OVERNIGHT DEFENSE: US troops could have contact with Ebola

THE TOPLINE: The Pentagon’s top military commander in Africa sparked alarm Tuesday after he said U.S. troops responding to the deadly Ebola outbreak could come into contact with the virus.

Previously, officials had said no troops in Africa would come into direct contact with Ebola. But Army Gen. David Rodriguez told reporters at a Pentagon briefing that several dozen servicemembers would be working in mobile laboratories where they will test samples from individuals possibly infected with the virus.

{mosads}The new details on the Pentagon’s response to the outbreak raised concerns about the safety of deployed troops.

Rodriguez, though, said those troops were highly trained to deal with biological diseases, would be adequately protected in suits, and would be constantly monitored. 

“I am confident that we can ensure our servicemembers’ safety and the safety of their families and the American people,” he said. 

The Pentagon has already deployed three such mobile laboratories to Africa, each run by three to four troops, and are planning to set up four more. The labs will receive up to 100 samples a day from local clinics and will be able to deliver a diagnosis in hours. 

Rodriguez said during the briefing that the troops would come into direct contact with individuals for testing, but later issued a correction and said they would only come into contact with fluid samples.

Dr. Bill Miller, an infectious disease expert and scientist with OmniBiome Therapeutics warned that troops handling samples still face “enormous” risk.

“What we are talking about is direct contact with the bodily fluid of a patient,” he said in an interview with The Hill. “It’s highly dangerous if it is indeed infected.” 

The mobile labs are part of the sweeping U.S. military response to contain the spread of the virus, which has claimed over 3,000 lives and could infect as many as 1.4 million. 

The Pentagon is deploying as many as 4,000 U.S. troops to construct treatment centers, train local health care providers, and help with logistics such as transportation. They are expected to live away from the general population, at airfields and secured buildings. 

Rodriguez said the U.S. troops could be deployed for a year or longer, and said the “critical” target was to get 70 percent of those found infected into a treatment facility. 

“We’re going to stay as long as we’re needed, but not longer than we’re needed,” Rodriguez said.

So far, costs for those troops over the past six months have been about $750 million, he said. 

 

PANETTA’S HITS KEEP COMING: Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Tuesday in a series of interviews criticized President Obama’s managerial style and argued that his policies contributed to the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Panetta is promoting his new memoir, which has made headlines for its critical appraisal of the White House.

On CNN Tuesday, Panetta said that Obama never made a decision about whether to go ahead and arm vetted Syrian rebel groups.

The former Cabinet secretary said the president “relies on the logic of his presentation, with the hope that ultimately, people will embrace the logic and then do what’s right.” 

“You know what? In 50 years, my experience is, logic doesn’t work in Washington,” Panetta, a former congressman, added. “You gotta basically go after people and make them understand what they have to do. And that means you create a war room. You go after votes. You have to push people.”

During another interview with Yahoo News, he said Obama damaged U.S. credibility when he threatened air strikes against Syrian leader Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons but never followed through. 

“It was important for us to stand by our word and go in and do what a commander in chief should do,” Panetta said. 

Panetta, a former CIA director, also pushed back against Obama’s recent suggestion that the intelligence community had underestimated the threat from ISIS.

“As CIA director, you always can use better intelligence, but I think what happened here was a combination of intelligence plus policy decisions that fed into what we have now in ISIS,” Panetta told MSNBC.

“Once Fallujah fell, that should have been a wakeup call that we were not just dealing with a bunch of rabble rousers, we were dealing with a very sophisticated terrorist operation,” he added.

Panetta also hit Obama on the “failure” to secure a deal for a residual U.S. troop force to remain in Iraq after 2011, saying it created a vacuum for ISIS.

Panetta’s criticisms of Obama come with a month remaining before November’s midterm elections and as some Republicans seek to make national security a campaign issue.

The White House has rejected Panetta’s criticisms, saying the president has demonstrated leadership on international affairs.  

Press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that Obama was proud to have Panetta serve in his cabinet, but that the criticisms were not “legitimate.”

 

TURKEY WARNS OF ISIS TAKEOVER IN KOBANI: Turkey’s president warned Tuesday that the Kurdish town of Kobani in northern Syria was in imminent danger of falling to ISIS, and asked the U.S. and allies to speed up plans to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels. 

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Kobani was “about to fall” and called for a no-fly zone and a safety-zone along the Turkey-Syria border, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Erdogan’s plea came as a barrage of airstrikes believed to be carried out by U.S. and coalition partners hit ISIS militants trying to capture the town.

Kobani has been under attack by ISIS for nearly three weeks. Fierce fighting in the town was reported on Monday, when ISIS pushed into three eastern neighborhoods and hoisted at least two black flags, according to reports.

 

COSTS OF FIGHTING ISIS TOP $1 BILLION: The Pentagon has spent as much as $1.1. billion on the military campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) since the start of operations in mid-June.

The costs include $62 million in Navy airstrikes and Tomahawk cruise missiles that have been fired against ISIS militants, according to U.S. Central Command figures released Monday. 

The Pentagon has declined to give an exact figure for the cost of operations against ISIS, but said the cost is an average of $7 million to $10 million per day, since June.

So far, U.S. forces have carried out more than 266 airstrikes in Iraq. In Syria, there have been more than 103 airstrikes.

There are also more than 1,300 U.S. troops training and advising Iraqi and Kurdish forces, providing intelligence and other support, and protecting diplomatic personnel and property. 

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

— Obama meets with new Secret Service chief

— CDC: Airborne Ebola possible but unlikely

— Poll: Most see Obama as a failure

— Rick Perry: No Ebola flight bans

— Bolton defends using ISIS beheading video in campaign ad

 

Please send tips and comments to Kristina Wong, kwong@digital-stage.thehill.com, and Martin Matishak, mmatishak@digital-stage.thehill.com.

Follow us on Twitter: @thehill, @kristina_wong, @martinmatishak