Free Republic

The Biden administration is finalizing plans to send the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine that could be announced as soon as this week, according to two US officials and a senior administration official. The Pentagon’s plan still needs to be approved by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin before it is sent to President Joe Biden for his signature. The three officials told CNN that approval is expected. Ukraine has been calling for the US to send the advanced long-range air defense system that is highly effective at intercepting ballistic and cruise missiles as it comes under a barrage of Russian...

Washington (CNN)On the same night the US killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani, the US unsuccessfully targeted another senior Iranian military official in Yemen, according to a US official with knowledge of the events and another source familiar. The sources would not give any details about the mission or how the US had attempted to carry it out. The US official said to the best of their knowledge there is no broader operation to decapitate the IRGC-Quds force leadership at this time. The Washington Post was first to report the operation took place. According to the Post, the Iranian target was...

The top US general said Monday a letter suggesting the US would withdraw troops from Iraq was released by mistake and poorly worded, telling reporters "that's not what's happening." Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley sought to address the confusion that began after the leak of aletter to the Iraqi government from US Command in Baghdad suggesting US troops would be withdrawn from the country. "That letter is a draft. It was a mistake, it was unsigned, it should not have been released ... (it was) poorly worded, implies withdrawal, that is not what's happening," Milley...

The commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces told a senior US diplomat, "You are leaving us to be slaughtered," demanding to know whether the US is going to do anything to protect Syrian Kurds as Turkey continues its military operation targeting America's Kurdish allies in Syria. "You have given up on us. You are leaving us to be slaughtered," Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi told the Deputy Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, William Roebuck, in a meeting Thursday, according to an internal US government readout that has been obtained exclusively by CNN. "You are not willing...

In the hours before the attack on the two tankers in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday, the Iranians spotted a US drone flying overhead and launched a surface-to-air missile at the unmanned aircraft, a US official told CNN. The missile missed the drone and fell into the water, the official said. Prior to taking fire, the American MQ-9 drone observed Iranian vessels closing in on the tankers, the official added, though the source did not say whether the unmanned aircraft saw the boats conducting an actual attack.

The tension between President Donald Trump's bellicose rhetoric and his non-interventionist foreign policy instincts was on full display Thursday afternoon as he huddled in the Situation Room. Lawmakers in the room watched as the weight of his duties as commander-in-chief bore down on him, lives hanging in the balance. Trump did not tip his hand on which way he was leaning, focusing instead on "drilling down" on the differing perspectives and arguments leveled by the assembled lawmakers, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman James Risch said. But it was clear, the Idaho Republican said, that Trump is a president who "doesn't want...

The US Navy acknowledged Friday that a request had been made regarding the USS John S. McCain in relation to President Donald Trump's visit to Japan, but said the ship ended up remaining in its normal configuration. The statement continues a saga stemming from emails exchanged between the White House and lower-level US Navy officials about keeping a warship named for the late Sen. John McCain's father and grandfather out of sight ahead of the President's trip. "A request was made to the U.S. Navy to minimize the visibility of USS John S. McCain, however, all ships remained in their...

During President Trump’s surprise visit to Al Asad Airbase in Iraq to celebrate Christmas with the U.S. troops there, he rubbed shoulders with America’s finest as he took selfies and signed autographs for them. Some of those autographs were signed on the iconic “Make America Great Again” hats that some soldiers reportedly brought to him. For any other president it would be treated a fun and warm moment, but not for this one and not if CNN had anything to say about it. During Wednesday’s edition of The Situation Room, fill-in host and chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta, seemingly...

Along with Jim AcostaÂ’s near-daily antics, Wednesday and Thursday served as another example of how far too many at CNN need to be told to get a life. ThursdayÂ’s Inside Politics led off with more kvetching about every aspect of President Donald TrumpÂ’s surprise visit to U.S. troops in Germany and Iraq, including how he didnÂ’t meet with the Iraqi Prime Minister. Conveniently, the panel downplayed the broader and positive symbolism of having a President visit troops and footnoted the similarities between Trump and predecessor Barack Obama in not meeting face-to-face with Iraqi leaders. CNN Still Bashing Trump for Iraq...

Washington (CNN)A number of cruise missiles launched from a Russian ship and aimed at targets in Syria have crashed in Iran, two U.S. officials told CNN Thursday. Monitoring by U.S. military and intelligence assets has concluded that at least four missiles crashed as they flew over Iran. One official said there may be casualties, but another official said this is not yet known.

Estimates of the number of fighters in the ranks of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) are extraordinarily wide-ranging. On the low end of things, CNN’s Barbara Starr recently reported that “U.S. intelligence estimates that ISIL has a total force of somewhere between 9,000 to 18,000 fighters.” In late 2014, the CIA’s estimate of ISIL’s numbers was slightly higher, as its analysts assessed that the group had between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters between its Iraq and Syria holdings. Other estimates are far higher. Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, has said...

Washington (CNN)White House officials pressured Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to increase the pace of detainee transfers from the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, the outgoing secretary acknowledged to CNN's Barbara Starr in an interview Friday. "Not everyone at the White House has agreed with me," said Hagel of his methodology for deciding on detainee releases. Disagreements between Hagel and officials in the President's inner circle have been widely reported during his short tenure as secretary of defense. But in his interview with CNN, Hagel spoke with uncharacteristic candor about friction related to the prisoner release. "We've had a lot...

The head of the opposition Free Syria Army, General Salim Idriss, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday that he has intelligence that the Assad regime is moving its chemical weapons out of the country. “Today we have information that the regime began to move chemical materials and chemical weapons to Lebanon and to Iraq,” General Idriss told Amanpour from inside Syria. It’s a huge claim that would fundamentally shift everything U.S. intelligence officials have in the past said they believe about the situation in Syria, CNN Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr reports.