The top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee lashed out against the White House's recent deal to buy a maximum security prison in Illinois, claiming it sets the stage for U.S. terror detainees to be housed on American soil. 

The former Defense secretary said the consequences of a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities could be catastrophic.

Turkish leaders have given the green light for military strikes against targets inside Syria, a day after a deadly cross-border attack by Syria ended with five Turkish soldiers dead. 

More than three weeks after the U.S. Consulate in Libya was attacked, sensitive documents remain scattered about the compound and relatively unguarded, according to a new report.

A Washington Post reporter obtained documents at the compound Wednesday, which detailed U.S. operations and personnel records of Libyans working with the Americans.

The Post report said the documents were scattered across the floors of the looted compound. No government-provided security forces were guarding the facility, which Libyan investigators visited only once, a family member who owns the compound told the Post, allowing the reporter and a translator to enter Wednesday.

Reps. Michael Michaud (D-Maine) and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) are circulating a letter among other House members that calls on the Department of Defense to fully enforce rules ensuring that military uniforms and other items are made in America.

A letter that members plan to submit to DOD says the so-called Berry Amendment requires DOD to buy U.S.-made items, but says this policy appears to have slipped, and that members of the Armed Forces are wearing some articles of clothing made in China.

President Obama criticized Mitt Romney’s plan to boost military spending as part of an attack on the GOP challenger's tax policy during Wednesday's debate.

Obama said Romney is proposing a $2 trillion increase in military spending and said it is something that "the Pentagon has not asked for.”

Obama made the comment as he argued Romney was proposing a $5 trillion tax cut that would raise the deficit. 

Romney pushed back hard against the $5 trillion tax cut, but he did not address the military side of the president’s charge. 

The Topline: The escalating civil war in Syria between government forces and rebels looking to oust President Bashar Assad bled over into Turkey, leaving NATO scrambling to prevent a larger, regional war. NATO members called an emergency meeting on Wednesday in response to a Syrian mortar attack on targets inside Turkey. Anakra responded with a cross-border mortar barrage, inflaming tensions between the neighboring countries.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was "outraged" by the initial Syrian strike, and planned to discuss the situation with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. A NATO statement called the Syrian strike a "flagrant violation of international law," and alliance chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen told Ankara it would take action should Turkey's borders be threatened again. In June, Turkish armored units amassed along the Syrian border in response to the shootdown of a Turkish F-4 fighter jet. Damascus claims the jet was collecting intelligence on Syrian positions along the border.

For the better part of a year, government troops and paramilitary forces loyal to the Assad regime and rebel fighters have fought to a bloody stalemate in Syria. 

Rebel fighters looking to oust the longtime Syrian leader have managed to launch strikes against Assad's power base in Damascus from strongholds in the northern part of the country. But Assad has pounded those rebel outposts in and around the northern town of Aleppo with a barrage of heavy artillery and jet fighters, oftentimes firing indiscriminately into civilian pockets within those areas. 

Dems quiet on new WARN guidance: While Republicans have been hollering about the new Office of Management and Budget sequestration guidance on issuing Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act layoff notices that convinced defense contractors to wait until next year, things have been silent on the Democratic side of the aisle. 

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NATO members convened an emergency meeting in an attempt to pull Turkey from the brink of war with neighboring Syria. 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday named the deputy special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, James Warlick, to lead negotiations on a post-war troop deal.

Clinton announced Warlick's selection during the first meeting of the U.S.-Afghanistan Bilateral Commission. Her Afghan counterpart, Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul, said the Afghan ambassador to the United States, Eklil Hakimi, will serve as Warlick's counterpart. 

The Strategic Partnership Agreement signed by Presidents Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai in May called for the establishment of a bilateral commission chaired by the two countries' top dignitaries. It also committed the United States and Afghanistan to initiate negotiations on a Bilateral Security Agreement to supersede the current Status of Forces Agreement, which will spell out the role of U.S. troops in the country after 2014.