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August 30, 2007 PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. – North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command along with U.S. Pacific Command, the Department of Homeland Security as well as local, state and other federal responders will exercise their response abilities against a variety of potential threats during Exercise Vigilant Shield ‘08, a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff-designated, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM)-sponsored, and U.S. Joint Forces Command-supported Department of Defense exercise for homeland defense and defense support of civil authorities missions. VS-08 will be conducted concurrent with Top Officials 4...

The cease-fire in the Middle East has taken effect. The Air Force, Navy, artillery and other units were ordered to halt all offensive operations. Since fighting erupted 34 days ago, 166 Israelis were killed - 114 IDF soldiers and 52 civilians. While the ceasefire agreement was "fragile," the IDF planned to uphold its side to the agreement and to suspend all offensives against the guerrilla group Monday morning, a high-ranking officer in the Northern Command told The Jerusalem Post Sunday night. On Sunday, the IDF completed taking up positions along the Litani River in preparation for the ceasefire. IDF troops...

Rush continues broadcasting from the Northern Command in NYC(and its confiscatory tax rates) this week in the wake of hurricane Wilma.

...First, the blame game is missing the mark. George W. Bush is being accused by his natural enemies [b]ut his real error came long before Katrina, when he and Congress created a Department of Homeland Security.... After a disaster, politicians want to "do something." Striking back at U.S. enemies was essential and Mr. Bush did that against al Qaeda with the enthusiastic approval of Congress... giving free rein to Beltway gluttony.... That leads to lesson No. 2: If an agency is meant to cope with emergencies, don't put lawyers in charge.... In Mr. Brown's defense, lawyers are conditioned by training...

COLORADO SPRINGS -- The U.S. military has devised its first-ever war plans for guarding against and responding to terrorist attacks in the United States, envisioning 15 potential crisis scenarios and anticipating several simultaneous strikes around the country, according to officers who drafted the plans. The classified plans, developed here at Northern Command headquarters, outline a variety of possible roles for quick-reaction forces estimated at as many as 3,000 ground troops per attack, a number that could easily grow depending on the extent of the damage and the abilities of civilian response teams. The possible scenarios range from "low end," relatively...

Canada wants to opt out of NORAD’s Star Wars mission, which could foreshadow changes in the way the United States fights the war against terrorism. The two nations are negotiating the first post-Sept. 11 agreement for operation of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base. The United States wants NORAD to add monitoring of maritime and land threats to its 47-year-old mission of watching the skies and space. The U.S. also wants to add a system to shoot down enemy missiles. Canada’s decision to opt out of the missile defense system could be a sign...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The military plans to place a sixth ballistic missile interceptor inside a silo at Fort Greely by the end of the month, as initial tests of a national defense system critics contend is highly flawed near their conclusion. To prepare for activation, the military is conducting exercises at the Interior Alaska post, where five of the 55-foot-long rockets have been installed since July, as an essential component of the Bush administration's national security policy. The first two interceptors destined for Vandenberg Air Force Base in California will go into existing silos in November, with two more scheduled...

Operation Freedom Lodging Offers 1,000 Nights to Returning Troops Story Number: NNS040329-11Release Date: 3/29/2004 4:29:00 PMFrom North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command Public Affairs PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (NNS) -- Vail Resorts in Colorado is offering 1,000 free nights to service members who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, as part of “Operation Freedom Lodging." Members from any branch of service who served for 30 or more days in these countries are eligible for up to three consecutive nights of lodging at Vail Resorts-owned and -operated hotels in Breckenridge and Keystone. “Operation Freedom Lodging is a...

The dirigible, or airship, may be employed as a tool to detect potential attacks against the United States, DoD officials told House subcommittee members March 4. "We believe the best way to protect Americans is to defeat terrorists as far away from our homeland as we can," Air National Guard Maj. Gen. John A. Love said in his prepared testimony before the House Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee. Love is a senior officer with U.S. Northern Command, the unified command charged with defending the United States from land, air and sea attack. Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for...

The mission of homeland security is like playing an "away game and a home game," said the U.S. military's homeland defense commander. In war, just as in sports, it's the away game that you "want to win," but it is the home game that you "must win." Air Force Gen. Ralph Eberhart, head of U.S. Northern Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., used the analogy to explain his views on how to handle the nation's security challenges. He spoke Feb. 25 at the 2004 Armed Forces Communication and Electronics Association Homeland Security Conference here. Eberhart, who also heads the...

