British man Gary McKinnon appeared in court Tuesday to try to prevent his extradition to the United States, where he is wanted for allegedly hacking into U.S. government computers at the Pentagon and NASA. McKinnon, who has admitted breaking the law and intentionally gaining unauthorized access to computer systems, wants to be tried in Britain rather than the United States. He is asking judges at the High Court to review a decision by the director of public prosecutions not to ...

Insurgents' use of roadside bombs has increased dramatically in Afghanistan this year, according to Pentagon statistics, and the United States' top military official is calling them the "No. 1 threat" to troops there. In June there were 736 incidents in Afghanistan involving roadside bombs, called improvised explosive devices or IEDs, and 82 "effective attacks," ones that caused casualties among coalition forces, the figures show. That was up from 263 incidents and 25 effective attacks in February, with the numbers increasing ...

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, a key architect of the U.S. war in Vietnam under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, has died at age 93, according to his family. McNamara was a member of Kennedy's inner circle during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union stood on the brink of nuclear war. But he became a public lightning rod for his management of the war in Vietnam, overseeing the ...

The decision to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq's cities on Tuesday was made by Iraqis, not Americans. That's why the Iraqi government is holding a massive celebration to mark the redeployment as National Sovereignty Day. At the insistence of the Iraqis, the Status of Forces Agreement concluded late last year between the Iraqi government and the Bush Administration required that U.S. troops be out of Iraq's urban areas by June 30, 2009, and withdrawn from the country ...

For a few months after his departure as Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld occupied a suite of government-provided transition offices in a high-rise building in Rosslyn, Virginia, up the Potomac River a short way from the Pentagon. There he began sorting his papers for a memoir and charting his next course. Rumsfeld's roots were in Chicago, where he and his wife Joyce still enjoyed an extensive network of friendships and where he had returned after his first stint as ...

A major United States military base is shutting down for three days following a rash of suicides, the base announced. Fort Campbell, home of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, is holding a three-day "suicide stand-down training event" starting Wednesday -- the second one it has held this year, a base spokeswoman told CNN. At least 11 deaths of Fort Campbell soldiers this year are confirmed or suspected suicides, spokeswoman Kelly Tyler said. That's out of 64 confirmed or suspected ...

A Pentagon official has been charged with conspiracy to communicate classified information to a person he believed represented China's government, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday.

With violence and anti-American sentiment on the rise, it's plain to see that military operations in Afghanistan are not going well. But if Defense Secretary Robert Gates is right, three-star Army Lieut. General Stan McChrystal is just the guy to turn things around. On May 11, Gates announced plans to install the former Green Beret as the top U.S. and NATO commander for the troubled nation. Some analysts hailed the surprising overhaul as proof that the U.S. is rethinking its ...

The nation's top military officer told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday that the U.S. military isn't planning on sending additional troops to Iraq to deal with the recent surge in violence. While Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, didn't say as much, the reality is that there aren't any more U.S. troops to send to Iraq, or anywhere else. Partly to ensure that an overstretched military doesn't break, Mullen pleased troops in North Carolina on Monday when he told them that the ...

The initial U.S. military statement on the killings Monday at Camp Liberty in Baghdad was predictably terse. "Five Coalition forces members were killed in a shooting at Camp Liberty in Baghdad today at approximately 2 p.m.," the statement read. "The names of the deceased are being withheld pending next-of-kin notification and release by the Department of Defense. The incident is under investigation and more information will be released when it becomes available." At first, the Associated Press, citing unnamed Pentagon ...