“Department of Defense” on The Daily Caller

The military’s personnel chief is under fire from Pentagon whistleblowers who have charged Clifford Stanley with incompetence, extravagant spending, cronyism and “tyrannical” management. (more)

Congress could create an off-budget “Warrior Fix” to defuse deep Pentagon spending cuts if there’s a November deadlock in the 12-member Joint Committee of Congress created by the debt ceiling deal signed into law today. (more)

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon began grappling on Monday with the possibility that it will have to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the military budget over the next decade, but there were so few details in the debt ceiling deal reached by the White House and Congress that confusion over the actual size of the reductions was rampant. (more)

The U.S. Department of Defense was unable to account properly for $8.7 billion of Iraqi oil and gas money meant for humanitarian needs and reconstruction after the 2003 invasion, according to an audit released on Tuesday. (more)

The U.S. military has met or exceeded most of its troop recruitment and retention goals for the present fiscal year through the end of May, the Department of Defense said on Tuesday. (more)

Having been unanimously confirmed for the job of secretary of defense by the United States Senate, Leon Panetta has a big job on his hands. (more)

America is at risk of losing its global supremacy, says departing Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a Newsweek article released Sunday. (more)

President Obama will nominate Leon Panetta to replace Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense and Gen. David H. Petraeus to become CIA Director, according to press reports Wednesday. The shuffling is the first in what is expected to be a complete restructuring of the national security team in the Obama Administration. (more)

(Reuters) – In what officials admit is a major breach of security, a document describing design features intended to make a new Defense Department building bomb-resistant has been posted on a public government website. (more)

BAGHDAD (AP) — Even with the burdens of combat in Afghanistan and unrest in the Arab world, the U.S. would keep American troops in Iraq beyond the agreed 2011 final withdrawal date if Iraq’s government asked for extra help, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday. (more)

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates tried to smooth the worst rift in years with Arab ally and oil producer Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, reassuring the Saudi king that the U.S. remains a steady friend despite support for pro-democracy revolutions in the Middle East. (more)

U.S. military operations in Libya could wipe out a significant chunk of the budget cuts won by congressional Republicans in recent weeks, defense analysts say. (more)

I just received a banking alert telling me that my account was overdrawn by $14.87. Since the overdraft fee of $35 has already been deducted, it’s kind of a day late and more than a few bucks short. As with many people facing a household budget deficit, I now need to figure out, line by line, where all my cash is going and what I can eliminate. Face it, it could be worse . . . I could be in the hole for, like $223 billion. Maybe I should just ask Bank of America to raise my bond rating? (more)

For the Pentagon, Senate appropriators’ 2011 defense spending measure is a mixed bag. (more)

Having been engaged in government acquisition issues for more than 50 years, I am befuddled by the debate in Washington over competing engines for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). (more)

President Barack Obama is recommending more spending on the Department of Defense in his fiscal year 2012 budget than House Republicans pushed for in the Continuing Resolution (CR), which keeps the government running through the rest of this fiscal year. (more)

Pivotal moments for a presidency rarely happen on a schedule: acts of terrorism, natural disasters, and sudden financial crises are usually the kind of events that intervene to dominate a political era. Yet, Monday’s release of the president’s new budget could end up being one of those moments that set a new course for our nation’s fiscal and economic future. (more)

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was thought to be many things during the Bush administration: stubborn visionary of Pentagon reform, sender of “snowflake” memos and, by his left-wing critics, evil war monger. (more)

Everyone agrees that there’s a lot of waste in Washington. Unfortunately, no one seems able to agree on what that waste is. One man’s pork project is another man’s lifeblood. When it comes to government spending, we have the equivalent of NIMBY, or Not In My Back Yard, except it’s Not In My District — no waste here. That’s why the self-imposed earmark moratorium is a minor miracle. But earmarks are only a snowflake hovering over the tip of the spending iceberg. (more)

Ohio Democrat Rep. Dennis Kucinich sent a letter Friday requesting a meeting with Bradley Manning, the imprisoned Army private who allegedly stole classified government documents that were eventually published by the website Wikileaks. (more)