. >> the pentagon is trying to manage the situation as best as they can. but i think all of us should reflect on why exactly are we doing this? >> reporter: the president's renewed effort to push congress towards the camp's shutdown was spurred by a long time detainee hunger strike. at the height of the protest, 106 men refused food and as many as 46 from forced fed. forced feed something a technique typically used for six patients having trouble heating. using into you bashan is painful, especially for an unwilling patient. >> it requires some force to be able to insert the tube into the thousand. sometimes you can use some an thesanesthesia to put it in. but it doesn't mean that it's humane. >> reporter: guantanamo bay's detention center follows a federal code of conduct which does not allow prisoners to die in its custody. when al jazeera reached out on the latest report, the pentagon responded healthcare providers at task force at guantanamo routinely better care than any of these detainees ever received in their lives. they do not always require the t

raid the pentagon -- the pentagon. the pentagon has advocated a proposal that a lot of people have put their hopes in, and that is a disappointment. they will continue to work and we will see that they come up with. . we have to see whether the current pay and benefits system is affected at kick that getting and keeping top quality folks. one example, we're going to increasingly need top-quality technical folks who can deal in the realm of cyber. we are competing with google and microsoft and all of those companies. maybe the current personnel system and the way we compensate people with a 20 year retirement plan is not what you need to recruit and retain those folks. my point is, and addition to trying to look at curtailing the long-term costs of the current personnel system, i think you also have to look and see whether the current system is effect it in the modern day. i think some reforms could well be coming. those reforms, in my opinion, need to keep the hummus as we have already made to the people who serve -- n

just by auditing the pentagon, the g.a.o. estimates that the pentagon in itself will save $25 billion. the only branch of the pentagon that has come close to an audit so far is the marine corps. for every dollar that they're spending now on managing, they're saving $3 in the marine corps. so what we have is repeated attempts through the year to address the symptoms of the problems rather than the real problems. let me outline that for you. the pentagon has a broken procurement system. and if you think about the programs that have been canceled and the penalties that have been paid because the programs have been canceled -- and senator mccain can talk about some of those better than i ever could -- we've never fixed the real problem. and the real problem is what eisenhower warned against, is the defense industrial complex. and the only way you will ever solve the procurement problem of major weapons systems is to force the defense providers, the defense industry to have capital at risk on new weapons systems. in other words, t

i'd like a car to take me to the pentagon. yes, sir. i didn't say -- i didn't say i was a lowly army captain. i could have been a navy ca captain, okay. it wasn't a lie, you know. so i went out to the north portico, and pretty soon my name was called and a military car comes, and people fling open the doors and salute, and i'd jump in and away i go. >> these circumstances that allowed you to be really an eyewitness to history at these different locations, essentially you were just a doctor at large. you were a medical officer sent there in case of an emergency. >> and as strange as it may seem, i was just told to go to the white house. i wasn't told where to go, what to do. and so having -- don't ask permission, okay, just apologize, if necessary. so yes, and that was true for the second day as well when i was posted to the capitol. >> tell us that story. you had an interesting story just about arriving at the capitol. >> well, i did. by now, i've learned that you can summon a car to go somewhere if you have the right orders. so i asked

pentagon,l, at the ultimately responsibility is to the pentagon comptroller, who reports directly tohe secretary of defense. but under the weird way the defense department was established after world war i -- after worldre war ii, the defense department lobbying congress, were allowed to retain independent authority. so they have their own accounting systems. the secretary of defense has had little power to force them to bring together any united system in which data can be shared. host: in your story, you talk dfas.this agency called what is that? >> the defense finance accounting service, and it handles a lot of jobs, everything from military pay to paying the bills to basic accounting on behalf of military services. but there are quite a lot of -- it operatese to a large extent on machines. each of the military services has their own completely different sets of machines with different kind of data that has to be forced from pipelines. there has been an endless stream of errors, and numbers that do not add up. is financial statements fiction because there is no way to come up with

