J POST– Despite freezing funding for most aspects of the US government at 2010 levels, the US House agreed Wednesday evening to increase military aid to Israel.Most significantly, the House added $205 million in first-time funding for the Iron Dome project, a short-range rocket defense system. The money was pledged by President Barack Obama last May, but had been stalled … Read More
DAILY BEAST– Nobel Prize recipient Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard budget guru Linda J. Bilmes are revising their original $3 trillion war cost estimate. As Bilmes reports, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are at least 25 percent costlier than previous projections. As Election Day draws near, it’s pretty clear: Voters are worried about jobs, the budget deficit and the rising national … Read More
GUARDIAN– Barack Obama is to go ahead with plans to sell Saudi Arabia advanced aircraft and other weapons worth up to $60bn (£39bn), the biggest arms deal in US history, in a strategy of shoring up Gulf Arab allies to face any military threat from Iran. According to the Wall Street Journal, the administration is also in talks with the … Read More
BUZZFLASH– The August 9 announcement by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates of cost-containment measures at the Defense Department should not obscure two underlying facts. First, as he conceded, these proposed economies will not result in cutting the overall Pentagon budget, which is slated for expansion. And, second, as a Washington Post article reported, “defense officials characterized them as a political … Read More
WASHINGTON POST– The CIA is making secret payments to multiple members of President Hamid Karzai’s administration, in part to maintain sources of information in a government in which the Afghan leader is often seen as having a limited grasp of developments, according to current and former U.S. officials. The payments are long-standing in many cases and designed to help the … Read More
