TV News LIES

After a series of scandals involving high-ranking officers, the American military for the first time will require generals and admirals to be evaluated by their peers and the people they command on qualities including personal character.

The new effort is being led by Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as part of a broad overhaul of training and development programs for generals and admirals. It will include new courses to train the security detail, executive staffs and even the spouses of senior officers.

Lawmakers and victims' advocates have expressed anger at an attempt by a US air force general to justify overturning the sexual assault conviction of a star fighter pilot.

In a letter to the head of the air force, Lt General Craig Franklin, commander of the Third Air Force in Europe, describes accusations that he did not take sex crimes seriously as "complete and utter nonsense".

But if his remarks it was intended to draw a line under the affair, it has had the opposite effect, provoking another wave of criticism.

The military justice system at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which has been dogged by charges of secret monitoring of proceedings and defense communications, became embroiled in a fresh controversy Thursday when it was revealed that hundreds of thousands of defense e-mails were turned over to the prosecution.

The breach prompted Col. Karen Mayberry, the chief military defense counsel, to order all attorneys for detainees at Guantanamo to stop using Defense Department computer networks to transmit privileged or confidential information until the security of such communications is assured.

A military judge ruled Wednesday that a member of the team that raided Osama bin Laden’s compound would be allowed to testify at the court-martial of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, part of the prosecution’s attempt to link the slain al-Qaeda leader to material leaked by the soldier.

Manning, who pleaded guilty to some charges last month, is scheduled to face a court-martial in June for leaking 700,000 documents and other materials to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.

The Army program charged with keeping thousands of eight-wheeled Strykers running over the past decade had its eye so much on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that it neglected to keep its books.

It accumulated nearly $900 million worth of Stryker replacement parts - most of them in an Auburn warehouse - with much of the gear becoming outdated even as the military continued to order more equipment, according to a Defense Department Inspector General report released late last year.

The United States flew two Stealth bomber practice runs over South Korea on Thursday, in a second show of force to North Korea after a B52 bomber made a similar run earlier this week amid rising tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The flights came after North Korea said it would attack American bases in the Pacific following a U.S.-led drive to impose sanctions on North Korea for its third nuclear weapons test. The North has also threatened U.S. "puppet" South Korea with war and the U.S. mainland with nuclear attack.