the U.S. and Japan to defeat medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, from Aegis-equipped ships or Aegis Ashore sites. The successful test “demonstrates a critical milestone,” said MDA Director Vice Adm. Jim Syring. “The missile is vitally important to both our nations and will ultimately improve our ability to defend against increasing ballistic missile threats around the world.”  

OLD HAND AT DHS: The Department of Homeland Security just got an instant boost in credibility by adding a veteran public affairs officer to John Kelly’s staff. Retired Marine Col. Dave Lapan, who held several senior public affairs posts at the Pentagon over the years, including a stint in Afghanistan, announced on his Facebook page over the weekend he’s come aboard just as DHS is struggling to implement and explain Trump’s ban on foreign nationals for seven countries entering the U.S., which is now in legal limbo. “I am now at the Department of Homeland Security as acting assistant secretary for Public Affairs,” writes Lapan. “As you might imagine with all the news about DHS, it has been a wild ride already. I’m also honored and excited to be working with and for Gen. John Kelly, a remarkable Marine and person.” Lapan had been with the Military Child Education Coalition since his retirement from the Marine Corps.

DID IT REALLY HAPPEN? One of Lapan’s first challenges may be to get to the bottom of a Washington Post account that alleged White House strategist Steve Bannon confronted Kelly over the travel ban, insisting Kelly refrain from issuing exceptions for permanent U.S. residents with green cards. The story, by the Post’s opinion writer Josh Rogin, includes this account: “Respectfully but firmly, the retired general told Bannon that despite his high position in the White House and close relationship with President Trump, the former Breitbart chief was not in Kelly’s chain of command. If the president wanted Kelly to back off from issuing the waiver, Kelly would have to hear it from the president directly.”

The Post later issued this unusual update and correction to the original story to include a denial from Spicer. “The article previously stated that Stephen K. Bannon visited Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly’s office on Jan. 28. Spicer said Bannon did not make such a visit. He also said that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Bannon did not participate in a 2 a.m. conference call on Jan. 29. The article also previously stated that President Trump approved a pause in executive orders pending new procedures. According to Spicer, it was White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, rather than the president, who approved the new procedures, but not a pause.”

AQAP LEADER TAUNTS TRUMP: The leader of al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen has released an audio recording mocking Trump. “The White House’s new fool has received a painful blow at your hands in his first outing on your land,” Qassim al-Rimi says in the recording to his followers, released late Saturday. Though the recording’s authenticity has not immediately been verified, the voice is allegedly similar to that of other al-Rimi recordings.

IF YOU BLINKED, YOU MISSED IT: The Air Force Thunderbirds Super Bowl flyover got about 8.1 seconds of airtime on Fox. We saw the approach, timed to coincide with Luke Bryan’s last notes of the “Star Spangled Banner,” but not the actual flyover. Presumably the crowd in the stadium could see it through the retractable roof, if they looked up fast enough. Trump, who before the game predicted the Patriots by 8, tweeted his congratulations after a first-ever overtime win. “What an amazing comeback and win by the Patriots. Tom Brady, Bob Kraft and Coach B are total winners. Wow! #SuperBowl -DJT.”

COOL VIDEO: Today’s cool video comes from Aviation Buzzword. It’s a surreal time-lapse taken at the “Boneyard,” officially the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona. The Boneyard is about 2,600 acres where about 5,000 retired military aircraft have gone to their final resting place.

THE RUNDOWN

Military Times: The U.S. military’s stats on deadly airstrikes are wrong. Thousands have gone unreported

Reuters: Trump agrees to meet NATO leaders in Europe in May

Associated Press: White House predicts courts will reinstate travel ban

BuzzFeed: Here’s How Iraqi Soldiers Fighting ISIS Feel About Trump’s Immigration Ban

Associated Press: Mattis rules out military response in South China Sea

Defense Daily: Navy To Issue Draft RFP For MQ-25 Carrier Drone In Spring

Defense One: The Right — and Wrong — Lessons of Trump’s Yemen Raid

Fox News: Iran uranium stockpile to be boosted by 60 percent since nuke deal, official says

Wall Street Journal: Al Qaeda Urges Followers to Hit Back at U.S. Following Yemen Raid

Military Times: The Navy SEALs and other secretive units are quietly battling a frightening rise in parachute deaths

UPI: Navy decommissions USS Enterprise aircraft carrier, ‘The Big E’

Wall Street Journal: Trump Administration Looks at Driving Wedge Between Russia and Iran

Calendar

MONDAY | FEBRUARY 6

1:30 p.m. 1789 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Sen. Tom Cotton speaks about renewing American strength abroad. Aei.org

4:30 p.m. Pentagon River Entrance: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis welcomes Canada’s Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan to the Pentagon.

TUESDAY | FEBRUARY 7

9 a.m. 1501 Lee Highway, Arlington, Va. Lt. Gen. Scott Rice, the director of the Air National Guard, speaks at an event for the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. mitchellaerospacepower.org

9:30 a.m. Senate Visitor’s Center 217. The Senate Armed Services Committee receives a closed briefing on cyber threats from Adm. Mike Rogers, the head of U.S. Cyber Command. armed-services.senate.gov

10 a.m. Dirksen 419. A panel of analysts testifies on the next steps in the fight against ISIS. foreign.senate.gov

10 a.m. Rayburn 2172. Think tank experts testify about what next steps the U.S. should take to counter the threat from North Korea. foreignaffairs.house.gov

10 a.m. Rayburn 2118. Each of the service’s vice chiefs testifies on the state of the military at the House Armed Services Committee. armedservices.house.gov

2:30 p.m. Hart 219. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence receives a closed briefing. intelligence.senate.gov

WEDNESDAY | FEBRUARY 8

2 p.m. 1211 Connecticut Ave. NW. The Stimson Center hosts an event examining the risks and rewards of President Trump’s new strategy toward Asia. stimson.org

2:30 p.m. Russell 232-A. The service’s vice chiefs testify at the Senate Armed Services Committee about the military’s readiness. armed-services.senate.gov

THURSDAY | FEBRUARY 9

9:30 a.m. Dirksen G-50. Gen. John Nicholson, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, provides the Senate Armed Services Committee an update on the fight there. armed-services.senate.gov

10 a.m. Dirksen 419. Experts from the Atlantic Council and the Center for New American Strategy testify on the challenges ahead in the relationship between Russia and the U.S. foreign.senate.gov

2 p.m. Hart 219. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence receives a closed briefing. intelligence.senate.gov