FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 2051670

A remembrance ceremony was held on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima on Saturday to mark the 70th anniversary of one of the Second World War's bloodiest battles.

Dozens of US veterans, now in their 80s and 90s as well as US and Japanese officials flew to the island, where the US invasion began on 19 February 1945, and lasted 36 days.

The battle claimed 6,821 American and 21,570 Japanese lives.

Speaking at the ceremony, Ray Mabus, United States Secretary of the Navy said the "inferno of Iwo Jima" brought the two nations together.

"Our partnership developed in a wake of war and has grown ever stronger in the years since. Today the Unites States and Japan are inter dependent - they have cooperation from everything from international security to free trade. We depend on one another so that each nation may live in peace and prosperity," said Mabus.

Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani pledged to work hard to strengthen the US-Japan alliance which is "based on the sacrifice of those who perished" on Iwo Jima.

++QUALITY AS INCOMING++

DVIDS

Iwo Jima, Japan - 21 March 2015

1. US war veterans and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus laying wreath

2. Close of flowers

3. SOUNDBITE (English) Ray Mabus, United States Secretary of the Navy:

"Rising from the inferno of Iwo Jima our partnership developed in a wake of war and has grown ever stronger in the years since. Today the Unites States and Japan are interdependent. They have cooperation from everything from international security to free trade. We depend on one another so that each nation may live in peace and prosperity. America and Japan stand together today as sailors, marines, soldiers airmen, as nations and as friends."

4. Various of veterans, military and officials listening

5. SOUNDBITE (English) Ray Mabus, United States Secretary of the Navy:

"As partners we will face together whatever challenges the future brings, but we will never forget the lessons of our past. To overcome trying times we will invoke the character traits demonstrated by the battle for Iwo Jima - honor, courage, sacrifice."

6. Wide of military holding Japanese and US flags

7. Ceremonial gun salute

FUNDRAISING HERO CAPTAIN TOM MADE HONORARY COLONEL

Captain Tom Moore, the UK war veteran who raised more than 29 million pounds for the National Health Service, has been appointed as an honorary colonel to mark his 100th birthday.

The commanding officer of the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment visited Moore at his home in Bedfordshire on Wednesday, the eve of his centenary, to congratulate him with his birthday and to inform him of his new rank.

He also presented the veteran with a replacement Second World War Defence Medal ahead of next week's VE Day celebrations and a Yorkshire Regiment medal.

Moore started walking laps in his garden as part of a humble fundraiser for the NHS, hoping to raise 1,000 pounds by his 100th birthday, but surprised himself by generating millions of pounds.

As his fundraising efforts hit the headlines, the Ministry of Defence's Medal Office realised that the veteran was missing a medal that he should have received at end of WW2 - the Defence Medal 1939-1945.

The veteran, who was born in Keighley, served with the 8th Battalion The Duke of Wellington's (West Riding) Regiment, which is now part of The Yorkshire Regiment.

UK POOL

Marston Moretaine - 29 April 2020

1. Close of Captain Tom Moore, pan to his medals

2. Mid of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Miller, the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment arriving to present Moore with medals

3. Close of Moore's hands

4. SOUNDBITE (English) Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Miller, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, and honorary colonel Tom Moore, UK fundraising hero and war veteran:

Miller: "There is a letter here from the chief of the general staff that conveys your appointment to become the honorary colonel of our Army Foundation College up in Harrogate. And it would be wonderful if you would fulfill this role and be able to inspire the future junior leaders of the army by being the ceremonial colonel."

Moore: "That is one of the greatest honours anyone could get."

6. Close of Moore

7. SOUNDBITE (English) Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Miller, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, and honorary colonel Tom Moore, UK fundraising hero and war veteran:

Miller: "I would like to just take this moment to reissue you with the Defence Medal 1939-1945."

Moore: "That's fabulous really. Thank you very much, that is something very special. I mean, I'm very proud of these (points at medals pinned to his chest) but to have now the fourth, really that is super. It really is, thank you very much."

8. Close of medal

9. SOUNDBITE (English) Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Miller, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, and honorary colonel Tom Moore, UK fundraising hero and war veteran:

Miller: "On behalf of the colonel of the Yorkshire Regiment, he would also like to award you with the regimental medal for your dedication, for your achievements and your embodiment of our motto, which is 'Fortune favours the brave'. So thank you very much."

Moore: "I'm overwhelmed with that, really thank you most. I believe it really is a true honour and thank you all very much, because as I've said before: We're one of the best regiments, if not the best regiment that there is."

10. Close of medal

11. Various of Moore holding medal

Captain Tom Moore, the UK war veteran who raised more than 29 million pounds for the National Health Service, has been appointed as an honorary colonel to mark his 100th birthday.

The commanding officer of the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment visited Moore at his home in Bedfordshire on Wednesday, the eve of his centenary, to congratulate him with his birthday and to inform him of his new rank.

He also presented the veteran with a replacement Second World War Defence Medal ahead of next week's VE Day celebrations and a Yorkshire Regiment medal.

Moore started walking laps in his garden as part of a humble fundraiser for the NHS, hoping to raise 1,000 pounds by his 100th birthday, but surprised himself by generating millions of pounds.

As his fundraising efforts hit the headlines, the Ministry of Defence's Medal Office realised that the veteran was missing a medal that he should have received at end of WW2 - the Defence Medal 1939-1945.

The veteran, who was born in Keighley, served with the 8th Battalion The Duke of Wellington's (West Riding) Regiment, which is now part of The Yorkshire Regiment.

UK POOL

Marston Moretaine - 29 April 2020

1. Close of Captain Tom Moore, pan to his medals

2. Mid of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Miller, the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment arriving to present Moore with medals

3. Close of Moore's hands

4. SOUNDBITE (English) Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Miller, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, and honorary colonel Tom Moore, UK fundraising hero and war veteran:

Miller: "There is a letter here from the chief of the general staff that conveys your appointment to become the honorary colonel of our Army Foundation College up in Harrogate. And it would be wonderful if you would fulfill this role and be able to inspire the future junior leaders of the army by being the ceremonial colonel."

Moore: "That is one of the greatest honours anyone could get."

6. Close of Moore

7. SOUNDBITE (English) Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Miller, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, and honorary colonel Tom Moore, UK fundraising hero and war veteran:

Miller: "I would like to just take this moment to reissue you with the Defence Medal 1939-1945."

Moore: "That's fabulous really. Thank you very much, that is something very special. I mean, I'm very proud of these (points at medals pinned to his chest) but to have now the fourth, really that is super. It really is, thank you very much."

8. Close of medal

9. SOUNDBITE (English) Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Miller, commanding officer of the 1st Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, and honorary colonel Tom Moore, UK fundraising hero and war veteran:

Miller: "On behalf of the colonel of the Yorkshire Regiment, he would also like to award you with the regimental medal for your dedication, for your achievements and your embodiment of our motto, which is 'Fortune favours the brave'. So thank you very much."

Moore: "I'm overwhelmed with that, really thank you most. I believe it really is a true honour and thank you all very much, because as I've said before: We're one of the best regiments, if not the best regiment that there is."

10. Close of medal

11. Various of Moore holding medal

NATO's recently sworn in Supreme Allied Commander said the Transatlantic organisation still fulfilled its mission of nurturing the same unity within the Alliance that made Operation Overlord possible in 1944.

General Tod Wolters said of his new job that it was akin to what his predecessor Dwight Eisenhower was tasked to do during the Second World War.

"(He) was renowned for bringing disparate groups together, side by side and finding a way to keeps folks aligned and focused on the mission," Wolters told the Associated Press at the Normandy US Cemetery ahead of the commemorations of the D-Day landings.

"All those attributes of what took place 75 years ago are very, very applicable to what we do today in NATO."

Wolters insisted this unity was visible and real on the ground in Afghanistan where US and European troops have been deployed for 18 years.

The focus of troops there was to track down what he described as "external ops planners" preparing attacks against Europe and the US.

Wolters would not say whether he was working on withdrawal scenarios.

Colleville-sur-Mer - 6 June 2019

1. Close of American and French flags on white crosses at American Cemetery in Normandy

2. Wide of cemetery

3. General Tod D. Wolters with white crosses in background, focus changes from crosses to Wolters

4. Close of medals on Wolters' chest

5. SOUNDBITE (English) Tod D. Wolters, Supreme Allied Commander for Europe:

"For as long as I've been alive, D-Day has been a very big issue and obviously, to be here on the 75th anniversary is a big, big deal for all of us. And what it allows us to do, as we come and share time with some of the veterans, is to get re-baselined with respect to our patriotism. They are great patriots. They continue to be great patriots and that DNA exists in many of our warriors today."

6. Close of Wolters

7. SOUNDBITE (English) Tod D. Wolters, Supreme Allied Commander for Europe:

"What occurred 75 years ago was one of the greatest demonstrations of unity that we've ever seen and (US) General (Dwight D.) Eisenhower was renowned for bringing disparate groups together, side by side and finding a way to keeps folks aligned and focused on the mission. And all those attributes of what took place 75 years ago are very, very applicable to what we do today in NATO."

8. Wolters speaking

9. SOUNDBITE (English) Tod D. Wolters, Supreme Allied Commander for Europe:

"We're in (Afghanistan) together - we'll come out together. As you well know the (NATO) Secretary General (Jens Stoltenberg) has been very keen to mention that point. We have a great force that's in place right now. I suspect that force will continue far into the future and will continue to take a look at conditions on the ground. But right now, we're focused on doing the appropriate thing in Afghanistan and that's to make sure that we can continue to neutralise external ops planners against homelands that exist in Europe and certainly against those that exist in the United States."

