By Michael Martinez
Two attacks in Afghanistan killed six Americans - four service members and two civilians - on Saturday as a top U.S. military official arrived to assess the country's security, officials said.
The deadliest attack was the bombing of a military convoy delivering books to a school in southern Afghanistan's Zabul province in which three service members, a State Department civilian and a Department of Defense civilian were killed, according to U.S. officials.
Afghan civilians also died in that incident, said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Four more State Department personnel suffered injuries, one of them critically, Kerry said.
Thousands of US troops arrive in Israel to begin a joint military exercise with Israeli forces, testing the country's missile defense systems. In all, the exercise will involve 3,500 US troops at a cost of $30 million. They'll be training over three weeks, in parts of Israel, Europe and the Mediterranean. Chris Lawrence reports on whether this exercise is sending a message to Iran on the strength of ties between the U.S. and Israel.
By Larry Shaughnessy
The war in Afghanistan is evolving with a growing number of attacks by Afghan security force personnel on American troops, incidents that have been called "green-on-blue" attacks. It's a term that the Pentagon wants to go away.
So far this year the number of such attacks is nearly double the number for the same period last year. And this year 37 Americans have died, compared with 28 in 2011.
"Make no mistake about it, I've been very concerned about these incidents ... because of the lives lost and because of the potential damage to our partnership efforts," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said at a Pentagon news conference Tuesday.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said the name "green-on-blue" is a misnomer.
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By Mike Mount, CNN Senior National Security Producer
A spate of leaks of classified information regarding recent U.S. covert operations has damaged the United States, top Pentagon officials told congressional members during a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Not long after, the Pentagon announced an initiative for cracking down on leaks.
During a hearing before the House Armed Service Committee, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey and the Pentagon's top lawyer informed the house panel that damage was done, but the trio did not give the panel specifics, according to the head of the committee, Rep. Buck McKeon, R-California.
Panetta and Dempsey told the panel the leaks did not come out of the Pentagon and McKeon, at a news conference after the hearing, said he felt "pretty secure" that they did not come from the Department of Defense.
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By Jennifer Rizzo
The United States has approximately 15,000 troops in Kuwait, according to a Senate report released Tuesday, the first time the number has been disclosed.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee report looked at how to best promote U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf region after the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq last year, the ongoing Arab Spring uprisings and the dispute over Iran's nuclear program.
It concluded in part that a "lily pad" model of having bases throughout the region to allow for a rapid escalation of military forces is a sound approach.
The Kuwaiti bases "offer the United States major staging hubs, training ranges, and logistical support for regional operations," the report said. "U.S. forces also operate Patriot missile batteries in Kuwait, which are vital to theater missile defense."
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The top U.S. military official voiced more concerns about the uncertainty over the Pentagon’s budget with the looming threat of an additional half trillion dollar cut, should Congress be unable to reach an agreement about debt reduction by the end of the year.
“I know what the budget did to us with the reduction of $487 billion as a result of the Budget Control Act, but I don’t know what it would do to us with another $500 billion,” Joint Chiefs Chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey told CNN’s Barbara Starr in an interview during the Army 23th birthday celebration. “I know how hard it was to get $487 (billion).”
If another $500 billion was cut from the budget, in a trigger mechanism known as sequestration, Gen. Dempsey said there would be a risk.
“We would certainly be less visible and active globally because we’d have a much smaller force. And nature abhors a vacuum,” he said. “And if we’re not there others will be and that doesn’t mean we have to be the world’s policeman and all the rhetoric but it does mean we have to engage and build partnerships. We have to live up to our treaty obligations and so forth.”