On Super Bowl Sunday Feb. 1, the U.S. military will be hard at work protecting players and fans alike. The North American Aerospace Defense Command and United States Northern Command are taking appropriate actions to deter and defeat any possible threats against Sunday's game and festivities, according to Mike Perini, both commands' director of public affairs. "The NORAD and USNORTHCOM staffs have reviewed possible scenarios surrounding Sunday's game and will be monitoring the various information sources to ensure they maintain the best possible situational awareness," said Perini. He noted that the two commands maintain constant vigilance and plan and execute...

  DoD Homeland Defense Official Convinced Terrorists Would Use WMD By Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample, USAAmerican Forces Press ServiceWASHINGTON, January 26, 2004 -- If al Qaeda and other terrorists were given even "half an opening," they would use weapons of mass destructions within the United States, said DoD's official responsible for homeland defense. Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, addresses members of the Reserve Officers Association Jan. 26 at the group's mid-winter meeting in Washington. McHale encouraged reserve officers to continue the fight against terrorism. Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample, USA(Click photo for...

<p>WASHINGTON — Pilots and air-traffic-control officials are expressing concern that U.S. fighter jets being deployed to escort some passenger flights could be creating unnecessary risks to commercial aviation.</p> <p>Military fighters have shadowed at least a dozen commercial flights since U.S. officials raised the nation's terror alert level on Dec. 21, two sources who track the operations said. Typically, fighters are used to keep an eye on flights that, for a range of reasons, have been deemed suspicious by U.S. counterterrorism and intelligence officials.</p>

Iraq and Afghanistan aside, the Bush administration has not lost sight of the goal of making the U.S. the premier nation in star wars weaponry, says James Ridgeway in his Mondo Washington column in the Village Voice. "We need to prepare for new forms of terrorism, to be sure," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in a post-9/11 speech, "but also attacks on U.S. space assets, cyber attacks on our information networks, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and nuclear, chemical and biological weapons." And the president stands foursquare behind his hard-charging secretary of defense. Fresh in office, Bush outlined his ambitious...

While speaking at a geo-spatial intelligence conference, Lieutenant General Edward Anderson, deputy commander of U.S. Northern Command, stated, "In my view it will not be long before space becomes a battleground," reported the Sydney Morning Herald. "Our military forces ... depend very, very heavily on space capabilities, and so that is a statement of the obvious to our potential threat, whoever that may be," Anderson said. "They [China] can see that one of the ways that they can certainly diminish our capabilities will be to attack the space systems," said Anderson, who was formerly with U.S. Space Command. The China...

  First ground-based Midcourse Defense Brigade activatedBy Maj. Laura Kennedy PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (Army News Service, Oct. 23, 2003) – U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command and the Colorado Army National Guard activated the nation’s first ground-based Midcourse Defense Brigade Oct. 16. The brigade will operate the first part of the integrated Ballistic Missile Defense System, which, in concert with sister services, is designed to protect the nation from accidental or intentional limited ballistic missile attacks, officials said. It will be manned both by Colorado Army National Guard and active-component soldiers. The brigade will provide expertise...

Space may become a war zone in the not-too-distant future, a senior US military officer said today, hours after China became only the third country after the US and the former Soviet Union to put a man in space. "In my view it will not be long before space becomes a battleground," Lieutenant General Edward Anderson, deputy commander of US Northern Command, said in response to a question at a geospatial intelligence conference in New Orleans. "Our military forces ... depend very, very heavily on space capabilities, and so that is a statement of the obvious to our potential threat,...

WASHINGTON Oct. 3 — Pentagon officials said Thursday they worry that terrorists are trying to infiltrate the U.S. military and may have done so at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Three workers at the prison, including two members of the military, have been arrested on suspicion of espionage at the high-security base. It is unclear whether the men were connected to or part of any terrorist plot, the commander in charge of homeland security said. "I'm hoping we're going to find these are unusual, these are few and far between, that this isn't some large cell," said Gen....

Military Ready to Shoot Down Airliners - U.S. General By Charles Aldinger WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Air Force pilots practice weekly and are psychologically ready to shoot down civilian airliners in any new attack on America like Sept. 11, the general in charge of domestic defense said on Thursday. The chief of the U.S. military's Northern Command also said better cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration and other agencies had minimized the risk of downing an innocent civilian passenger jet. "We practice it several times a week. Sometimes we practice three or four times a week -- the connectivity and...

US Military Practices Shooting Down Airliners - General WASHINGTON (AP)--The U.S. military practices at least twice each week for the nightmare scenario of having to shoot down a civilian airliner hijacked by terrorists, the commander of forces in North America said Thursday. Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart, head of U.S. Northern Command, said a strong set of safeguards are in place to prevent an accidental or unwarranted shootdown of a commercial airplane. Commanders, pilots and air defense crews are drilled on those procedures as many as four times each week, Eberhart said. The rules allow for an order to shoot down...