10. Line of crosses with French and US flags

11. SOUNDBITE (English) Tod D. Wolters, Supreme Allied Commander for Europe:

"It's our concern to make sure that our networks are as secure as they can possibly be so we'll continue to focus on our capability and our ability to secure our networks and will certainly remain vigilant with respect to those activities that you mentioned (China's Huawei working with Germany to install a 5G network) and nations and governments and militaries will work very, very hard – day in and day out – to ensure the security of our network so that we can have the freedom to communicate."

12. Wide of American Cemetery

NATO's recently sworn in Supreme Allied Commander said the Transatlantic organisation still fulfilled its mission of nurturing the same unity within the Alliance that made Operation Overlord possible in 1944.

General Tod Wolters said of his new job that it was akin to what his predecessor Dwight Eisenhower was tasked to do during the Second World War.

"(He) was renowned for bringing disparate groups together, side by side and finding a way to keeps folks aligned and focused on the mission," Wolters told the Associated Press at the Normandy US Cemetery ahead of the commemorations of the D-Day landings.

"All those attributes of what took place 75 years ago are very, very applicable to what we do today in NATO."

Wolters insisted this unity was visible and real on the ground in Afghanistan where US and European troops have been deployed for 18 years.

The focus of troops there was to track down what he described as "external ops planners" preparing attacks against Europe and the US.

Wolters would not say whether he was working on withdrawal scenarios.

Colleville-sur-Mer - 6 June 2019

1. Close of American and French flags on white crosses at American Cemetery in Normandy

2. Wide of cemetery

3. General Tod D. Wolters with white crosses in background, focus changes from crosses to Wolters

4. Close of medals on Wolters' chest

5. SOUNDBITE (English) Tod D. Wolters, Supreme Allied Commander for Europe:

"For as long as I've been alive, D-Day has been a very big issue and obviously, to be here on the 75th anniversary is a big, big deal for all of us. And what it allows us to do, as we come and share time with some of the veterans, is to get re-baselined with respect to our patriotism. They are great patriots. They continue to be great patriots and that DNA exists in many of our warriors today."

6. Close of Wolters

7. SOUNDBITE (English) Tod D. Wolters, Supreme Allied Commander for Europe:

"What occurred 75 years ago was one of the greatest demonstrations of unity that we've ever seen and (US) General (Dwight D.) Eisenhower was renowned for bringing disparate groups together, side by side and finding a way to keeps folks aligned and focused on the mission. And all those attributes of what took place 75 years ago are very, very applicable to what we do today in NATO."

8. Wolters speaking

9. SOUNDBITE (English) Tod D. Wolters, Supreme Allied Commander for Europe:

"We're in (Afghanistan) together - we'll come out together. As you well know the (NATO) Secretary General (Jens Stoltenberg) has been very keen to mention that point. We have a great force that's in place right now. I suspect that force will continue far into the future and will continue to take a look at conditions on the ground. But right now, we're focused on doing the appropriate thing in Afghanistan and that's to make sure that we can continue to neutralise external ops planners against homelands that exist in Europe and certainly against those that exist in the United States."

10. Line of crosses with French and US flags

11. SOUNDBITE (English) Tod D. Wolters, Supreme Allied Commander for Europe:

"It's our concern to make sure that our networks are as secure as they can possibly be so we'll continue to focus on our capability and our ability to secure our networks and will certainly remain vigilant with respect to those activities that you mentioned (China's Huawei working with Germany to install a 5G network) and nations and governments and militaries will work very, very hard – day in and day out – to ensure the security of our network so that we can have the freedom to communicate."

12. Wide of American Cemetery

A sailor killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor has been buried with full military honors nearly 75 years later.

Petty Officer 1st Class Vernon Luke, a machinist's mate, of Green Bay, Wisconsin was laid to rest at a veterans cemetery in Honolulu on Wednesday.

The 43-year-old man died when Japanese planes bombed his battleship, the USS Oklahoma on Dec. 7, 1941.

After World War II, he was buried as an "unknown" along with nearly 400 other unidentified sailors and Marines from the battleship.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency last year dug up their remains, saying advances in forensic science and technology had made identification more feasible.

It disinterred 61 caskets at 45 grave sites at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, which is in an extinct volcanic crater commonly known as Punchbowl. Many coffins contained comingled remains of multiple people.

Luke was among the first five from the Oklahoma who was identified and whose family has been notified, agency spokeswoman Lt. Col. Holly Slaughter said. He is the first of the newly identified to be reburied, she said.

Sailors lifted the American flag that was draped on the casket and folded it. Rear Adm. John Fuller, Navy Region Hawaii commander, presented the flag to Luke's niece, Leeann Michalski.

Michalski and Marilyn Gardner, the widow of Luke's nephew, threw flower lei on top of the casket after workers lowered it into one of the gravesites that had been exhumed.

Luke was a "common person doing uncommon things, and he made the ultimate sacrifice," Fuller said, calling him a hero.

A second sailor will be reburied at Punchbowl on March 18. Ensign Lewis Stockdale of Anaconda, Montana was 27 when he was killed in the Pearl Harbor attack. Altogether, 429 onboard the Oklahoma were killed. Only 35 were identified in the years immediately after. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency expects to identify 80 percent of the Oklahoma unknown within five years.

Military laboratories in Hawaii, Nebraska and Delaware have been studying the remains using dental records and DNA analysis.

Ray Emory was a sailor aboard the USS Honolulu when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Wednesday, he attended Luke's funeral.

For years Emory pushed the military to exhume and identify Oklahoma servicemen and those still missing from other battleships

"Here it is 75 years after the attack and they're finally getting around to getting some of these people identified," said Emory, now 94. "It's taken them a long time to do it."

More than 2,400 sailors, Marines and soldiers were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Oklahoma's casualties were second only to the USS Arizona, which lost 1,177 men.

A sailor killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor has been buried with full military honors nearly 75 years later.

Petty Officer 1st Class Vernon Luke, a machinist's mate, of Green Bay, Wisconsin was laid to rest at a veterans cemetery in Honolulu on Wednesday.

The 43-year-old man died when Japanese planes bombed his battleship, the USS Oklahoma on Dec. 7, 1941.

After World War II, he was buried as an "unknown" along with nearly 400 other unidentified sailors and Marines from the battleship.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency last year dug up their remains, saying advances in forensic science and technology had made identification more feasible.

It disinterred 61 caskets at 45 grave sites at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, which is in an extinct volcanic crater commonly known as Punchbowl. Many coffins contained comingled remains of multiple people.

Luke was among the first five from the Oklahoma who was identified and whose family has been notified, agency spokeswoman Lt. Col. Holly Slaughter said. He is the first of the newly identified to be reburied, she said.

Sailors lifted the American flag that was draped on the casket and folded it. Rear Adm. John Fuller, Navy Region Hawaii commander, presented the flag to Luke's niece, Leeann Michalski.

Michalski and Marilyn Gardner, the widow of Luke's nephew, threw flower lei on top of the casket after workers lowered it into one of the gravesites that had been exhumed.

Luke was a "common person doing uncommon things, and he made the ultimate sacrifice," Fuller said, calling him a hero.

A second sailor will be reburied at Punchbowl on March 18. Ensign Lewis Stockdale of Anaconda, Montana was 27 when he was killed in the Pearl Harbor attack. Altogether, 429 onboard the Oklahoma were killed. Only 35 were identified in the years immediately after. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency expects to identify 80 percent of the Oklahoma unknown within five years.

Military laboratories in Hawaii, Nebraska and Delaware have been studying the remains using dental records and DNA analysis.

Ray Emory was a sailor aboard the USS Honolulu when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Wednesday, he attended Luke's funeral.

For years Emory pushed the military to exhume and identify Oklahoma servicemen and those still missing from other battleships

"Here it is 75 years after the attack and they're finally getting around to getting some of these people identified," said Emory, now 94. "It's taken them a long time to do it."

More than 2,400 sailors, Marines and soldiers were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Oklahoma's casualties were second only to the USS Arizona, which lost 1,177 men.

AP TELEVISION

Honolulu, Hawaii - 9 March 2016

1. Various of casket being carried to funeral ceremony

2. Various of Vernon Luke's niece, Leeann Michalski, and Marilyn Gardner, widow of Luke's nephew watching ceremony

3. Various of Navy flag detail folding flag

4. Flag being handed to Luke's niece

5. SOUNDBITE (English) Rear Adm. John Fuller, Navy Region Hawaii commander

"There's common person doing uncommon things and he made the ultimate sacrifice. In my book, it's just a hero and a great exemplar of the generation. Without thinking, he ran towards the fight. And that's what makes us great."

6. Vernon Luke's gravestone

7. SOUNDBITE (English) Ray Emory, Pearl Harbor attack survivor

"Here it is 75 years after the attack and they're finally getting around to getting some of these people identified. It's taken them a long time to do it."

