Friday, June 10, 2016

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Obama approves larger role for US forces in Afghanistan


After months of debate, the White House has approved plans to expand the military's authority to conduct airstrikes against the Taliban when necessary, as the violence in Afghanistan escalates, senior U.S. and defense officials said Thursday.

Several officials said the decision was made in recent days to expand the authority of U.S. commanders to strike the Taliban and better support and assist the Afghan forces when needed in critical operations, using the U.S. troops already in the country. There is a broad desire across the Obama administration to give the military greater ability to help the Afghans fight and win the war.

The 9,800 U.S. troops still in Afghanistan, however, would still not be involved in direct combat.

The officials were not authorized to talk publicly about the discussions so spoke on condition of anonymity.

The decision comes as the Afghans struggle with a resurgent Taliban, particularly in the south. But it is fraught with political sensitivities because President Barack Obama had made clear his commitment to get U.S. forces out of Afghanistan. That effort, however, has been stalled by the slow pace of the development of the Afghan military and the resilience of the Taliban.

The decision will give U.S. forces greater flexibility in how they partner with Afghan forces, but the new authorities must be used in selective operations that are deemed to have a strategic and important effect on the fight.

The Taliban are refocusing their attention mostly on the southern provinces of Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan, according to U.S. and Afghan military officials, although the insurgents also have struck elsewhere, such as in Kunduz province in the north, where they overran and held the provincial capital for a few days last fall.

The results have been daunting: The U.N. says 3,545 Afghan civilians were killed and 7,457 wounded in 2015, most of them by the Taliban.

The U.S. has continued to conduct counterterrorism strikes against Al Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS) militants in Afghanistan. But strikes against the Taliban were largely halted at the end of 2014, when the U.S.-led coalition's combat role ended. Limited strikes have been allowed in cases of self-defense or when Afghan forces were in danger of being overrun.

Gen. John Nicholson, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has discussed with Defense Secretary Ash Carter his recommendations for moves the U.S. can make to further assist the Afghans. And there have been repeated conversations with the White House in recent weeks.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook, asked Thursday whether the administration was looking at expanding the U.S. military's authorities to strike the Taliban more broadly, said: "In every step of our review of Afghanistan, the question of what's the best way to use our forces is something we're constantly looking at. It's also in the same sense that we're looking at the number of troops. We are always looking at the authorities question and the best use of our troops."
Nicholson's predecessor, Gen. John Campbell, made it known before he left Kabul in March that he believed Carter should consider expanding U.S. military authorities to take on the Taliban.

As an example, U.S. troops are able to partner with Afghan special operations forces, but this new decision would allow commanders to have U.S. troops work more closely with conventional Afghan units in critical battles, including providing close air support or helping to call in strikes. Officials stressed that this will not allow routine U.S. airstrikes against the Taliban, just provide authority to take those actions when commanders believe they are vital to the fight.

Also under discussion is whether the U.S. should reduce the number of American troops in Afghanistan to 5,500 as planned by the end of this year, or if a higher number is needed. Campbell favored keeping the troop level at the current total of 9,800 into next year.

U.S. officials have insisted they are encouraged by the Afghan forces' resilience, despite their high rate of battlefield casualties. And they point to the Taliban's loss of its leader, Mullah Mohammed Akhtar Mansour, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in late May in Pakistan.

The U.S. and NATO formally ended their combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of 2014, but have continued to provide support and assistance as the Afghan forces struggle to grow and gain greater capabilities, including in their air operations.

Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland said last week that Nicholson was sending his assessment of the ongoing security threat there and the needs of the Afghan military to U.S. Central Command and to the Pentagon, and was expected to brief senior military leaders soon afterward.

Emails at center of Clinton FBI probe focused on drone strikes, report says


A series of emails between American diplomats in Pakistan and Washington over drone strikes are the focus of the criminal probe involving presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information, according to a report Thursday by The Wall Street Journal.
The emails in 2011 and 2012 were sent through a "computer system for unclassified matters" that gave the State Department input into whether a Central Intelligence Agency drone strike went forward, congressional and law enforcement officials briefed on the FBI probe told the Journal.
Some of those emails were then sent by then-Secretary of State Clinton's aides to her personal email account and private server, officials told the Journal.
The vaguely worded messages, however, didn’t mention the “CIA,” “drones” or details about the targets, the Journal reported.
The emails were written within the often-narrow time frame in which State Department officials had to decide whether or not to object to drone strikes before the CIA pulled the trigger, officials told the newspaper. The still-secret emails are still a part of the ongoing FBI investigation.
In January, the intelligence community deemed some of Clinton’s emails “too damaging" to national security to release under any circumstances,  a U.S. government official close to the ongoing review told Fox News. A second source, who was not authorized to speak on the record, backed up the finding.
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The determination was first reported by Fox News, before the State Department formally announced that seven email chains, found in 22 documents, will be withheld “in full” because they, in fact, contain “Top Secret” information.
Law-enforcement and intelligence officials told the Wall Street Journal that State Department deliberations about the covert CIA drone program should have been conducted over a more secure government computer system designed to handle classified information.
State Department officials told FBI investigators they communicated via the less-secure system on a few instances, sources told the Wall Street Journal, which happened when decisions about imminent strikes had to be relayed fast and the U.S. diplomats in Pakistan or Washington didn’t have ready access to a more-secure system, either because it was night or they were traveling.
Emails sent over the unclassified computer system sometimes were informal discussions that occurred in addition to more-formal notifications through secure communications, the officials said.
One exchange reported by the Journal came before Christmas in 2011 when the U.S. ambassador sent a note about a planned strike that sparked an email chain between Clinton's senior advisers. Officials said the exchange was clear those involved in the email were having discussions because they were away from their officials and didn't have access to a classified computer.

