Jim Miklaszewski
From NBC's Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has signed a deployment order to send a combat aviation brigade, about 3,000 troops, to Afghanistan in early 2009.
The brigade, from the 82nd Airborne, will fulfill one of the critical deficits for U.S. forces in that country right now -- helicopters.
Last week, Gates said he expects to have three more brigade combat teams in Afghanistan by "summertime." A senior defense official said that the combat aviation brigade is not among those brigades mentioned by the secretary (one brigade, the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, deploys there in January).
So, with the addition of this aviation brigade, the three BCTs Gates spoke about last week, and the logistics forces needed to support all of these new troops, the U.S. now plans to send between 21,000 and 25,000 new troops to Afghanistan in 2009.
That nearly doubles the number of U.S. boots on the ground there now, which stands at 31,000.
From NBC's Pete Williams, at the U.S. Supreme Court
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In its opinion today, granting rights to the detainees in Guantanamo Bay, the court admits it is doing something it has never before been done -- finding that non-US citizens, detained by the U.S. in foreign territory, have constitutional rights. But the court said, there's never been anything like Guantanamo in U.S. history.
VIDEO: Enemy or not, the Supreme Court has ruled that foreign terror suspects have the constitutional right to challenge their detentions. NBC's Pete Williams reports.
The court's five-member majority also says that for now, things at Guantanamo will go on as they are, that the current military commission systems there "remain intact."
But what this does mean is that all the detainees there have the right to get lawyers who can go into the federal courthouse here in Washington and argue that each of them is wrongly held.
So today's ruling is not a get out of jail free card, nor does it change the situation on the ground in Guantanamo. But for the first time since these detainees were captured and transferred to Guantanamo, they will now have the legal -- constitutional -- right to get federal judges in the U.S. to review their cases. For that reason, today's ruling is a game-changer.
Pentagon to respond; has said ruling would be a setback
From NBC's Jim Miklaszewski, at The Pentagon
The Pentagon plans to issue a response later to today's Supreme Court decisions which say detainees held at Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their detentions in U.S. courts.
Pentagon officials had said such a ruling would be a serious setback to the military commission hearings, and would essentially freeze the trial process for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 4 other 9/11 defendents arraigned only last week in a mlitary commission hearing at GTMO.
Perspective from the Senate
From NBC's Ken Strickland, on Capitol Hill
In September of last year, a majority of senators voted to allow Guantanamo detainees to challenge their detention in court, similar to today's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. But because Senate rules required 60 votes for the measure to proceed -- proponents had 54 votes -- the amendment died.
Leading the charge to grant the detainees habeas corpus rights were Sens. Pat Leahy (D-VT) and and Arlen Specter (R-PA), the bipartisan leaders of the Judiciary Committee. Other republicans who joined the Democrats were Dick Lugar (R-IN), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Olympia Snowe (R-MA) and John Sununu (R-NH).
From NBC’s Domenico Montanaro
Clinton issued a sharp critique of a U.S. Army policy in a letter from her Senate office, requesting “the immediate reversal of an Army policy that requires repayment of enlistment bonuses by medically discharged wounded soldiers.”
The letter is in response to a local TV news report in Pittsburgh yesterday. She calls the policy “outrageous,” that “soldiers have earned their bonuses” and “it shocks the conscience that the Army could demand that wounded soldiers return their enlistment bonuses.” The letter continues, and touts her work on the Armed Services Committee.
But NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski explains to First Read that it is actually already “against Army policy to require repayment for enlistment bonuses from soldiers wounded in service,” said Miklaszewski, NBC News' Pentagon correspondent. “The incident that popped up in a local news story in Pittsburgh, on FOX and on MSNBC last night was the result of bureaucratic confusion over the soldier's wounded status and an incorrect determination of his discharge. The decision to request repayment was in error and has since been reversed.
“The local report from KDKA in Pittsburgh that claimed thousands of medically discharged soldiers are being forced to repay their enlistment bonus is wrong. The KDKA reporter said he got his information from a local congressman, who confused an earlier issue in which 2,005 wounded soldiers did not receive their full pay for a brief period of time. Another typical bureaucratic bungle, which was also corrected. The KDKA reporter never sought any clarification or reaction from either the Army or Pentagon before running the story, according to Army officials."
Per NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski, US military officials say that Army lawyers are reviewing the recommendations for disciplinary action against nine Army officers -- including retired Lt. General Phillip Kensinger -- for their role in withholding the truth about the death of former Army Ranger Pat Tillman. In Kensinger's case it may require that he be recalled to active duty to face a possible reduction in rank and reduction in retirement benefits.
The officials say the recommendations call for non-judicial punishment against the four generals and five other officers -- such as letters of reprimand, which would essentially end their military careers. There are NO recommendations for criminal action. The officials stress that no final decision has been made in Kensinger's case, which is expected to be announced sometime next week.
The New York Times front-pages the anti-Iraq war movies that Hollywood will be releasing soon. In the past, Hollywood usually gave the veteran more breathing space. William Wyler’s ‘Best Years of Our Lives,’ about the travails of those returning from World War II, was released more than a year after the war’s end. Similarly Hal Ashby’s ‘Coming Home’ and Oliver Stone’s ‘Born on the Fourth of July,’ both stories of Vietnam veterans, came well after the fall of Saigon.”