8. Cemetery crew lowering casket into ground

9. Cemetery crew saluting casket

10. Luke's family and cemetery official watching casket

11. Luke's niece Leann Michalski watching casket

12. Various of Marilyn Gardner, widow of Luke's nephew, tossing flower lei and dirt into grave

13. Flower lei on top of casket in grave

SHOTLIST

FILE: Jebaliyah, Northern Gaza Strip - 06 January 2009

++CLIENTS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS GRAPHIC PICTURES++

1. Immediate aftermath of attack on United Nations school, tracking shot to dead bodies on ground, people rushing in panic, bodies carried by men to ambulance

2. Ambulance moving away

3. Blood on the ground, zoom in

Geneva, Switzerland - 20 May 2009

4. Low angle shot exterior of Geneva's Hotel Intercontinental

5. Hotel entrance

6. Former international prosecutor Richard Goldstone in lobby

7. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Goldstone, United Nations investigator and former war crimes prosecutor:

"I'm disappointed, and the members of the mission are disappointed, that we've had no positive response from the Israeli government. It would have been our wish to start there, to visit southern Israel, Sderot, to go into Gaza through the front door, to go to the West Bank, which is also included in our mission."

FILE: Shati refugee camp, Gaza City, Gaza Strip - 06 January 2009

8. Wide of United Nations School hit by attack

9. Man walking by damaged wall, bloodstains on ground

10. Various of damage caused by attack

Geneva, Switzerland - 20 May 2009

11. SOUNDBITE (English) Richard Goldstone, United Nations investigator and former war crimes prosecutor:

"One of the decisions we've taken is that we will have a number of days of public hearings. If we can have them in the region, so much the better. but if necessary we will have them here in Geneva. We can use video conferencing facilities and we can also fly witnesses in. I hope that way we'll be able to cover the whole field."

12. Goldstone leaving, getting into elevator

FILE: Gaza City, Gaza Strip - 05 January 2009

13. Wide of Gaza city skyline with plumes of smoke on the horizon, looking towards Netzarim

14. Mid of thick cloud of smoke

Geneva, Switzerland - 20 May 2009

15. United Nations Secretary-General coming out of building

16. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General:

(Question: Mr. Ban, do you support the Goldstone mission?)

"Yes, I met him and I had a very good meeting. I expressed my strong support for his mission. I told him that I had discussed with the Israeli government, particularly President Shimon Perez. When I met him (Perez) I asked him to extend the full cooperation for this mission."

(Question: And have you received a reply?)

"I have not yet received a reply directly but I am going to continue to discuss with them."

FILE: Gaza City, Gaza Strip - 05 January 2009

17. Car carrying wounded from the Zeitoun neighbourhood shelling arriving at hospital, wounded being helped out of car

18. Wounded children being helped into hospital UPSOUND: child crying

Gaza City, Gaza Strip - 20 May 2009

19. Set up shot of Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum in office

20. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Fawzi Barhoum, Hamas Spokesman:

"Hamas welcomes all international investigative efforts that aim to uncover all the crimes being committed by Israel against our Palestinian people. We will cooperate with any international institution that comes to Gaza to uncover these crimes so that the Israeli leadership responsible for these atrocities can be brought to justice and tried as war criminals at the International Criminal Court."

21. Wide of Barhoum in office

STORYLINE

Former international prosecutor Richard Goldstone said on Wednesday he would go ahead with his investigation into possible war crimes in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict over Gaza, regardless of lack of response from Israel.

Speaking from Geneva, Goldstone said he and other members of the United Nations-appointed team were disappointed that they had had no positive response from the Israeli government.

Israel has withheld its approval over what it calls an "intrinsically flawed" probe.

Goldstone said the UN investigators would enter Gaza through Egypt if necessary, but added they had wanted to visit Israel first to assess what happened there.

"I'm disappointed, and the members of the mission are disappointed, that we've had no positive response from the Israeli government," Goldstone said.

Israel objected to the mission, ordered by the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council in January, because the original instructions were only to check what Israelis did to Palestinians.

But Goldstone, a Jew with close ties to Israel, only accepted the assignment if he could see what happened on both sides.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said the commission would "never be able to do a proper job" because the mandate was "intrinsically flawed and defective".

Asked if the United Nations team members would be allowed to enter Israeli territory, he said that remained to be seen.

Israel regards the Council, which has a large contingent of members from Islamic countries, as biased against the Jewish state because it often singles out the country for criticism.

Goldstone said he approached the Israeli ambassador in Geneva, Aharon Leshno Yaar, several times and even directly appealed to Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, but had as yet not received an official response.

Israel launched its offensive against Gaza on December 27 in a bid, it said, to halt years of rocket fire into its the southern territory and deal a heavy blow to Gaza-rulers, Hamas.

The three-week operation killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 900 civilians, amongst them scores of children, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups.

It also destroyed thousands of homes and heavily damaged Gaza's infrastructure.

Israel has disputed the death toll, saying the number of dead was actually lower and that most of the dead were Hamas militants.

Israel also blamed Hamas for the civilian casualties, claiming the militants used schools, mosques and residential areas for cover.

This has been rejected by Hamas.

Thirteen Israelis were killed during the fighting.

Earlier this month, a UN investigation accused Israel of spreading false statements about its attacks on United Nations schools and other facilities during the Gaza military campaign, including one reported to have killed more than 40 people, and formally demanded compensation.

The investigation ordered by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon found conclusively that Israeli weaponry was "the indisputed cause" of attacks on several schools, a health clinic and the world body's Gaza headquarters.

Israel denied that it intentionally struck the compounds and said it was forced to act against militants using the buildings and other civilian areas for cover.

It said the material its government presented to the UN was largely ignored in the final report, which it called "biased".

Israel has also been accused of using a Palestinian boy as a human shield, shooting Palestinian children, bulldozing a home with a woman and child still inside and shelling a building they had ordered civilians into, according to a 43-page report released in March by UN human rights experts.

The report also said that allegations that Hamas used human shields or fired from heavily populated areas were being investigated.

Israel criticised the report as "unable or perhaps unwilling" to address Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza.

For their part, Hamas said they welcomed the investigation.

"We will cooperate with any international institution that comes to Gaza," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said from his Gaza City office on Wednesday.

Goldstone spoke to reporters after meeting Ban Ki-moon, who declined to join him before reporters on Wednesday because he wanted to underscore the independent character of the investigation.

However, Ban later did tell The Associated Press that he had had "a very good meeting" with Goldstone.

"I expressed my strong support for his mission. I told him that I had discussed with the Israeli government, particularly President Shimon Peres,"

Ban said.

"I have not yet received a reply directly, but I am going to continue to discuss this with them," the UN chief added.

Goldstone said the secretary-general was absolutely committed to the mission and was warm in his support.

He said the team had an August 4 deadline to submit its report and he had decided to hold public hearings for several days.

"If we can have them in the region, so much the better," he said, "but if necessary we will have them here in Geneva," he added.

Goldstone played a prominent role in the campaign against apartheid in his native South Africa and rose to global prominence in 1994 when he became UN chief prosecutor for war crimes, heading investigations into genocide in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda.

His team includes Christine Chinkin, professor of international law at the London School of Economics; Hina Jilani, a human rights advocate from

Pakistan; and Desmond Travers, a former officer in the Irish Armed Forces with expertise on international criminal investigations.

Like other UN human rights investigators, the team is independent.

The members are unpaid, but receive a daily living allowance and expenses.

They determine how to conduct their investigation and what they say in their report, even if that clashes with UN positions.

WORLD NEWS REVIEW 1970

Duration 28:50

Sound: Final Mix

00:00 Titles

NIGERIA - (End of Civil War)

00:16

People walking along road

Nigerian military Commander (General Yakabu Guong) speaking at end of Nigerian war (SOF)

Phillip Effiong (Biafran Leader)

Phillip Effiong and General Yakabu Guong shake hands

Saluting General Ojukwu (Biafran Military Commander)

Biafran refugees

MIDDLE EAST

01:54

Guerillas manoeuvres (Palestinian Liberation Organisation)

MCS Yasser Arafat

Arafat (pans to) Nasser

King Hussein of Jordan alighting aircraft

Military parade

Nasser welcoming Hussein at airport

03:03

Amman street scenes

Soldiers searching cars

BOAC aircraft VC10

Aircraft takes off

Hostages descend from aircraft

Palestinian Hijacker out of cockpit

Women and children leaving under guard

04:18

747 blown up in Cairo on fire at night

747 wreckage (Pan-Am)

Jordan airstrip

Three aircraft being exploded

Amman G.V.- L.S. with gunfire

05:58

Nasser talking with Arafat

Hussein, Nasser and Arafat signing cease fire agreement

(Amman) Ruined buildings

Burned out cars

G.V. Amman

EGYPT

06:50

(Suez) Wrecked buildings and street scenes

Marchers carrying portraits of Nasser (after his sudden death)

(Cairo) Grief stricken mob rioting

Sadat with Military Commanders

Anwar Sadat speaking to crowd

Sadat in front of portrait of Nasser

08:39

A.V. Crowd at the Funeral of Nasser

Military band marching at funeral

Solder weeping

Civilian weeping

G.V. Funeral

Coffin with cortege

A.V. Crowd

FRANCE - (The Death of De Gaulle)

10:09

Flag at half mast

Man with newspaper "De Gaulle est Mort"

Front page

Cortege

Family funeral

Memorial service in Notre Dame Cathedral

President Nixon and President Nikolai Podgorny of USSR

Altar in Notre Dame Cathedral

GERMANY

11:09

Train arriving at station

Chancellor Willi Brandt of West Germany meets Chancellor Willi Stott of East Germany at station

West German protesters with banners

Brandt and Stott sign papers

CS Brandt

AUSTRIA - Vienna (Strategic Arms Talks)

12:07

Soviet and American flags

Delegates at photo call

ITALY (General Election and Riots)

