OVERNIGHT DEFENSE: Afghan war enters 13th year

by Jeremy Herb - 10/07/13 10:32 PM ET

Karzai said the Afghan government is willing to walk away from a proposed U.S. postwar plan, raising the spectre of zero American forces in country after the 2014 withdrawal deadline.

Most recently, the Karzai administration said U.S. plans to keep American special forces and intelligence officials in the country after 2014 for counterterrorism operations would be a deal-breaker.

{mosads}The security pact being debated, known as a bilateral security agreement (BSA), will lay the groundwork for a postwar American force and grant legal immunity for U.S. troops.

Lack of an immunity deal for U.S. troops was a crucial factor in the failed attempt to set up a postwar security deal in Iraq. The complete exit of U.S. troops set the stage for the recent wave of sectarian violence against Iraqi forces and civilians in the country.

White House officials have said a BSA and U.S. postwar presence in Afghanistan would be critical to the eventual American drawdown.

But Karzai said Monday he is willing to let that fall by the wayside, if his demands are not met.

“If it doesn’t suit us and if it doesn’t suit them then, naturally we will go separate ways,” he told the BBC.

Pentagon civilians
return to work: Defense Department civilians were back at their posts
across the globe on Monday after the Pentagon said this weekend it would recall
more than 90 percent of the 350,000 civilian workers furloughed due to the
shutdown.

The Pentagon still didn’t have exact numbers on how many
civilians would remain furloughed, but said that it would be “no more than a
few tens of thousands.”

Those still affected include those in public affairs and
legislative affairs, as well as those who work on audits.

But for the majority of civilians, Monday was a return to
near-normal amid the government shutdown. And for service members, it also
meant the return of services that had been shuttered, like commissaries and a full
slate of television programming, including NFL football and MLB baseball playoffs,
from the American Forces Network.

Service members and civilians who are working will also be paid
regularly during the shutdown.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s move Saturday to bring back
most civilians makes the Pentagon — the agency with the most federal workers furloughed
when the government shutdown began last week — now one of the agencies
least affected by the budget impasse.

Industry furloughs
also reduced: The Pentagon’s decision to cut civilian furloughs also
trickled down to the defense industry on Monday.

Lockheed Martin said that it was
trimming its furloughs that took effect Monday by 600, down to 2,400. Of those
furloughs, 2,100 were due to civilian agency work being shut down.

United Technologies Corp. (UTC) subsidiary Sirkorsky had
also planned to furlough 2,000 workers on Monday, but said this weekend that
they had been canceled after the Pentagon civilians were recalled.

United Technologies also said that additional furloughs it
had planned for Pratt and Whitney and UTC Aerospace Systems were no longer
necessary.

BAE Systems Inc., meanwhile, said furloughs would continue
for 1,000 intelligence and security workers stationed at government sites.

Special Ops raids not political, says House Dem: A pair of counterterrorism operations targeting al Qaeda-linked suspects in Somalia and Libya were not designed to bolster President Obama’s sagging polling numbers, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) said Monday.

“When you get intelligence … you go when you think the timing is right,” said Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

The Maryland Democrat dismissed accusations Obama gave the green light to those operations as a way to shift focus away from the White House’s political challenges at home.

Obama’s approval rating has dropped to one of the lowest levels in two years in the wake of the government shutdown and continued fights with congressional Republicans over ObamaCare and the debt ceiling.

“The timing was right, pursuant to the intelligence” to go after al Qaeda leader Anas al-Liby in Libya and al-Shabaab commander Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir in Somalia, Ruppersberger said during an interview on CNN.

On Sunday, members of the Navy’s Special Warfare Development Group, also known as SEAL Team 6, launched a nighttime raid against Abdulkadir’s stronghold in the coastal town of Barawe in southern Somalia, according to the Pentagon.

That same day, U.S. special forces captured al-Liby during a mission in Libya, the Pentagon confirmed.

Ruppersberger’s comments come after fellow Democrat and House Intelligence Committee member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) demanded al-Liby’s case be handed by the Justice Department and not the Pentagon.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pushed back against calls by Schiff and other lawmakers for a civilian trial for al Liby.

“I believe the most responsible course of action would be to hold al Libi as an enemy combatant at [Guantánamo Bay] for intelligence-gathering purposes,” the South Carolina Republican said in a tweet Monday.