--dean boyd said report the pentagon also responded.sperson told reporters that none of the critics a prisoner care had actual access to the detainees, their medical records, or the procedures at the guantÁnamo detention camp. doctors and nurses are "consummate professionals working under terrifically stressful conditions, far from home and our families, and with patience it can extort nearly violent." he said the doctors and nurses -- leonard rubenstein, your response? >> there are certainly health professionals there who are doing their best under stressful situations. i think we have to look not at the doctors alone, we have to look at the policy. for example, the cia says ark allusions are -- says our conclusions are erroneous. but the office of medical services said that waterboarding is medically acceptable. it said in writing that sleep deprivation for over a week was medically acceptable. so we're basing it on their own documents. they have not told us one fact that we of gone wrong. with respect to the pentagon, we're basing ou

the pentagon spends more on service contracts than it does on weapons. and there it's harder to know if the taxpayers are getting good value. what we do know is if you look at the last five years, contract spending is down 10%. but bid protests are up 35%. there's hardly a contract awarded these days that there's not a protest on. what's the effect of these trends. well, we waste a lot of money and effort. we have more tail and less tooth. more overhead and less -- that fighting capability than we should have for the money we spend. who said this and when? as long as we offer assistance where the checkers are outnumbering the doers, the doers are going to spend more paper work for the checkers. it could have been any or all of the defense manufacturing facilities i visited in the last two or five years. but that's admiral rickover quoted to packard in a letter to george schultz in 1970. we're at the point where it's estimated that about a third of the procurement dollars are going to overhead right now. and the rest of the story is that it's not just was

so i asked for a car to take me from the pentagon to the capitol.and so this time the military police car was accompanied by four motorcycle outriders. i felt like, you know, somebody really important. and it was interesting that military were on every corner of independence avenue as we went down the side of the mall by the smithsonian and to the capitol. and you'll recall that in those days there was a big parking lot on that east side, across from the supreme court. and there were people everywhere, just a sea of people that were outside the gates of the parking lot. and they were being let in on that side and funneled eight abris across and up the capitol steps and into the rotunda and out by another way. so when we get close to the capitol, the motorcycle outriders are clearing the people away, and it finally gets down to a crush of people and people are putting their nose up against the windshield and taking pictures of this important person in the vehicle. finally, the gates swing open, and i hadn't really thought about where i was going or w

for 20 years the pentagon has been saying the same thing. oh, we'll handle it within the chain of command. it isn't working. only 10% of the 26,000 cases are reported. that means you have thousands of perpetrators walking away the military, sometimes they go back, you know, to civilian society and do the same thing all over again. we need real change. the pentagon is an obstacle to that change. last point i'll make on this. we had an amazing press conference with a woman who was assaulted and her husband who is active in the marines. he was a commander. he said the last thing the commanders really need is to deal with these issues of sexual assault in the military. their job is to fight wars. and he says it's a huge distraction and it would help them if we did in fact change the law. and i hope that we will. there is really an epidemic going on. and the victims are telling us they will not report because they don't want to have to go to the commander and have the commander city whose side to take. people who aren't trained in the law -- we w

and the pentagon estimates the real number is much, much higher. the president has ordered the military to solve the problem, but it's not that easy. now the senate as it debates the new defense bill is considering an amendment that would take the divisio decision to convict sexual assaults out of the military command. first, this background. >> reporter: the senate is determined to end the plague of sexual assault within the military. there is no disagreement that as many as 26,000 incidents last year according to a blind survey of military personnel conducted by the pentagon. it's an unacceptbly high number, but different proposed solutions now divide democrats. new york's kirsten gillibrand. >> if you do not create a system outside of the chain of command your hope to report so we can weigh the evidence to see whether we can go to trial , it's not there. the hope isn't there. the confidence in an objective review of someone who doesn't know the perpetrator, doesn't know the victim doesn't exist . >> reporter: gillibrand seeks to remove the chain