12:30

Voters entering Polling Station

President Giuseppe Saragat casting vote

CS. Saragat

Rioting in streets of Reggio

Police running in riot gear

Troops firing

Lorry on fire

Houses on fire

Troops in jeep

JAPAN - Osaka

13:46

(AV) World Fair Expo 70

G.V. World Fair

POPE PAUL VI's ASIAN TOUR

14:31

Pope waves to crowds from aircraft steps

Manila Airport : Man (Bolivian Assassin) disguised as priest rushes towards Pope

G.V. Airport

(Samoa) Crowd

Pope speaking

PERU (Earthquake)

15:32

(Peru) Street scene

Clearing rubble after earthhquake

Men carrying injured

EAST PAKISTAN (Tidal Waves and Floods)

16:06

(AV) Bay of Bengal

(12.9.70 tidal waves)

(AV) Ships grounded

Dead cattle

People trying to save decaying rice

Army helicopter

(CS) President Yahya Khan

Relief lorry distributing food

Man weighing rice

People eating raw rice

SPACE (Apollo 13)

17:31

Saturn 5 takes off

Astronaut in Capsule

Houston Control Centre Astronaut (Lovell SOF)

Capsule descending with parachutes

Navy helicopter (on ship Iwo-Jima)

Astronauts descend from helicopter

ATLANTIC OCEAN (Heyerdal Sails in a Papyrus Boat)

18:46

Papyrus boat

Thor Heyerdal and crew on boat

Waterlogged boat

LATIN AMERICA

19:17

Motorcade (Dr. Salvador Allende) first Marxist President in Chile

Funeral of Karl von Spreti, West German Ambassador to Guatemala killed by terrorist

Dan Mitrioni (American) Dead body on stretcher

CANADA (Pierre La Port Kidnapped By Quebec Separatists)

20:15

Troops on rooftop kidnapped by Quebec

Troops on streets

Crowd going to pay last respects

Man being searched

Open coffin as people file past

USA (Talks With Vietnam)

21:16

Crowd with American flags

Nixon meets crowd

CS Nixon

Paris H.Q. of talks with North Vietnamese

U.S. Delegate

Vietnamese Delegate

VIETNAM

22:15

Continuation of troop withdrawal

Troops on corner

CAMBODIA (Coup Topples Prince Sihanouk)

22:50

Flag

Man taking down picture of Norodom Sihanouk

CS Sihanouk

General Lon Nol

Buddhist monks

CS Lon Nol

Military parade

23:49

American and South Vietnamese advancing Cambodian soil

Russian-made missiles

Captured arms dump

American withdrawal

Cambodians shooting (against communists)

Various battle scenes

USA (Four Die On Ohio University Campus)

25:17

Demonstration on US campuses

Troops marching against students in Ohio

Running battle

USA (Chicago 7 Demonstrate At Democratic Convention)

26:31

American women stage one day strike (demonstration in support of Women's Liberation Movement)

USA (Pollution)

27:03

New York street scenes

AV. New York

Waste disposal site

Polluted river

Scientists testing river

28:33 End Titles

28:50 End

AVAILABLE IN HD

RESTRICTION SUMMARY: AP CLIENTS ONLY

SHOTLIST:

DVIDS - AP CLIENTS ONLY

Arlington, Virginia - 17 March 2017

(++AUDIO AS INCOMING++)

1. US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis waiting for Qatari Defense Minister, pull out to wide shot of car arriving

2. Qatari Defense Affairs Minister Dr. Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah gets out of car, shakes hands with Mattis and walks up the stairs towards the Pentagon

3. Mattis and al-Attiyah sit down at table

4. SOUNDBITE (English) Jim Mattis, US Defense Secretary:

"Good morning, your Excellency and welcome to the Pentagon to your party, it's good to have you here. As we both know, over many years, we have stood together, both of our militaries in the effort to try to stabilize a region of great importance to the international community. And the relationship between our two militaries through good times and bad has been one that we've always taken a great deal of pride in. I would just say too that the interests that we share are what binds us together but there is also a friendship between our forces, thanks to your hosting so many of our forces there and the support you've given to so many of our troops who have rotated through and have come home with very fond memories of their time in your country. So we appreciate your hospitality, your serious investment in so much of the infrastructure there, so much of which supports our forces there, and we look forward to continuing to cooperate in many ways, But again, your Excellency, welcome to the Pentagon. It's a pleasure to have you here."

5. SOUNDBITE (English) Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah, Qatari Defense Minister: (++note: inaudible in some spots+++)

"Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Really, I am honored and happy to be with you here today, this morning, and as you said, Mr. Secretary, that the relationship between us and the United States ... the friendship we are enjoying together. And we are so glad about your... in Qatar, working side by side. And I hope to see more of this cooperation between us. Thank you again for hosting."

6. SOUNDBITE (English) Jim Mattis, US Defense Secretary:

"Well as you know, your Excellency, relationships never stay the same, they either get better or they decline. And we are committed here to improving our already strong relationship, so again, welcome. I'm sure there's at least one question that I'll answer from the press here. You are authorized to say nothing if you so desire. So what's on your mind, young man?

7. UPSOUND: Reporter question, off camera:

"Mr. Secretary, are you concerned about the growing casualties in and around Mosul?"

8. SOUNDBITE (English) Jim Mattis, US Defense Secretary:

"There is no military force in the world that has proven more sensitive to civilian casualties. We are keenly aware that every battlefield where an enemy hides behind women and children is also a humanitarian field and we go out of our way to always do everything humanly possible to reduce the loss of life or injury among innocent people. The same cannot be said for our adversaries but that's up to you to sort out. Thank you very much to the press... "

9. Pull out to wide shot

STORYLINE:

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Monday there is "no military force in the world that has proven more sensitive to civilian casualties."

He made the comment at the Pentagon amid reports of a U-S led airstrike on Islamic State militants and equipment in Mosul, Iraq on March 17 which may have killed 100 people, including many civilians.

US officials have not confirmed reports of civilian casualties but have opened an investigation.

Mattis was responding to a reporter question during a meeting with Qatar's Defense Minister, Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah.

The US Defense Secretary praised the relationship between the US and Qatar and thanked al-Attiyah for his country's hospitality and friendship towards US troops who are stationed there.

===========================================================

Clients are reminded:

(i) to check the terms of their licence agreements for use of content outside news programming and that further advice and assistance can be obtained from the AP Archive on: Tel +44 (0) 20 7482 7482 Email: info@aparchive.com

(ii) they should check with the applicable collecting society in their Territory regarding the clearance of any sound recording or performance included within the AP Television News service

(iii) they have editorial responsibility for the use of all and any content included within the AP Television News service and for libel, privacy, compliance and third party rights applicable to their Territory.

The investiture recently held by General Anderson is a timely reminder of stout work done by units of the First Army during the past three months.

Disclaimer: British Movietone is an historical collection. Any views and expressions within either the video or metadata of the collection are reproduced for historical accuracy and do not represent the opinions or editorial policies of the Associated Press.

SHOTLIST:

Cut story - General Anderson walks past Guard of Honour. Anderson makes several awards (although named, no definite name is given to anybody as the dope sheet is rather vague), to various soldiers & officers. Several CUs of Anderson pinning medal to soldiers. Anderson passing Guard of Honour on leaving, these happen to be The Hampshire Regiment, CU of one shoulder showing name of regiment. Anderson walks through avenue of palms.

RESTRICTION SUMMARY: AP CLIENTS ONLY

SHOTLIST:

DVIDS - AP CLIENTS ONLY

Arlington, Virginia - 17 March 2017

(++AUDIO AS INCOMING++)

1. UPSOUND (English) Jim Mattis, US Defense Secretary:

"So what's on your mind, young man?"

7. UPSOUND: Reporter question, off camera:

"Mr. Secretary, are you concerned about the growing casualties in and around Mosul?"

8. SOUNDBITE (English) Jim Mattis, US Defense Secretary:

"There is no military force in the world that has proven more sensitive to civilian casualties. We are keenly aware that every battlefield where an enemy hides behind women and children is also a humanitarian field and we go out of our way to always do everything humanly possible to reduce the loss of life or injury among innocent people. The same cannot be said for our adversaries but that's up to you to sort out. Thank you very much to the press... "

9. Pull out to wide shot

STORYLINE:

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Monday there is "no military force in the world that has proven more sensitive to civilian casualties."

He made the comment at the Pentagon amid reports of a U-S led airstrike on Islamic State militants and equipment in Mosul, Iraq on March 17 which may have killed 100 people, including many civilians.

US officials have not confirmed reports of civilian casualties but have opened an investigation.

Mattis was responding to a reporter question during a meeting with Qatar's Defense Minister, Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah.

The US Defense Secretary praised the relationship between the US and Qatar and thanked al-Attiyah for his country's hospitality and friendship towards US troops who are stationed there.

===========================================================

Clients are reminded:

(i) to check the terms of their licence agreements for use of content outside news programming and that further advice and assistance can be obtained from the AP Archive on: Tel +44 (0) 20 7482 7482 Email: info@aparchive.com

(ii) they should check with the applicable collecting society in their Territory regarding the clearance of any sound recording or performance included within the AP Television News service

(iii) they have editorial responsibility for the use of all and any content included within the AP Television News service and for libel, privacy, compliance and third party rights applicable to their Territory.

