By Larry Shaughnessy
Dakota Meyer, one of America's most-recent Medal of Honor recipients, was the victim in an altercation that left him with minor injuries, Kentucky authorities said Thursday.
Meyer was taken to Westlake Hospital early Sunday morning after a scuffle at the Red Barn Event Center near his home in Columbia, according to Trooper 1st Class Billy Gregory of Kentucky State Police.
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Deaths and injuries from improvised explosive devices are falling a bit Afghanistan, but IEDs still account for more than 60% of U.S. casualties there, a Senate subcommittee heard Thursday.
"This year nearly 1,900 U.S. casualties have been caused by IEDs," Lt. Gen. Michael Barbero testified, and he was not optimistic about the future.
Pakistan is a major source of the problem, he said.
Evidence shows that most of the IEDs in Afghanistan are made with ammonium nitrate, the fertilizer used in the Oklahoma City bombing, Barbero said, and it is illegal to make or import ammonium nitrate into Afghanistan.
The United States has made several proposals to Pakistan to reduce the threat from fertilizer-based bombs, including putting die in all ammonium nitrate to make it easier for border patrol agents in Afghanistan to spot, or reformulating it so it could still feed crops but wouldn't be explosive.
So far this year, IED attacks in Afghanistan are down 12% to 18%, the general said, but that's compared with last year, the worst year on record. And there is reason to think the number could rise again.
Barbero, who is head of the Joint IED Defeat Organization, said that when the United States began pulling troops out of Iraq, IED attacks went up, and the same could happen over the next 24 months in Afghanistan.
"I'm concerned, like we saw in Iraq, as we draw down forces situational awareness drops. Frankly, your movements on the road become more predictable," he said.
Barbero concluded his testimony in the open portion of the hearing saying, "To sum up, I believe the IED will continue to be the weapon of choice against our forces and we must remain vigilant."
By Larry Shaughnessy
The signs were there. Fuel trucks at the launch site, rocket stages being assembled. All supported North Korea's claims that sometime between December 10 and 22, it would launch a small satellite into orbit. Or was going to try.
But Sunday the regime admitted technical details will likely delay what was looking to be the first time the reclusive communist regime had attempted two long-range rocket or missile tests in one year. The launch window was extended by a week because of technical issue with the first-stage rocket engine, according to a report published Monday in the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported.
The scenario has left the U.S. military in a 'wait and see' mode regarding whether North Korea can correct its mistakes so quickly following a failed attempt in April.
"To the degree that they will be more successful than they were last time in such a short period of time and what they've done to correct it, I can't tell you how they assess that," said Adm. Samuel Locklear, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command. "Should they choose to go ahead with it, we'll just have to see how it goes."
The delay might indicate that short turnaround was problematic. The April satellite launch failed spectacularly shortly after the engines started.
By Larry Shaughnessy
The new movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden didn't even have a title when controversy began swirling around how it was made.
Now the movie is officially called "Zero Dark Thirty," and still some in Washington are concerned about what access the filmmakers had to classified information about the biggest intelligence effort in decades.
"Obviously things went wrong here," said Rep. Peter King (R-New York). "My understanding is that the Hollywood people got access to CIA operatives, CIA locations ... that they had access to the Navy SEALs, which they should not have had."
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By Larry Shaughnessy
Pfc. Bradley Manning has begun testifying at his pre-trial hearing about his alleged abuse at Quantico. The Army private, accused of stealing thousands of classified documents and leaking them, spoke in a clear voice at the start of his testimony. He was wearing his Army service uniform, wire-rimmed glasses.
Manning's defense team wants to make the case his harsh treatment in prison should count as time served.
Earlier, a military judge ruled Thursday that new charges would have to be filed before Manning could enter a guilty plea to some lesser charges.
The defense has said it plans to have Manning plead guilty to lesser offenses and fight other charges as being too extreme.
At a pretrial hearing at Fort Meade the military judge, Col. Denise Lind, noted that only some of the offenses Manning is proposing to plead to are included in the current list of charges. If he were to plead guilty to these charges he would face a maximum of 16 years in prison, loss if pay, demotion to private and a dishonorable discharge.
But the judge decided other charges the defense proposed Manning plead to are irregular and would not be accepted unless a convening authority were to refer the charges to the court.
Manning has not officially told the court he will plead guilty to the charges.
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By Larry Shaughnessy
The officer who oversaw security at the military base where Bradley Manning was held for a time said on Wednesday he was not pressured by superiors to keep the Army private accused of leaking classified documents to the WikiLeaks website in a high-level lockup and under constant watch.
Marine Col. Robert Oltman said his decision to maintain maximum-security status for Manning during his eight-month confinement in Quantico in Virginia was borne out of caution.
Oltman said at a pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland, for Manning that he recognized the case was high profile but told subordinates at the Marine base to "do what's right" and not "worry about somebody looking over your shoulder."
Manning's lawyers are trying to get the case thrown out - or at least any sentence reduced, if he's convicted - by claiming he was mistreated at the Quantico brig from July 2010 until he was moved to the military prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, in April 2011.
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By Larry Shaughnessy
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta spelled out the future battle against al Qaeda, praising what has been done so far but warning much more work remains.
Speaking about the September 11 attacks in a speech at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank, Panetta said, "We will do everything possible to ensure that such an attack never happens again. That means counterterrorism will continue as a key mission for our military and intelligence professionals as long as violent extremists pose a direct threat to the United States."
He said efforts against the core al Qaeda group have been largely successful. "Al Qaeda's leadership ranks have been decimated. This includes the loss of four of al Qaeda's five top leaders in the last 2½ years alone - Osama bin Laden, Shaikh Saeed al-Masri, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman and Abu Yahya al-Libi."
By Larry Shaughnessy
(CNN) - An F-22 fighter jet crashed Thursday afternoon near Tyndall Air Force Base in the Florida panhandle. The pilot ejected safely, according to Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the U.S. Air Force.
Tyndall AFB is a training base for F-22 pilots. There's no confirmation that the plane took off from Tyndall before the crash, but that would be logical, Dorrian said.
The F-22 has been the focus of years of investigations about a problem that causes some of the stealth fighter's pilots to become dizzy or black out. The exact cause of the problem still hasn't been identified.
Last year, the Government Accountability Office put the cost per F-22 (including research and development) at $412 million.
By Larry Shaughnessy
(CNN) - Gen. Joseph Dunford told Congress on Thursday that he was not involved in recent discussions about the future of U.S. troops in Afghanistan even though he is in line to become the top commander there.
"I have not been included in those conversations," Dunford said at his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing.
"I think I have an understanding of the framework within which that decision ought to be made. I have certainly identified what I think are the most important variables that need to be considered," Dunford, who is assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, said.
By Larry Shaughnessy
(CNN) - The Army private accused of leaking millions of government files has offered to plead guilty to some of the charges against him, his attorney announced during a court hearing Wednesday.
But this is not some kind of deal guaranteed to get Pfc. Bradley Manning a lighter sentence.
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