Fox News Poll: Majority thinks Clinton is lying about emails


American voters think Hillary Clinton put national security at risk by mishandling classified emails -- and that she’s lying about it.
By a 60-27 percent margin, they think she’s lying about how her emails were handled while she was secretary of state, according to the latest Fox News national poll of registered voters.  
And by 57-32 percent, voters say U.S. safety was at risk because of Clinton’s mishandling of national secrets.
“Clinton’s explanations are clearly not cutting it with voters,” says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News Poll along with Democratic pollster Chris Anderson.
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“This issue continues to act as a drag on her personal ratings.”
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Over half of voters feel Clinton lacks the integrity to serve effectively as president (54 percent), and nearly 6-in-10 have an unfavorable opinion of her (56 percent).
Roughly one third of self-identified Democrats think Clinton is lying about her emails (35 percent) and put national security at risk (32 percent).
Twenty-seven percent of those backing Clinton over Republican Donald Trump in the presidential race think she’s lying about her emails.
The State Department Inspector General concluded May 25 that Clinton failed to comply with department policies by using a private email server.
“The question is whether beliefs about Clinton’s handling of emails are already fully baked into perceptions of her, or if the issue can drag her down further,” says Anderson.
“Her emails must be the most talked about in the history of emails.  Some voters are certainly bored with the issue and tuning it out.”
Views on this issue are holding steady.  Earlier this year, 60 percent said Clinton had mishandled classified emails (February 2016).  And 58 percent felt she was lying about it in September (the last time the question was asked on a Fox News Poll).
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cellphone interviews with 1,004 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from June 5-8, 2016.  The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters.

Dozens of lawsuits accuse Trump of not paying his bills, reports claim


Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been sued at least 60 times by individuals and businesses who accuse him of failing to pay for work done at his various properties, according to two published reports.
USA Today also reported, citing data from the Department of Labor, that two of Trump's now-defunct businesses were cited 24 times beginning in 2005 for failing to pay overtime or minimum wage. The cases were settled when the companies — the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City and Trump Mortgage LLC — agreed to pay back wages.
The paper also reported that more than 200 liens have been filed against Trump or his businesses by contractors and employees dating back to the 1980s. The claimants include curtain makers, chandelier shops, cabinet makers and even Trump's lawyers who represented him in prior cases.
Trump told USA Today that he only withheld payment from contractors if he wasn't pleased with their work.
"Let’s say that they do a job that’s not good, or a job that they didn’t finish, or a job that was way late. I’ll deduct from their contract, absolutely,” Trump said. “That’s what the country should be doing."
The USA Today report cited one case involving a 1990 project at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, during which New Jersey regulators found that Trump had failed to pay at least 253 subcontractors in full or on time.
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In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, former Trump Plaza president Jack O'Connell said Trump made withholding payment a part of his business strategy.
"Part of how he did business as a philosophy was to negotiate the best price he could," O'Connell said. "And then when it came time to pay the bills," Trump would say "'I’m going to pay you but I’m going to pay you 75% of what we agreed to.'"
O'Connell added that Trump Plaza executives used to pay vendors in full despite their boss's orders, saying "it used to infuriate him."
More recently, USA Today reported that the management company behind Trump National Doral Miami settled with 48 servers who sued for unpaid overtime after working a 10-day Passover event. The average settlement for each worker was $800.
Also last month, a Florida judge ordered that the resort be foreclosed on and sold to pay a painter more than $30,000 for his work as part of a Doral renovation more than two years ago. In that case, the manager of the contractor behind the renovation testified that the painter was not paid because Trump had "already paid enough."
In his ruling, the judge noted that Trump's attorneys "visibly winced, began breathing heavily, and attempted to make eye contact" with the witness. Those attorneys have since filed a motion to delay the sale.

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