SHOTLIST:

++ VIDEO 4:3 PILLARBOXED ++

AP Television

Berlin, Germany - 31 December, 1945

1. Various Russian archive showing Russian victory in the Battle for Berlin

++ ORIGINAL VIDEO 16:9 ++

AP Television

Kiev, Ukraine - May 5, 2011

2. Close of poster showing Yevgeni Khaldei in the WWII Museum in Kiev, Ukraine

3. Close of photo showing "Raising the Soviet Flag over the Reichstag" taken on May 2, 1945

4. Close of photo showing the Soviet flag over Berlin

5. Close of the Soviet flag over the Brandenburg Gate

6. Wide of World War II veterans visiting the exhibition of Khaldei's photos

7. Close of photo showing victory parade in Moscow - June 24, 1945

8. Close of photo showing victory parade in Moscow - June 24, 1945

9. Close of photo showing victory parade in Moscow - June 24, 1945

10. SOUNDBITE: (Russian) Ivan Nechaev, WWII veteran +++AUDIO AS INCOMING+++

"Our victory over the Nazi troops cost us an expensive price. It was 1,418 days and nights that a bloody battle last to free humanity from the Nazi plague."

11. Close of photo showing people listening to the radio on the first day of war against the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941

12. Close of photo showing Nazi aircraft bombing the northern Soviet Union in 1941

13. Close of photo showing Soviet troops on a raid in 1941

14. Mid of visitors looking at the exhibition

15. Close zoom to photo showing the Potsdam conference in 1945 with Josef Stalin in the centre

16. Close of photo showing Potsdam Conference with (left to right) Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, Josef Stalin

++ VIDEO 4:3 PILLARBOXED ++

AP Television

Berlin, Germany - 31 December, 1945

17. Various Russian archive showing Russian victory in the Battle for Berlin

++ ORIGINAL VIDEO 16:9 ++

18. SOUNDBITE: (Russian) Yuri Shilovtsev, WWII veteran +++AUDIO AS INCOMING+++

"As a soldier of the Great Patriotic War, I would like to tell you three things. A photographer at war differs from a photographer in peace. A war photographer should be in the place where he might be killed and he had to take a picture that will remain in the future as a memory to those who were killed. Yevgeni Khaldei was a photographer of that kind."

19. Close of photo showing the Soviet delegation headed by Georgiy Zhukov prior to signing capitulation pact with fascist Germany on May 8, 1945 in Berlin outskirts

20. Close of a photo showing a ceremony of signing the capitulation pact with fascist Germany on May 8, 1945, photographer Robert Capa on far right

21. Close of a photo showing British military leader Bernard Law Montgomery (centre) with Soviet military leader Georgiy Zhukov (second left) near the Brandenburg Gates in Berlin, May 1945

22. Close of a photo showing US General Dwight David Eisenhower (right) and Georgiy Zhukov during a meeting at Berlin airport on June 6, 1945

23. Mid of a visitor at the exhibition taking photos

24. Close of a photo showing German prisoners of war in Berlin, May 1945

25. Close of a photo showing two Berlin residents on the city's ruined streets

26. Close of a photo showing a ruined square in Berlin, May 1945

27. SOUNDBITE: (Russian) Anna Khaldei, Yevgeni Khaldei's daughter +++AUDIO AS INCOMING+++

"This is the first exhibition of the kind in the entire Soviet Union. I am happy it happened."

28. Mid of a young girl looking at a photo at the exhibition

29. Close of two jews in Budapest, Hungary in 1945.

30. Mid of a visitor looking at the exhibition.

31. Close of a photo showing the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials in Germany, November 1945.

32. Close of a photo showing Nuremberg War Crimes Trial in Germany with Nazi Herman Goering

33. Close of a photo showing Nuremberg War Crimes Trial in Germany with Wilhelm Keitel, head of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht

34. SOUNDBITE: (Russian) Oleksiy Sheremetyev, organiser of the exhibition

"This is four of Germany's supreme military commanders, including Karl D�nitz and Herman Goering. When Khaldei approached Goering to take a photo, Goering, seeing the Soviet photographer, started shouting 'Russian pig' at him. A US guard told him to shut up, but Goering did not, and the guard beat him with a rubber stick."

35. Close of photo showing Karl D�nitz (right) Herman Goering, (left) Alfred Rosenberg (back left) eating a prison meal in Nuremberg

36. Close of a photo showing Herman Goering talking to his lawyer in Nuremberg

37. Close of a photo showing Herman Goering on trial in Nuremberg

38. Wide exterior of a World War II memorial in Kiev

39. Mid exterior of a World War II memorial in Kiev

++ VIDEO 4:3 PILLARBOXED ++

AP Television - No Access Russia

Moscow, Russia - June 24, 1945

40. Wide of soldiers marching reverse shot

41. Mid of Soviet officials, Joseph Stalin is second on the left, at Mausoleum

42. Wide of Red Square

43. Close up of Nazi flags thrown by soldiers

44. Close up the same

45. Various of fireworks and people celebrating

LEAD IN:

To coincide with Victory Day celebrations, a new exhibition has opened in Kiev's National Museum of the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945.

The exhibition showcases the work of Yevgeni Khaldei the Soviet's most famous war photographer and the man behind the iconic Soviet flag over the Reichstag image.

STORYLINE:

The victorious Soviet army at the Battle for Berlin. Vicious hand-to-hand fighting raged through the streets of the German capital.

The battle also marked the fall of the Nazi regime in Germany and May 9 is still celebrated as Victory Day.

To mark this year's Victory Day a photographic exhibition opens in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev, celebrating the work of one of the war's most famous photographers - Yevgeni Khaldei.

This poster shows one of the few images of Yevgeni Khaldei.

His face might not be familiar but his work on the other side of the lens is. Here he stands in front of his most iconic photo - the Soviet flag being hoisted over the ruined German Reichstag building.

For many, this photo symbolises Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.

On May 2, 1945 Khaldei was in the right place at the right time to capture the image that became known as "Raising the Soviet Flag over the Reichstag".

But it nearly didn't come about.

Only the day before Yevgeni was in Moscow at the VIP restaurant of the Russian news agency TASS.

Discussing his next assignment in Berlin, he remembered Joe Rosenthal's famous picture of American GIs raising a flag at Iwo Jima after the island was taken by US troops.

Grabbing a red tablecloth he rushed to his friend, a Jewish tailor, who used the material to make three soviet flags.

The next morning Khaldei was back in Berlin where he took several pictures in various locations before ending up at the Reichstag with his last flag. The image he recorded of that symbol of Russian victory went global.

But Khaldei's career represented more than just a single image and this exhibition brings many of his wartime portfolio to the public for the first time.

Many of those visiting the exhibition are World War II veterans, for whom the photos hold a deep, personal significance.

Veteran Ivan Nechaev says: "Our victory over the Nazi troops cost us an expensive price. It was 1,418 days and nights that a bloody battle last to free humanity from the Nazi plague."

"As a soldier of the Great Patriotic War, I would like to tell you three things. A photographer at war differs from a photographer in peace. A war photographer should be in the place where he might be killed and he had to take a picture that will remain in the future as a memory to those who were killed. Yevgeni Khaldei was a photographer of this kind," says Yuri Shilovtsev, a fellow veteran.

The photographer dedicated his life to his art and his coverage of 60 years of the USSR reveals a collection that deservedly occupies a prime place in photographic history.

Khaldei was born in the Ukraine in 1917 in the city of Ioussovlak (now Donetsk).

The following year, during a pogrom - a mob attack on a minority, usually Jewish - he was shot in the lung by the same bullet which killed his mother.

He survived and, as a child, became interested in photography through looking at magazines such as Ogoniok, the major news publication of the time.

He built his first camera using a cardboard box and his grandmother's reading glasses.

Years later, in the 1930s his ambition to become a photojournalist was realised when he took a job with the TASS agency.

Khaldei was taking photos throughout the war.

This photo on the streets of Moscow shows an anxious public in the streets listening for radio announcements about the start of war with Germany.

Another dramatic photo from the early years in the war shows the risks Khaldei took. Here he braves the bombs to get this surreal photo of a stag caught in the middle of a German air raid.

After the war Khaldei's photograph's record the post war treaties and its major players - here Josef Stalin poses with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Harry Truman.

He also photographed allied war generals British Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery and US General Dwight David Eisenhower with Soviet marshal Georgiy Zhukov.

His war photography represents the highest point of his career but Khaldei's Jewish background presented him with considerable personal difficulties.

During the war, German fascists killed his father and three sisters.

Even after the war, in 1949, the anti-semitism of the Soviet regime cost him his position at TASS and for 10 years he was able only to photograph the activities of the Soviet youth movement.

Nevertheless Khaldei remained a patriot all his life and never became a dissident.

Anna Khaldei, Yevgeni Khaldei's daughter, visits the exhibition on its opening day.

She is pleased her father's work is being honoured at the museum.

"This is the first exhibition of the kind in the entire Soviet Union. I am happy it happened," she says.

The little that was generally known of Khaldei's work for many years was his war pictures with their strict framing and concentration on perspective and foreground. His pictures are still used today to teach news photographers, particularly the art of framing.

The other part of his work, far from war and representing an invaluable record of life in Soviet times, confirms just how important Khaldei was for photography and how much he deserves the recognition that came late in his career.

Oleksiy Sheremetyev, organiser of the exhibition explains the story behind one of Khaldei's photos.

"This is four of Germany's supreme military commanders, including Karl D�nitz and Herman Goering. When Khaldei approached Goering to take a photo, Goering, seeing the Soviet photographer, started shouting 'Russian pig' at him. A US guard told him to shut up, but Goering did not, and the guard beat him with a rubber stick."