and, yes, the pentagon has to do its part. but, the problem isn't just the pentagon.laura, is congress. eisenhower and his drafting of his famous speech talked about the defense industrial congressional complex cut out congress for the public speech. >> big donations from big defense contractors and big help. >> depositions but also jobs in home district. >> big money. >> big big money. the defense contractors, the big guys realize the generation ago they don't have to defeat america's enemies. they have got to win the battle of capitol hill. in contravention of all economic logic. >> this has to be cut. >> and it can be. you have got to get congress to cut. congress will cut troops because congress, frankly, laura, doesn't give a damn about the troops unless will is a photo on involved. >> that's a strong word. >> you can imagine if there was a national referendum? do we want increased taxes or more money for wars and afghanistan or elsewhere? where do you think that poll would be or referendum would be? higher taxes or pull out of afghanistan completely? >> the prob

budget cuts at the pentagon. we take you to the arizona watch dogs call government waste. power of the people until we restore our freedoms and r >>> right now brand new expensive military airplanes sit parked in the middle of the arizona desert. c 27 j spartan cost more than half a billion of your tax dollars. they are being moth balled, it's an example of government mismanagement and waste. for an up-close look at the controversial military spending i travelled to the bone yard in toussaint arizona. >> collecting dust in the arizona desert the u.s. military's fleet of c 27j spartans. at $30 million a piece, the cargo planes are idle, without a cuts. >> they are here because the air force had to reduce budgets. >> colonel robert leper is in charge of this air force base called the bone yard. it's the u.s. military's largest aircraft storage facility located to toussaint arizona. a dozen c 27 js are here. >> it is the only place in the world where you can see 4,000 aeroplanes at one location. >> colonel lepper took "america tonight", on a tour of the 36-00 air base, from t

i want to bring in our pentagon correspondent, chris lawrence. busy day over at the pentagon. chris, this apology comes from high up in the chain of command. tell us about it. >> reporter: yeah, jim. this is coming from the commander of all nato forces in afghanistan, general joseph dunford. officials are telling us that basically this four-star general quickly called president hamid karzai to apologize for this drone strike and potential civilian casualties and promised a very quick investigation into what took place. but hamid karzai is driving a very hard line on this, and it's a hard line that could affect thousands of american troops for years to come. a young afghan child is dead, two women wounded after u.s. officials admit a drone strike in helmut province missed its target. the second air strike did take out a taliban commander. >> show respect to the afghan people. >> reporter: but that did nothing to pacify afghan president hamid karzai, who lashed out at u.s. officials and said for as long as such arbitrary acts and oppression of foreign forces continue, the securi

special inspector general for ghana stern reconstruction found out that the pentagon has hired forty three companies with suspected ties to terrorist networks the data comes from the pentagon's own classified investigative reports and commerce department list of terror connected companies now the list of these forty three companies including a road construction firm presumably owned by a leader of the connie network the network was blamed for an attack on the u.s. embassy in kabul that killed sixteen people two years ago the u.s. army has carried out a classified investigation and said there was evidence of a direct role of both the company and its owners quote in the facilitation and operation of the hakani network and that approximately. from one to two million dollars per month close to the network to finance its activities the inspector general said i've seen the information quote and it made my hair stand on and he said well not just his united states government subsidizing. the taliban al qaeda network those groups that are trying to shoot and kill our soldiers from these spect

our pentagon correspondent barbara starr joins us live now from the pentagon.ra, it doesn't like the u.s. backing down. what's the latest you're hearing? >> well, jim, sources here at the pentagon are telling us that this flight was part of what the u.s. military plans to continue to do all the time. fly through international air space. china can claim it's theres but the u.s. military will not obey the chinese rules they have to file flight plans and state their flight data to the beijing when they fly through these areas. so again, another flight. i think what's happening here is the u.s. is trying to hold firm to the notion that had has the right to fly through there but it is also trying to make sure that this situation doesn't escalate any further. officials are characterizing this as just the normal part of business that the u.s. military does, and these aircraft, while they were not identified to us, chinese news reports say the chinese scrambled the jets after seeing the aircraft and they say they are p-3 navy aircraft, which are surveillance aircraft.

