Enlarge image Obama Officials Offered bin Laden Raid Insights to Filmmakers Aamir Qureshi via AFP/GettyImages This photograph taken on April 25, 2012, shows a Pakistani man walking past the demolished compound of slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in northern Abbottabad ahead of bin Laden's first death anniversary. This photograph taken on April 25, 2012, shows a Pakistani man walking past the demolished compound of slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in northern Abbottabad ahead of bin Laden's first death anniversary. Photographer: Aamir Qureshi via AFP/GettyImages The Obama administration promised a Hollywood filmmaker unprecedented access to the top-secret Navy unit that killed Osama bin Laden to help her make a feature film on the operation at the same time it was publicly ordering officials to ... Continue reading →

China Top Source of Counterfeit U.S. Military Electronics By Tony Capaccio - 2012-05-21T20:07:24Z China’s government has failed to blunt the manufacture of counterfeit military electronic parts by Chinese companies that are the “dominant source” of fakes infiltrating the U.S. defense supply chain, according to a Senate investigation. The U.S. Air Force suspended in January a Shenzhen, China- based company from supplying parts to U.S. contractors after it sold about 84,000 suspect components, many of them installed on U.S. aircraft, according to an example cited in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s report released today. The panel’s report outlines the results of a 14-month investigation disclosing dozens of examples of suspected counterfeit electronic parts. Saying U.S. companies and the military services didn’t crack down on abuses, the ... Continue reading →

During the making of the movie “Battleship,” the science fiction thriller pitting U.S. naval forces against alien attackers, the Navy requested just one key change: replace an overweight actor portraying an officer with a slimmer one, according to director Peter Berg. The surface-ship tale, a special-effects-laden movie which opens nationally today, received full U.S. Navy cooperation. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus had a one-line role as commanding officer of the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier: “Commence air operations.” The cooperation included filming on U.S. vessels during the RIMPAC 2010 naval exercise and at famous Hawaiian sites, use of sailors on leave, helicopter flights and one day at sea filming the USS Missouri, a floating museum normally docked at Pearl Harbor. The so-called Mighty Mo battleship last ... Continue reading →

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