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Former Obama administration official Anne Patterson raising concerns Opposition is mounting on Capitol Hill and in conservative foreign policy circles over Defense Secretary James Mattis's efforts to hire a former Obama administration official who lobbied in favor of engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood and spearheaded efforts to criticize Israeli counter-terrorism efforts, according to multiple sources close to the Trump administration. Mattis is lobbying to hire former diplomat Anne Patterson as undersecretary of defense for policy, according to multiple reports, a position that would make her the third most powerful voice at the Defense Department. Multiple sources on Capitol Hill and...

Why Is General Mattis Nominating the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’s Stooge’? A familiar face from the Obama disaster in Egypt. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’ pick for undersecretary of defense for policy, Anne Patterson, is problematic. Politico briefly explains why: If nominated and confirmed, Patterson would hold the fourth most powerful position at the Pentagon -- and would effectively be the top civilian in the Defense Department, since both Mattis and his deputy, Robert Work, were military officers. As ambassador to Egypt between 2011 and 2013, Patterson worked closely with former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and his Islamist government. She came under...

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’ pick for undersecretary of defense for policy, Anne Patterson, is problematic. Politico briefly explains why: If nominated and confirmed, Patterson would hold the fourth most powerful position at the Pentagon -- and would effectively be the top civilian in the Defense Department, since both Mattis and his deputy, Robert Work, were military officers. As ambassador to Egypt between 2011 and 2013, Patterson worked closely with former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and his Islamist government. She came under fire for cultivating too close a relationship with the regime and for discouraging protests against it -- and...

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis’ pick for undersecretary of defense for policy, Anne Patterson, is problematic. Politico briefly explains why: If nominated and confirmed, Patterson would hold the fourth most powerful position at the Pentagon -- and would effectively be the top civilian in the Defense Department, since both Mattis and his deputy, Robert Work, were military officers. As ambassador to Egypt between 2011 and 2013, Patterson worked closely with former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and his Islamist government. She came under fire for cultivating too close a relationship with the regime and for discouraging protests against it -- and...

Very odd, even more so than Mattis reportedly asking Michele Fluornoy to be his undersecretary at the Pentagon. (She turned him down, allegedly because implementing some of Trump’s policies would conflict with her “values.”) Fluornoy’s also an Obama alum but she’s a respected defense expert and was considered for Mattis’s position under Obama. Had Hillary won in November, Fluornoy would almost certainly be SecDef right now, the first woman ever to lead the department. Mattis might have reasonably concluded that the value of her expertise outweighed her political liabilities. But what’s the argument for appointing Anne Patterson? She’s a lifelong...

The White House is considering granting the Pentagon more authority to launch time-sensitive anti-terrorism operations, which would give Defense Secretary James Mattis a freer hand to authorize raids against the Islamic State. President Donald Trump has indicated he wants Mattis to have the ability to launch raids quickly without necessarily needing White House approval as part of the administration's effort to fight ISIS, the Daily Beast reported Wednesday, citing U.S. officials. This policy change would be a stark contrast to the approach of Trump's predecessor, former President Barack Obama, who insisted on reviewing each anti-terrorism raid regardless of its time...

You may recall from the 2016 campaign trail that many of our media mavens lectured then candidate Donald Trump about his plans to bully our NATO allies into paying their fair share of defense costs. This was widely viewed in liberal circles as an unreasonable attitude, with some even suggesting that it could discount America’s place as a global leader. It turns out that, yet again, President Trump decided to make good on his promise when he sent his new Secretary of Defense across the pond to deliver precisely that message. (Washington Post) Defense Secretary Jim Mattis issued an ultimatum...

A Pentagon-led preliminary plan to defeat Islamic State has been delivered to the White House and U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will brief senior administration officials later on Monday, a Defense Department spokesman told reporters. Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told reporters that it was the framework for a broader plan and looked at Islamic State around the world, not just Iraq and Syria. Davis said the plan would define what defeating Islamic State meant and was one that would rapidly defeat the militant group. He added that Mattis would discuss the plan, which is primarily a written one with...

Iraqi forces and U.S. coalition troops are no longer burdened by strict rules of engagement, which some say have turned firepower requests into bureaucratic nightmares. U.S. Army Lt. Col. James Browning, commander of 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, recently spoke with reporters about a Dec. 26 directive that streamlined the process of delivering aid. The order, attributed to U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, was confirmed on Thursday by Air Force Col. John Dorrian, the U.S.-led coalition’s spokesman. “It changed the relationship [between forces],” Lt. Col. Browning told The Associated Press about...