most influential public interest lawyers in the country worked on a number of cases including the pentagon papers case and the current karen silkwood case that have changed the course of american history in one nine hundred eighty founded the christic institute where he served as general counsel and chief trial attorney daniel has also served as chief trial attorney for the marrow institute and the chief trial counsel for the a.c.l.u. rocky mountain states chapter his new book the people's advocate the life and legal history of america's most fearless public interest lawyer is a must read for anyone who wants to know the inside story of some of the most important trials of the past half century and welcome to the show thank you tom thanks so much for being with us i'm curious what what got you interested in the law in the first place how did it start with you did what drew you into this and then what got you into this kind of law. actually originally back in one nine hundred sixty three when i graduated from high school i was going to go to the air force academy and it turns out that i was

so completing ideas. >> libby the pentagon has to implement either side which way are they leaning?> that's right. they do not want it taken out of the hands of their commanders. the white house has not weighed in on how it should be done because it could put president obama at odds with his cabinet members. >> libby casey casing us live from washington, d.c. thank you very much. we want to return now to phil ittner in geneva again those talks aimed at sending the standoff in iran. and phil this is the third, as we mentioned meeting between the p5-plus-1? and can you hear me? >> yes, dell, i can hear you. well, we're hoping so. they wouldn't have come back to geneva if they didn't have some idea that they could make a break through there -- >> and again we're having problems with phil ittner in geneva. he can hear me, but he cannot hear me without freezing. >>> in texas a plea to the supreme court from planned parenthood falling short. planned parenthood arguing the state's new abortion law is underconstitutional. erika pitzi has more. >>> this supreme court decision was sharply div

most influential public interest lawyers in the country worked on a number of cases including the pentagon papers case in the current karen silkwood case that have changed the course of american history in one nine hundred eighty of the christic institute where he served as general counsel and chief trial attorney general has also served as chief trial attorney for the american institute and the chief trial counsel for the a.c.l.u. rocky mountain states chapter in his new book the people's advocate the life and legal history of america's most fearless public interest lawyer is a must read for anyone who wants to know the inside story of some of the most important trials of the past half century and welcome to the show thank you thanks so much for being with us i'm curious what what got you interested in the law in the first place how did it start with you did what drew you into this and then what got you into this kind of law. actually originally back in one hundred sixty three when i graduated from high school i was going to go to the air force academy and it turns out the i was number on

world war when a plane strikes the pentagon and tries to kill people in the pentagon. it's very personal. it sounds corny to say it was my duty but i felt like i couldn't retire without at least offering to deploy. and i volunteered to go anywhere. it's very scary that there is these people out here that just want to destroy our way of life our culture our values then and now i understand why i mean how do you when hearts and minds how do you stop this if you don't understand your enemy. in autumn two thousand and one again turkish boy who grew up in germany decided to travel to pakistan to explore his muslim roots. work on the year two thousand and one changed my life. and i traveled to pakistan because i wanted to learn a lot about islam in a short time what. are some pakistan had always interested me. i was also curious to see another country. and i realized the war had broken out in afghanistan. rates continue around the taliban trenches north of the pakistani government i didn't really think much of it myself but i was just nineteen back them. and didn't know much

thank you for that live from the pentagon. >>> u.s.e john kerry arrived in saudia arabia this morning. it's all part of a big mideast swing. he met with officials hoping to smooth some strained relations. they have expressed displeasure with washington's position on syria and egypt and washington's warming realizes with iran. and secretary kerry is stopping elsewhere. it is a whopper of a trip, nine days. >>> four people were charged today with alleged involvement in the four-day siege on the westgate mall in kenya. take a look at these pictures. each of these men pleaded not guilty. each of them denied bail. and altogether they're expected to go on trial, are you ready for this? next week. talk about swift justice. at least 67 people were killed. the somali terror group al shabaab claimed responsible. >>> nischelle knight will be on the dr. phil show this week revealing details of what we endured locked in the ariel castro's home. >> did you have any idea when you walked through that front door that it would be 11 years before you wou