These scenes in Moscow's Red Square from 1945 show the joy at the end of the war in the Russian capital.

Stalin watches over his victorious army on celebratory parade, Nazi flags are thrown to the ground, and fireworks fill the night sky.

Victory Day is still celebrated across the former Soviet Union on May 9.

Yevgeni died in 1997 in Moscow at the age of 80.

The exhibition opened in Kiev on May 5 and runs until June 20.

Avdiivka, Eastern Ukraine - 24 August 2015

1. Ukrainian flag flying in front of window covered with sandbags

2. Exploded bridge

3. Ukrainian armoured personnel carrier

4. Various of Ukrainian soldiers preparing for battle

5. SOUNDBITE (Ukrainian) Roman Pikulyk, Ukrainian army platoon commander:

"Today is Independence Day, 24th of August, a happy day for Ukrainians, however it's a normal day for us here on the frontline in Donbass. Yesterday was artillery and automatic guns fighting, today we are expecting even more, but we are ready. My heart longs for celebration, but here the holiday feels different, because when you're at war every day it is a miracle when you have survived. Thank God there are not many injured and everybody is alive."

6. Various of Ukrainian soldiers firing toward positions of Russia-backed rebels

7. Ukrainian soldiers fixing a "Maxim" machine gun (World War I-era weapon)

8. Various of incoming fire, explosions

9. Various of soldier in dug out position, firing weapon

10. SOUNDBITE (Ukrainian) "Taiga", Ukrainian army battalion commander: ++AUDIO: GUNFIRE++

"We haven't seen them. What is written in those (ceasefire) agreements? Surely there should be agreements, nobody wants war. But if there are agreements from one side and cannon fire from another? Take a few days ago, the whole horizon was bright from artillery fire." AUDIO: Radio, gunfire.

11. Ukrainian soldiers using "Maxim" machine gun

Avdiivka, Eastern Ukraine - 24 August 2015

1. Ukrainian flag flying in front of window covered with sandbags

2. Exploded bridge

3. Ukrainian armoured personnel carrier

4. Various of Ukrainian soldiers preparing for battle

5. SOUNDBITE (Ukrainian) Roman Pikulyk, Ukrainian army platoon commander:

"Today is Independence Day, 24th of August, a happy day for Ukrainians, however it's a normal day for us here on the frontline in Donbass. Yesterday was artillery and automatic guns fighting, today we are expecting even more, but we are ready. My heart longs for celebration, but here the holiday feels different, because when you're at war every day it is a miracle when you have survived. Thank God there are not many injured and everybody is alive."

6. Various of Ukrainian soldiers firing toward positions of Russia-backed rebels

7. Ukrainian soldiers fixing a "Maxim" machine gun (World War I-era weapon)

8. Various of incoming fire, explosions

9. Various of soldier in dug out position, firing weapon

10. SOUNDBITE (Ukrainian) "Taiga", Ukrainian army battalion commander: ++AUDIO: GUNFIRE++

"We haven't seen them. What is written in those (ceasefire) agreements? Surely there should be agreements, nobody wants war. But if there are agreements from one side and cannon fire from another? Take a few days ago, the whole horizon was bright from artillery fire." AUDIO: Radio, gunfire.

11. Ukrainian soldiers using "Maxim" machine gun

Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russia-backed rebels on the frontline in Avdiivka felt far away from Ukraine's Independence Day celebrations on Monday.

The conflict in the east, which has claimed more than 6,800 lives since it began in April 2014, saw a major increase in violence last week with nine civilians and soldiers killed in just one day.

The press office of the Ukrainian military operation in the east said on Monday the rebels violated the cease-fire 82 times overnight, in some cases with large-calibre weapons that should have been withdrawn in line with a truce signed in February.

The presidents of Ukraine, France and Germany are meeting this evening in Berlin to discuss a peaceful solution to the crisis.

Moscow is not sending its representative to Berlin but said it would watch the meeting closely.

A black and a silver van entered the back entrance of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Wednesday, bringing former Bosnian Serb military commander General Ratko Mladic for trial.

Twenty years after Serb forces unleashed a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, Mladic, their military commander, is finally going on trial on charges of masterminding atrocities throughout the country's devastating 1992-95 war.

Mladic has been charged by the UN tribunal with 11charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men in the Srebrenica enclave in 1995, the worst mass murder in Europe since World War II.

The ailing 70-year-old Mladic's appearance at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal marks the end of a long wait for justice for survivors of the 1992-95 war that left some 100-thousand people dead.

The trial is also a landmark for the UN court and international justice - Mladic is the last suspect from the Bosnian war to go on trial here.

Mladic has refused to enter pleas, but he denies wrongdoing, saying he acted to defend Serbs in Bosnia.

If he is convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

He suffered a stroke while in hiding and has suffered other health problems since arriving in The Hague.

He now looks little like the burly, swaggering general who marshalled his troops as the world watched during the Bosnian war.

Mladic was arrested in a village near Belgrade in May 2011, ending 15 years as one of the world's most-wanted fugitives.

1. Wide of a black van and a silver van driving down road and through the gate of back entrance of International Criminal tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

2. Mid shot of security at gate

3. Wide exterior of rear of court building

A quarter of a century after Europe's worst massacre since World War II, the remains of eight men and boys killed in Srebrenica in 1995 will finally be laid to rest at a memorial cemetery outside the ill-fated eastern Bosnian town, next to 6,610 previously identified victims.  

More than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims perished in 10 days of slaughter after Srebrenica was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces in the closing months of the country's 1992-95 fratricidal war.

Their bodies were ploughed into hastily made mass graves, which were later bulldozed and scattered among other burial sites to hide the evidence of the crime.

But Bosnian and international scientists, who in 1996 embarked on a seemingly impossible task of unearthing the secrets of those gruesome death pits, have been connecting the bones with the names of the people they belonged to and returning them to their surviving relatives.  

Slowly unlocking what was once described as the "biggest forensic puzzle anywhere in the world," they have found and identified more victims to be buried under identical white headstones at the Potocari memorial cemetery.  

Most of the Srebrenica's men were killed in the massacre, so it is mostly their surviving mothers, sisters or daughters who gather at the Potocari memorial cemetery each year on July 11 - the anniversary of the day the slaughter began -  to attend the collective funeral for recently identified victims.  

Typically, thousands of visitors from various countries attend the service, but this year because of the coronavirus pandemic only a relatively small number of survivors will be allowed to collectively honor their dead.  

The commemoration will be a "combination of a physical and virtual event", explained Emir Suljagic, the director of the Srebrenica memorial center at Potocari.

Massacre survivor, Fazila Efendic, will attend, to witness her sisters-in-grief burying a handful of bones that were found in mass graves and identified with DNA analysis as having belonged to their fathers, brothers or sons.  

Fazila's husband, Hamed, and her only son, Fejzo, were killed in the massacre.  

For years, every time a new mass grave was found, she rushed to the site hoping to see something she would recognize as having belonged to the two men.

But all she ever saw was just a jumble of mortal remains.  

All of Hamed's remains were found in two mass graves.

Two of Fezjo's leg bones were  found in another grave, several years after his father.

After waiting for five years for more remains of her son to be found, in 2013 Fazila finally decided to bury his two bones alongside his father at Potocari.  

"I wanted him to be next to his father and to be able to come and pray over their graves", she said.

That the massacre survivors have found comfort in knowing where their relatives are buried is a testament to the resourcefulness and dedication of forensic scientists, mostly Bosnian and American, who in 1996 joined the team of the International Commission on Missing Persons, ICMP.

Set up at the urging of the former US President Bill Clinton and envisioned as an ad hoc body devoted to the former Yugoslavia, the ICMP designed a DNA-based system to find and identify the remains of some 40,000 persons reported missing as a result of the 1990s conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, the vast majority of them in Bosnia.  

In 2014, the ICMP became a permanent global body and moved its headquarters from Sarajevo to The Hague.

But not before contributing to the unprecedented achievement of accounting for more than 70% of all the missing victims of the 1990s Balkan wars, including close to 7,000 of those killed in the Srebrenica massacre.  

Today, the ICMP works not only in the former Yugoslavia, but is also helping track down millions of people who disappeared in conflicts and natural disasters around the world.  

The Srebrenica massacre is the only episode of the Bosnian war to be defined as genocide by two UN courts, in part thanks to the ICMP scientific data, including DNA records, that have been admitted as evidence at trials before them.

Many Bosnian Serbs continue to deny the extent of the crime, although both their war time civilian leader and their military commander, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic respectively, were found guilty of genocide in Srebrenica by a special UN war crimes court.

"This is Srebrenica," said Fazila, looking out at thousands of white grave stones, each representing an individual person with a unique date of birth, a specific month in a specific year, but all of their lives ended at the same time, in the same horrific violence.

A cemetery in which every gravestone has the same date of death, Potocari is a shocking visual representation of one of the worst war crimes in modern history.

Srebrenica - 6 July 2020

1. Various aerial shots of the Srebrenica memorial cemetery at Potocari ++MUTE++

2. Various of Srebrenica resident, Fazila Efendic, praying next to the headstones of her husband and son, both killed in the 1995 massacre

3. SOUNDBITE (Bosnian) Fazila Efendic, Srebrenica massacre survivor:

"Having all that in your memory is very difficult, depressing."

4. Efendic's hand stroking her son's headstone

5. SOUNDBITE (Bosnian) Fazila Efendic, Srebrenica massacre survivor:

"There are no words to describe the pain, the sorrow you feel when you are looking for (your loved ones) bone by bone, in mass graves. I visited every newfound mass grave; I've seen the inside of every one of them."  

