OVERNIGHT DEFENSE: Taliban floats prisoner deal

“They have to be a part of the negotiations,” said Senate
Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

“That’s done at the completion of an agreement,” said Sen.
John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former prisoner of war. “I’m opposed now.”

{mosads}The talks with the Taliban were already in jeopardy after
the new office in Doha flew the flag and a sign that read the “Political Office
of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” the name of the Taliban government in
power before 2001.

The sign was changed to the “Political office of the
Taliban,” The Associated Press reported, in an effort to get Karzai back on
board. 

Talks ‘worth the
risk,’ Hagel says: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Thursday defended the
administration’s decision to launch peace talks with the Taliban, saying the
move was “worth the risk” and could ease the withdrawal of U.S. forces out of
Afghanistan.

“We’ve always supported a peaceful resolution to the end of
the bloodshed in the war in Afghanistan,” said Hagel in a speech at the
University of Nebraska Wednesday evening. “I think it’s worth the
risk.”

Hagel cautioned that Taliban leaders would have to
“agree to certain things” before Washington would sit down at the
table.

Hagel said Karzai would have to play a key role in the talks,
insisting that any effort to broker a deal with the Taliban “can’t be done
without President Karzai [or] without the government of Afghanistan.”

Prior to announcing the Taliban talks, U.S. officials had
said Kabul would take the lead in peace negotiations with the terror group,
working off a plan drafted by the Karzai administration.

Obama downplayed the rift on Wednesday, insisting that
Karzai had been kept in the loop about plans for formal peace talks with the
Taliban.

Contractor
investigated over background checks: The contractor that conducted a
background check of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden is under investigation by the
Office of Personnel Management inspector general, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.)
said Thursday.

McCaskill disclosed the IG investigation into USIS, a Falls
Church, Va.-based contractor, at a Senate hearing on security clearances
Thursday.

She said the IG had opened up an investigation in 2011 over
a systematic failure of the company to conduct proper investigations, and the
review covered the period that Snowden received a re-investigation for his
security clearance.

IG officials testifying confirmed there was an
investigation, although they would not say if it had risen to a criminal level.
They said the investigation was initiated after Snowden’s background check was
conducted.

The company said in a statement it has “never been informed
that it is under criminal investigation.”

“In January 2012, USIS received a subpoena for records” from
the IG, the company said, and it complied with the subpoena.

Nelson demands
investigations into contractor clearances: In another front on the security
clearance-contractor debate that’s been raised in the wake of Snowden’s leaks, Sen.
Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is demanding congressional investigations into the
clearance processes for civilian contractors.

Nelson said he has questions over how a military contractor
gained top-secret clearance after a previous fraud conviction.

The 2008 case of Scott Allan Bennett, a Booz Allen Hamilton
contractor who got top-secret clearance after being convicted of lying to
government officials, raises “serious quality control questions” for
the defense and intelligence community, Nelson said in a letter to Senate
Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

“We may need legislation to limit or prevent certain
contractors from handling highly classified and technical data,” he said,
in light of the Bennett case and that of Edward Snowden, the National Security
Agency contractor who illegally leaked details of the agency’s domestic
intelligence programs.

Further, the Florida Democrat is demanding a congressional
investigation into how private contractors vet and grant top-secret or higher
levels of clearance to their employees.

Snowden, who also was a contractor with Booz Allen while at
the NSA, leaked classified details of two previously unknown domestic
intelligence programs to the media earlier this month.

After the disclosures, Feinstein told reporters she would
push for legislation to limit the access that federal contractors have to
highly classified information.

In Case You Missed It:

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