days ago, the pentagon announced special operations would get seven of the planes. that still leaves 13 parked person who as we speak, there's another still in production. when it rolls off the assembly line in texas, it will be decommissioned immediately. >> there's no doubt that it is government waste at some level. >> michael is a taxpayer watchdog with the no one partisan brookings institution. he says the c27j was an extravagant military purchase, approved before the 2010 elections, when the rise of the tea party led to massive budget cuts in the pent gun. >> this is the kind of partially redundant program that's easier to justify when before you gots are flush. these had a niche purpose. we can figure out another way to accomplish the mission. >> in arizona, local leaders say they have seen this kind of thing before. jeffery rogers is the former head of tucson's national party and he closely monitors news out of the boneyard. >> we do see a lot of waste. there is a sense in which a government contractor will say let's build the engine in washington state, let'

the pentagon opposes the plan. opponents insist that commanders, not an outside military lawyer, must be accountable in such cases. the senate is expected to take up the bill this week. >> >> it has only been on the market for a couple of days but already, sony is reporting that they have sold more than 1 million of the new place station 4 a game consoles. the ps 4 went on sale friday and the united states and canada. sony says that it expects to sell 5 million of them by the end of march next year.

. >> channelling the pentagon's chief, he says any investment must be the consent of congress.

given the opposition from a lot of the defense hawks, from the pentagon to her proposal, there probably will be some changes to how the military prosecutes

pentagon in the navy that i was somehow involved in intelligence that. i said two conspiracy theories about watergate which you know there's just no basis for but i wish i'd been telegin so it would have been much more interesting than what i did as a investigative reporter have you ever honestly or dishonest slee used wiretapping or gained information in a manner that might be considered out of order no absolutely they don't because member i started. the nixon case really and that was all about wiretapping and it kind of had under roma was negative and to get into something like that would be just didn't happen now people have given me transcripts of wire taps that other people did that have been used. including nixon's own wiretap in his own office stick cheney told us that he thinks that was snowden did . was treason once an enemy of the united states to reveal that when you think you know i wish he'd come to me instead of others particularly the guardian and i would have said to him. let's not reveal who you are let's make you a protected source and

the pentagon said the increases in sexual assault 14%.about pentagon officials claim the spike shows simply more victims are coming forward, but sexual assaults are still dramatically underreported. a recent survey found that 27% of people were sexually assaulted in 2007. talk about ptsd, violence, and sexual assault in the military? >> right now is a critical moment in terms of sexual assault. congress is about to pass the budget for the next year and to that, senator joe brand of new york has rallied other senators to try to pass a law that would take the prosecution, the disposal of reports of sexual assault in the military, out of the chain of command. people are not reported because often they have to report to the people that assaulted them. crucial that your viewers get a hold of their congress persons and senators right now and tell them to vote with senator gillibrand. that seems tol cover everything and excuse everything. another affect it is having in this current situation is that it leaves soldiers, veterans to be heavily med

is fighting despite these findings the pentagon has resisted permanently blocking the companies from getting more u.s. contracts because his lawyers say they cannot use the evidence against these companies because the evidence is classified especially specter general for afghanistan reconstruction pointed out what he called the absurdity of it he said we can probably attack them via drone on monday and will issue them a contract on tuesday in washington i'm going to check out our team. coming up later this hour dealing with the debt the ever rising cost of the. moving in the u.k. results in sawing pastoral debt with millions of families and able to find enough money to pay for their home. western officials are alarmed at the plight of christians in the middle east where they're increasingly becoming targets of sick tyrion violence returns face minister says the turbulent region is now seeing an exodus of biblical proportions with christians under threat of becoming extinct in some countries his point to syria. for many christians in the middle east the arab spring has been wintry at