Defense Secretary, Wars | featured news

The United States has evidence that the chemical weapon sarin has been used in Syria on a small scale, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday. But numerous questions remain about the origins of the chemicals and what impact their apparent use could have on the ongoing Syrian civil war and international involvement in it.

It was a harrowing international debut for Chuck Hagel, whose first trip to Afghanistan as U.S. defense secretary went dramatically off-script and challenged the American narrative about the 11-year-old war.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta arrived in Kabul Wednesday afternoon to take stock of the war as the Obama administration weighs how quickly to draw down troops over the next two years. The trip, likely his last official visit to the war zone, will give Panetta a chance to consult with U.S. commanders and Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the future U.S. role here as the decade-long war comes to an end.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has condemned a video that apparently shows U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Afghan men, promising to punish those involved. Earlier, an Afghan Taliban spokesman said the video will not affect efforts to broker peace talks.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday there would be no hasty U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan and Washington expected the same from its allies.

On Face the Nation, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that intelligence reports Moammar Gaddafi's forces are planting dead bodies to sites attacked by coalition forces.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said on Tuesday that fighting in Libya would soon decline significantly, and he attributed criticism of the American-led military campaign to the “outright lies” by the Qaddafi government about civilian casualties.

efense Secretary Robert Gates said the unauthorized release of some 70,000 classified documents about the Afghanistan war did not reveal sensitive information, but could endanger Afghans who helped the United States, U.S. media reported Sunday.

WikiLeaks is at least morally guilty over the release of classified U.S. documents on the Afghan war, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday, as investigators broaden their probe of the leak.

Perhaps only a “handful” of U.S. troops will leave Afghanistan in 2011, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said.