Rapid Fire 2012-23-02: Connected People

• Turkey plans to proceed with its F-35 plans according to Reuters, while the US Defense Acquisitions Board (DAB) recently met to recertify the program because of its 2010 Nunn-McCurdy rule breach. See also the Feb. 16 update of the F-35 CRS backgrounder [PDF]. Finally, the first F-35A tests with external weapons occurred a week ago, while the UK had its first F-35C test flight 2 days ago (short video).

• Anthony H. Cordesman at the centrist CSIS Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy is researching Iran’s ballistic and nuclear programs. Here’s his latest working draft [PDF]. He writes:

“There is no agreement as to exactly how far Iran has come in weapons design, over the nature of its nuclear weapons program if a dedicated program exists, how much is know about Iran’s various nuclear facilities, its future enrichment programs and how they will be concealed and protected.”

• Meanwhile the conservative, intervention-friendly Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) will ask in a debate next month: time to attack Iran?

• The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) is not convinced by the Joint IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO)’s latest strategic plan, and they also think that there still may be anti-IED overlapping efforts within DOD for lack of comprehensive tracking in a centralized database.

• The GAO also recommends that the DOD Inspector General keeps better track of military whistleblower reprisal cases to make sure they are handled in a timely fashion.

• The US Justice Department (DOJ) dropped a foreign-bribery case involving a staged $15M arms deal with Gabon. The whole thing didn’t go too well for the DOJ and this is not the finest hour for the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

• SAIC announced that former USAF Chief of Staff John P. Jumper will be their new CEO as of March 1st. Jumper retired from the Air Force in 2005 and has been on the SAIC, Jacobs and Wesco Aircraft boards since 2007, as well as on Goodrich’s board since 2005.

• Video of a High Altitude Low Opening training jump from USAF Special Operations below, if only because it has the real background noise that’s half of the experience, rather than obnoxious music: