Austin Wright

The NSA is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say),” by James Bamford: “The blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013.” http://bit.ly/y5vdUu

BUYING RUSSIAN — Dick Durbin and John Cornyn yesterday blasted the Pentagon for doing business with a Russian arms dealer, Rosoboronexport, that they say is also supplying weapons to the Syrian government, DEFCON Hill’s Josiah Ryan reports. The company “is subsidizing the massacre in Syria,” Durbin said. More here. http://bit.ly/wFEzFS
A Pentagon official, who requested anonymity, tells Morning Defense that “Panetta received a letter from the Senate on March 12 asking for him to review the Mi-17 contract” with Rosoboronexport. The official declined to provide any more information on the issue until Panetta sends his response to the Senate.

POLITICO op-ed, “What I learned in Afghanistan,” by former HASC Republican Charles Djou: “Mostly, I have a renewed respect and appreciation for the men and women who place themselves in harm’s way to answer our country’s call. … I served with a West Point lieutenant, age 24, who stopped his platoon on patrol at a bridge over the Arghandab River. Though intelligence said the bridge was clear, the lieutenant had a ‘funny’ feeling. So he approached the bridge alone to investigate. A Taliban insurgent, using a command wire, detonated an improvised explosive device that killed him, slicing his body in two and throwing the pieces 20 feet in the air. Because of the lieutenant’s actions, he most likely saved the lives of his platoon. He left behind a young wife and 1-year-old daughter.” http://politi.co/A1SGCc

“Iranians offer gloomy outlook of nuclear talks,” by Thomas Erdbrink and Joby Warrick: “The elected officials and analysts — many of them close to Iran’s hard-line leadership — say it is highly unlikely that Iran would accept even a temporary halt in its production of enriched uranium. … Some said recent economic sanctions and military threats have made Iranian leaders even more determined to continue enriching uranium.” http://wapo.st/xYlAg5

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