PHILLIPS: Another international problem on President Obama's plate. U.S. officials say that Chinese ships played a dangerous game of chicken, with an American surveillance ship in international waters in the South China Sea. Chris Lawrence following the developments at the Pentagon. Chris, what happened and how serious is it?</s>CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Navy says the five Chinese boats aggressively blocked this U.S.N.S. Impeccable. In fact, they say some of the Chinese sailors waved Chinese flags and refused to allow the boat to continue forward. They say that the Impeccable is unarmed, so at one point, it fired its fire hoses at the Chinese boat. Now that soaked the Chinese sailors, but it didn't stop them. Apparently, they stripped down to their underwear and kept coming, one to about 25 feet of the Impeccable. Again, the U.S. says, when they asked for a safe path out of the area, that the Chinese boats cut them off and forced an emergency stop, and then dropped pieces of wood directly in the path of the Impeccable - Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: So still don't have any understanding why they did this and is the Obama administration saying anything about this?</s>LAWRENCE: The Pentagon calls it one of the most aggressive actions it's seen in some time. The Obama administration has lodged a protest and says they will continue to operate in that area and expect the Chinese to respect international law.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, let us know if we hear anything more as to why China did what it did. Thanks, Chris. Now to Iraq, where 12,000 American troops will be pulling out by September. A U.S. military spokesperson says the draw-down is possible because of a greatly improved security situation. President Obama has said that he'll withdraw most U.S. troops by the end of August next year. In addition, all 4,000 British soldiers still in Iraq are also scheduled to leave by September. All right, that does it for us. See you back here tomorrow. Rick Sanchez picks it up from here.
Chinese Aggression Toward U.S. Naval Ship Impeccable