the mark, brianna. they have moved the 50 marines as close as they can to south sudan so if there also a request, an order from the state department to evacuate americans,ed that be the trigger. then the marines would go in. they can do two things there. they can evacuate americans and at the same time, they can provide additional security and reinforcement for the u.s. embassy in south sudan. right now, nothing else has happened. everything is just sort of status quo for those marines. but there s very much a specter here of wanting to be ready, part of the hangover, the shadow, if you will, of what happened in benghazi libya when a u.s. military forces were not nearby to help out americans in peril. and, of course, really part of it about what happened on saturday when rebels fired at three u.s. aircraft trying to evacuate americans and four navy s.e.a.l.s got badly wounded. this time if they have to go
about 50 of those marines and put them closer to south sudan, if you look at the map, those 50 marines are now in uganda. that will put them very close to south sudan if they get the orders to go in. there are two possible missions if they go in would be to revacuate americans as you said or provide more security even for the u.s. embassy there if it tries to stay open amid the growing violence. they have no orders to go yet, but what you re really looking at michael, is the military lesson of benghazi. that if americans are going to get into trouble because run into trouble given outbreaks of violence, you need to have military force close enough to go get them and that s what we re seeing here. getting ready just in case. yeah, and barbara, of course, the attempt to go in and help out last weekend some u.s. troops were hurt when their aircraft was fired upon. have you new information on
two rounds of what the embassy calls indirect fire hit the building. that normally refers to things like mortar attacks. nobody was hurt. the taliban though posted on a website that they did it. and the u.s. military is still on stand by to evacuate all americans from the troubled new nation of south sudan. hundreds of people have been killed in a rebel uprising and ethic fighting put that number in the thousands now. right now, u.s. marines getting into position to help get americans out in case the situation does get worse. our barbara starr is at the pentagon. that s very different to the u.n. force who are going in to try to stop the fighting. where are these marines going and what happens when they get there in. well, at the moment, you know, earlier this week, the pentagon sent about 150 marines from their base in the mediterranean to the horn of africa to djibouti. and then yesterday they took
a lovely day here in rome. great experience. reporter: his message to the world one of peace. he asked for prayers in places like syria and south sudan. the excitement and energy was palpab palpable. an illustration of the power of pope francis. erin mclaughlin, cnn, the vatican. this week a new cnn poll confirmed just how popular this new pope is. 88% of american catholics approve of how the pope is handling his role. among all americans, the majority of whom, of course, are not catholic, 72% approve of him. time magazine named pope francis the person of the year. calling him the people s pope. so why is pope francis so popular? our senior vatican analyst john allen has written extensively about this. he joins me now live from rome. ever since, john, this
didn t see a real mass outrage in terms of the type of programs. i think a lot of americans in particular and possibly british and other europeans weren t that surprised that this kind of spying was going on. he s saying really need to think about this. we need to have more of a dialogue. and so and you ve seen in this country in particular there s a lot of review now about the nsa and a lot of feeling they re overreaching. and recently in an interview he said mission accomplished. i think he s trying to get the word out a lot more. elyse, thanks so much. elise labott there in washington. coming up, a budding superpower provoking its neighbors a little and also are icy relations with iran beginning to thaw. ? the stories you should keep an eye on in 2014.