Holdovers from the Obama administration in the Pentagon are hampering efforts to fix the military’s major readiness problem, leaving Secretary of Defense James Mattis alone in his efforts to properly equip U.S. forces, according to the chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services. “I am concerned that … to fix these problems [it] is going to take a lot more money, and yet a lot of the folks who are coming up with the budget to fix them are the same people who have been fighting every step of the way against our efforts to fix these problems,” said...

Secretary of Defense James Mattis reaffirmed U.S. commitment to NATO Wednesday, CNN reported, but warned other member nations they must meet the alliance’s financial requirements or that commitment could be moderated. Mattis met with defense officials from the 27 other NATO member nations in Brussels and made his first address to the alliance as U.S. defense secretary. In the speech, he called the NATO alliance the “fundamental bedrock for the U.S. and all the transatlantic community,” according to CNN. However, because only five of the member nations currently meet the spending target — 2 percent of their gross domestic product...

Of all Trump’s policy unorthodoxies, demanding that Europe boost defense spending is the most justifiable. Among 28 members, just five — five — complied with the NATO guideline last year of devoting two percent of GDP to defense.Now here’s Mattis earlier today in Brussels with a message that came straight from the boss: “I owe it to you all to give you clarity on the political reality in the United States and to state the fair demand from my country’s people in concrete terms,” Mattis said. “America will meet its responsibilities, but if your nations do not want to...

Pentagon chief Mattis tells NATO allies to increase defense spending by year’s end or US will ‘moderate its commitment’

“I do not fear Trump. We must thank the new American president because he showed the real face of America and because he exposed what we have been saying for decades about the political, moral and economic corruption in it.” This is the recent statement made by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei against the newly-elected US administration. Yes, we’re passing through a new phase. There has been a major transformation following the reactive years of isolationism which show the depth of the roots that America has returned to in terms of engaging with world crises and contributing to managing...

If I ever get captured and threatened with torture it will take about five seconds for me to give up every secret I have. That’s because I know I would break eventually, so why put up with unnecessary torture? I assume the same is true for the lightly-trained ISIS fighters. Some are just teenagers. Once the bravery-inducing drugs in their system wear off, I have to assume that at least some of them – if not most – would become quite flexible under the threat of torture, not to mention the torture itself. But won’t they lie? Well, in many...

Secretary of Defense James Mattis has issued his initial campaign plan for rebuilding America's military, pursuant to a presidential directive signed January 27. If Congress provides necessary funding, the Mattis plan would reverse a steady erosion of the joint force's warfighting edge that resulted from caps on military spending during the Obama years. In fact, the plan may usher in a surge of spending on new military technology unlike anything seen since the Reagan years. All four of the military services General Mattis oversees would get a boost, but the biggest beneficiary during President Trump's tenure will be the service...

BEIJING — The U.S. is putting regional stability in East Asia at risk, a Chinese spokesman said Saturday following remarks by President Donald Trump's defense secretary that a U.S. commitment to defend Japanese territory applies to an island group that China claims. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang on Saturday called on the U.S. to avoid discussion of the issue and reasserted China's claim of sovereignty over the tiny uninhabited islands, known in Japanese as the Senkaku and Chinese as Diaoyu. The 1960 U.S.-Japan treaty is "a product of the Cold War, which should not impair China's territorial sovereignty and...

Any North Korean attack on an American ally will meet with an "overwhelming" counterattack from the United States, particularly if the regime uses nuclear weapons. "Due to some of the provocations out of North Korea and other challenges that we jointly face, I want to make certain that Article Five of our mutual defense treaty is understood to be as real to us today as it was a year ago, five years ago and as it will be a year and 10 years from now," Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters before a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe...

(2nd LD) U.S. defense chief in Seoul for talks over North Korea (ATTN: ADDS Mattis' meetings in 4th para, USFK Commander Gen. Vincent Brooks comment in last 2 paras) SEOUL, Feb. 2 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Thursday began his two-day visit to South Korea in his first overseas trip aimed at underscoring the U.S. security commitment to the Asian ally amid growing threats from North Korea. After landing at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, at 12:30 p.m., Mattis headed to the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) headquarters in Yongsan, Seoul, according to...

As a point of law, Mattis has no authority himself under Trump’s order to grant visas. That falls to DHS and the State Department under section 3(g), although it would be … weird if any of the Pentagon’s recommendations for exemptions from the travel ban were to be turned down.Mattis reportedly wasn’t consulted while the order was being drafted, which may help explain his (alleged) annoyance at it. Two thumbs up for the crack Trump political team in cutting the single most respected member of their natsec team out of the policymaking process. I wonder how many more Bannon-style...