6. Efendic standing between her husband's and her son's gravestones

7. SOUNDBITE (Bosnian) Fazila Efendic, Srebrenica massacre survivor (speaking of her son): "I wanted him to be next to his father and to be able to come and pray over their graves, to know that inside there is at least one of (his) bones. Where is the rest of him, scattered among mass graves? Many mass graves are still hidden, unopened, people (inside them) unidentified. Some mothers will die without finding their children."

8. Efendic's hand stroking her son's headstone

9. SOUNDBITE (Bosnian) Fazila Efendic, Srebrenica massacre survivor:

"After 25 years, Srebrenica is at Ptocari (memorial cemetery), it moved here. People of Srebrenica who had been killed lie under these gravestones. This is Srebrenica, these gravestones."

10. Various of row upon row of white headstones

11. Srebrenica massacre survivor Hasan Hasanovic looking at war-time map of his hometown

12. SOUNDBITE (English) Hasan Hasanovic, Srebrenica massacre survivor:

"I buried my father, I buried my twin brother, my uncle as well and now is time, after all, to document our memories. We'll do our best to document that, our heritage here at the (Srebrenica) Memorial (Center). So as Jews have not forgotten what they had survived, the same thing applies here on us. We will do our best to document the genocide and we can promise that we will never forget it."

13. Various exterior shots of the Srebrenica Memorial Centre located inside the war-time Dutch UN peacekeepers' base

14. Various photographs of Srebrenica massacre survivors and personal items found during excavations of mass graves around town displayed inside memorial centre

15. Four visitors looking at photographs exhibited inside memorial centre

16. SOUNDBITE (English) Emir Suljagic, the director of the Srebrenica memorial centre at Potocari:

"The rest of the world needs to learn about Srebrenica (in order) to finally start acting in time in face of mass murder and atrocities. It finally needs to start acting in places like Syria, in places like Myanmar, it needs to start acting to prevent this very thing (that happened in Srebrenica) from happening to the Muslim Uyghur population of China."

17. Close of Bosnian Serb soldiers' war-time map of Srebrenica

ARCHIVE: Potocari, outside Srebrenica - July 1995

18. Various of Bosnian Serb wartime military commander, Ratko Mladic, and his soldiers inspecting Bosnian Muslims seeking shelter inside Dutch UN Base after killings had already begun

19. Various of desperate Bosnian Muslim civilians crowded inside Dutch UN compound

20. Various of desperate Bosnian Muslim women and children walking to Dutch UN compound

ARCHIVE: Srebrenica countryside - 8 July 2005

21. Wide of forensic experts at the site of a mass grave

22. Various of skulls of massacre victims inside mass grave

23. Forensic experts digging out mass grave

SHOTLIST

1. Sri Lankan President President Mahinda Rajapaksa arriving at ceremony

2. Cutaway of media and officials

3. Rajapaksa greeting Defence Minister Gotabhaya Rajapaksa

4. Chief of Defence Staff Air Marshal Donald Perera salutes Rajapaksa

5. Mid of Army Chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka walks into ceremony

6. Fonseka shakes hands with and then salutes Rajapaksa

7. Various of Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda greeting Rajapaksa

8. Cutaway of media

9. Rajapaksa shaking hands with Air Vice Marshal Roshan Gunatillake

10. Cutaway of official

11. Inspector General of Police Jayantha Wickramaratne shaking hands with Rajapaksa

12. Rajapaksa and officials walking off to meeting

13. Various of meeting

14. Rajapaksa getting up from meeting

15. Various of cake being cut and eaten

STORYLINE

The Sri Lankan president and his senior military officials late on Monday celebrated their victory over the Tamil Tiger rebels at a special ceremony at the president's office in the capital, Colombo.

Earlier in the day, the government declared it had crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, killing their chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, and ending his three-decade quest for an independent homeland for minority Tamils.

State television broke into its regular programming to announce Prabhakaran's death and the government information department sent a text message to mobile phones across the country confirming he was killed along with top deputies Soosai and Pottu Amman.

The announcement sparked mass celebrations around the country and people poured into the streets of Colombo dancing and singing.

Many see Prabhakaran's death as crucial to bringing closure to the war-wracked Indian Ocean island nation.

Analysts believe that if he had escaped from the war zone, he could have used his large international smuggling network and the support of Tamil expatriates to spark a new round of rebel warfare here.

However, his death in battle could still turn him into a martyr for other Tamil separatists.

While Velupillai Prabhakaran was a hero to some, his group was branded a "terrorist organisation" by the US and European Union and was accused of waging hundreds of suicide attacks, including the 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by a female bomber.

The rebels also forcibly recruited child soldiers.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa confirmed Prabhakaran's death in a phone call to India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Indian foreign affairs spokesman Vishnu Prakash said in a statement on Monday.

Senior Sri Lankan military officials said troops closed in on Prabhakaran and his final cadre early on Monday.

He and his top deputies then drove an armour-plated van accompanied by a bus filled with rebel fighters toward approaching forces, sparking a two-hour firefight, according to the officials, who were speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Troops eventually fired a rocket at the van, ending the battle, they said.

In addition to Prabhakaran, the attack also killed Soosai, the head of the rebels' naval wing, and Pottu Amman, the group's feared intelligence commander, the officials said.

A Sri Lankan military spokesman on Monday said troops had also found the body of Prabhakaran's eldest son, Charles Anthony, who was reportedly also a leader of the rebel group.

Prabhakaran has three children and Charles Anthony, named after a rebel leader who died earlier in the war, was the only one thought to be fighting along with his father.

The chubby, moustachioed Prabhakaran turned what was little more than a street gang in the late 1970s into one of the world's most feared insurgencies.

He demanded unwavering loyalty and gave his followers vials of cyanide to wear around their necks and bite into in case of capture.

The rebels demanded a separate state for minority Tamils after years of marginalisation at the hands of the Sinhalese majority.

Full-fledged war broke out in 1983 after the rebels killed 13 soldiers in an ambush, sparking anti-Tamil riots that human rights groups say killed as many as 2,000 people.

By the time the war ended, more than 70,000 had been killed.

Government forces ousted the rebels from their strongholds in the north in recent months and brought the group to its knees.

Thousands of civilians were reportedly killed in the recent fighting.

The UN said 7,000 civilians were killed in the fighting between January 20 and May 7.

Health officials in the area said more than a 1,000 others were killed since then.

Senior diplomats had appealed for a humanitarian cease-fire in recent weeks to safeguard the tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone, but the government refused, and denied persistent reports it was shelling the densely populated war zone.

Diplomats in Brussels on Monday said the European Union would endorse a call for an independent war crimes investigation into the killing of civilians in Sri Lanka.

The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because discussions were ongoing.

The rebels were also accused of using the civilians as human shields and shooting at some who fled.

President George W. Bush discusses creation of military commissions to try suspected terrorists in the East Room of the White House

1. President G.W. Bush at podium, audience clapping

2. SOUNDBITE: (English), President George W. Bush:

Thank you. Thanks for the warm welcome. Welcome to the White House. Mr. Vice President, Secretary Rice, Attorney General Gonzales, Ambassador Negroponte, General Hayden, members of the United States Congress, families who lost loved ones in the terrorist attacks on our nation, and my fellow citizens: Thanks for coming.

On the morning of September the 11th, 2001, our nation awoke to a nightmare attack. Nineteen men, armed with box cutters, took control of airplanes and turned them into missiles. They used them to kill nearly 3,000 innocent people. We watched the Twin Towers collapse before our eyes -- and it became instantly clear that we'd entered a new world, and a dangerous new war.

The attacks of September the 11th horrified our nation. And amid the grief came new fears and urgent questions: Who had attacked us? What did they want? And what else were they planning? Americans saw the destruction the terrorists had caused in New York, and Washington, and Pennsylvania, and they wondered if there were other terrorist cells in our midst poised to strike; they wondered if there was a second wave of attacks still to come.

With the Twin Towers and the Pentagon still smoldering, our country on edge, and a stream of intelligence coming in about potential new attacks, my administration faced immediate challenges: We had to respond to the attack on our country. We had to wage an unprecedented war against an enemy unlike any we had fought before. We had to find the terrorists hiding in America and across the world, before they were able to strike our country again. So in the early days and weeks after 9/11, I directed our government's senior national security officials to do everything in their power, within our laws, to prevent another attack.

Nearly five years have passed since these -- those initial days of shock and sadness -- and we are thankful that the terrorists have not succeeded in launching another attack on our soil. This is not for the lack of desire or determination on the part of the enemy. As the recently foiled plot in London shows, the terrorists are still active, and they're still trying to strike America, and they're still trying to kill our people. One reason the terrorists have not succeeded is because of the hard work of thousands of dedicated men and women in our government, who have toiled day and night, along with our allies, to stop the enemy from carrying out their plans. And we are grateful for these hardworking citizens of ours.

Another reason the terrorists have not succeeded is because our government has changed its policies -- and given our military, intelligence, and law enforcement personnel the tools they need to fight this enemy and protect our people and preserve our freedoms.

The terrorists who declared war on America represent no nation, they defend no territory, and they wear no uniform. They do not mass armies on borders, or flotillas of warships on the high seas. They operate in the shadows of society; they send small teams of operatives to infiltrate free nations; they live quietly among their victims; they conspire in secret, and then they strike without warning. In this new war, the most important source of information on where the terrorists are hiding and what they are planning is the terrorists, themselves. Captured terrorists have unique knowledge about how terrorist networks operate. They have knowledge of where their operatives are deployed, and knowledge about what plots are underway. This intelligence -- this is intelligence that cannot be found any other place. And our security depends on getting this kind of information. To win the war on terror, we must be able to detain, question, and, when appropriate, prosecute terrorists captured here in America, and on the battlefields around the world.

After the 9/11 attacks, our coalition launched operations across the world to remove terrorist safe havens, and capture or kill terrorist operatives and leaders. Working with our allies, we've captured and detained thousands of terrorists and enemy fighters in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and other fronts of this war on terror. These enemy -- these are enemy combatants, who were waging war on our nation. We have a right under the laws of war, and we have an obligation to the American people, to detain these enemies and stop them from rejoining the battle.

Most of the enemy combatants we capture are held in Afghanistan or in Iraq, where they're questioned by our military personnel. Many are released after questioning, or turned over to local authorities -- if we determine that they do not pose a continuing threat and no longer have significant intelligence value. Others remain in American custody near the battlefield, to ensure that they don't return to the fight.

In some cases, we determine that individuals we have captured pose a significant threat, or may have intelligence that we and our allies need to have to prevent new attacks. Many are al Qaeda operatives or Taliban fighters trying to conceal their identities, and they withhold information that could save American lives. In these cases, it has been necessary to move these individuals to an environment where they can be held secretly [sic], questioned by experts, and -- when appropriate -- prosecuted for terrorist acts.

Some of these individuals are taken to the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It's important for Americans and others across the world to understand the kind of people held at Guantanamo. These aren't common criminals, or bystanders accidentally swept up on the battlefield -- we have in place a rigorous process to ensure those held at Guantanamo Bay belong at Guantanamo. Those held at Guantanamo include suspected bomb makers, terrorist trainers, recruiters and facilitators, and potential suicide bombers. They are in our custody so they cannot murder our people. One detainee held at Guantanamo told a questioner questioning him -- he said this: "I'll never forget your face. I will kill you, your brothers, your mother, and sisters."

In addition to the terrorists held at Guantanamo, a small number of suspected terrorist leaders and operatives captured during the war have been held and questioned outside the United States, in a separate program operated by the Central Intelligence Agency. This group includes individuals believed to be the key architects of the September the 11th attacks, and attacks on the USS Cole, an operative involved in the bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and individuals involved in other attacks that have taken the lives of innocent civilians across the world. These are dangerous men with unparalleled knowledge about terrorist networks and their plans for new attacks. The security of our nation and the lives of our citizens depend on our ability to learn what these terrorists know.

Many specifics of this program, including where these detainees have been held and the details of their confinement, cannot be divulged. Doing so would provide our enemies with information they could use to take retribution against our allies and harm our country. I can say that questioning the detainees in this program has given us information that has saved innocent lives by helping us stop new attacks -- here in the United States and across the world. Today, I'm going to share with you some of the examples provided by our intelligence community of how this program has saved lives; why it remains vital to the security of the United States, and our friends and allies; and why it deserves the support of the United States Congress and the American people.

Within months of September the 11th, 2001, we captured a man known as Abu Zubaydah. We believe that Zubaydah was a senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden. Our intelligence community believes he had run a terrorist camp in Afghanistan where some of the 9/11 hijackers trained, and that he helped smuggle al Qaeda leaders out of Afghanistan after coalition forces arrived to liberate that country. Zubaydah was severely wounded during the firefight that brought him into custody -- and he survived only because of the medical care arranged by the CIA.

After he recovered, Zubaydah was defiant and evasive. He declared his hatred of America. During questioning, he at first disclosed what he thought was nominal information -- and then stopped all cooperation. Well, in fact, the "nominal" information he gave us turned out to be quite important. For example, Zubaydah disclosed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- or KSM -- was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, and used the alias "Muktar." This was a vital piece of the puzzle that helped our intelligence community pursue KSM. Abu Zubaydah also provided information that helped stop a terrorist attack being planned for inside the United States -- an attack about which we had no previous information. Zubaydah told us that al Qaeda operatives were planning to launch an attack in the U.S., and provided physical descriptions of the operatives and information on their general location. Based on the information he provided, the operatives were detained -- one while traveling to the United States.

We knew that Zubaydah had more information that could save innocent lives, but he stopped talking. As his questioning proceeded, it became clear that he had received training on how to resist interrogation. And so the CIA used an alternative set of procedures. These procedures were designed to be safe, to comply with our laws, our Constitution, and our treaty obligations. The Department of Justice reviewed the authorized methods extensively and determined them to be lawful. I cannot describe the specific methods used -- I think you understand why -- if I did, it would help the terrorists learn how to resist questioning, and to keep information from us that we need to prevent new attacks on our country. But I can say the procedures were tough, and they were safe, and lawful, and necessary.

Zubaydah was questioned using these procedures, and soon he began to provide information on key al Qaeda operatives, including information that helped us find and capture more of those responsible for the attacks on September the 11th. For example, Zubaydah identified one of KSM's accomplices in the 9/11 attacks -- a terrorist named Ramzi bin al Shibh. The information Zubaydah provided helped lead to the capture of bin al Shibh. And together these two terrorists provided information that helped in the planning and execution of the operation that captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Once in our custody, KSM was questioned by the CIA using these procedures, and he soon provided information that helped us stop another planned attack on the United States. During questioning, KSM told us about another al Qaeda operative he knew was in CIA custody -- a terrorist named Majid Khan. KSM revealed that Khan had been told to deliver $50,000 to individuals working for a suspected terrorist leader named Hambali, the leader of al Qaeda's Southeast Asian affiliate known as "J-I". CIA officers confronted Khan with this information. Khan confirmed that the money had been delivered to an operative named Zubair, and provided both a physical description and contact number for this operative.

Based on that information, Zubair was captured in June of 2003, and he soon provided information that helped lead to the capture of Hambali. After Hambali's arrest, KSM was questioned again. He identified Hambali's brother as the leader of a "J-I" cell, and Hambali's conduit for communications with al Qaeda. Hambali's brother was soon captured in Pakistan, and, in turn, led us to a cell of 17 Southeast Asian "J-I" operatives. When confronted with the news that his terror cell had been broken up, Hambali admitted that the operatives were being groomed at KSM's request for attacks inside the United States -- probably [sic] using airplanes.

During questioning, KSM also provided many details of other plots to kill innocent Americans. For example, he described the design of planned attacks on buildings inside the United States, and how operatives were directed to carry them out. He told us the operatives had been instructed to ensure that the explosives went off at a point that was high enough to prevent the people trapped above from escaping out the windows.

KSM also provided vital information on al Qaeda's efforts to obtain biological weapons. During questioning, KSM admitted that he had met three individuals involved in al Qaeda's efforts to produce anthrax, a deadly biological agent -- and he identified one of the individuals as a terrorist named Yazid. KSM apparently believed we already had this information, because Yazid had been captured and taken into foreign custody before KSM's arrest. In fact, we did not know about Yazid's role in al Qaeda's anthrax program. Information from Yazid then helped lead to the capture of his two principal assistants in the anthrax program. Without the information provided by KSM and Yazid, we might not have uncovered this al Qaeda biological weapons program, or stopped this al Qaeda cell from developing anthrax for attacks against the United States.

These are some of the plots that have been stopped because of the information of this vital program. Terrorists held in CIA custody have also provided information that helped stop a planned strike on U.S. Marines at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti -- they were going to use an explosive laden water tanker. They helped stop a planned attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi using car bombs and motorcycle bombs, and they helped stop a plot to hijack passenger planes and fly them into Heathrow or the Canary Wharf in London.

We're getting vital information necessary to do our jobs, and that's to protect the American people and our allies.

Information from the terrorists in this program has helped us to identify individuals that al Qaeda deemed suitable for Western operations, many of whom we had never heard about before. They include terrorists who were set to case targets inside the United States, including financial buildings in major cities on the East Coast. Information from terrorists in CIA custody has played a role in the capture or questioning of nearly every senior al Qaeda member or associate detained by the U.S. and its allies since this program began. By providing everything from initial leads to photo identifications, to precise locations of where terrorists were hiding, this program has helped us to take potential mass murderers off the streets before they were able to kill.

This program has also played a critical role in helping us understand the enemy we face in this war. Terrorists in this program have painted a picture of al Qaeda's structure and financing, and communications and logistics. They identified al Qaeda's travel routes and safe havens, and explained how al Qaeda's senior leadership communicates with its operatives in places like Iraq. They provided information that allows us -- that has allowed us to make sense of documents and computer records that we have seized in terrorist raids. They've identified voices in recordings of intercepted calls, and helped us understand the meaning of potentially critical terrorist communications.

The information we get from these detainees is corroborated by intelligence, and we've received -- that we've received from other sources -- and together this intelligence has helped us connect the dots and stop attacks before they occur. Information from the terrorists questioned in this program helped unravel plots and terrorist cells in Europe and in other places. It's helped our allies protect their people from deadly enemies. This program has been, and remains, one of the most vital tools in our war against the terrorists. It is invaluable to America and to our allies. Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that al Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland. By giving us information about terrorist plans we could not get anywhere else, this program has saved innocent lives.

This program has been subject to multiple legal reviews by the Department of Justice and CIA lawyers; they've determined it complied with our laws. This program has received strict oversight by the CIA's Inspector General. A small number of key leaders from both political parties on Capitol Hill were briefed about this program. All those involved in the questioning of the terrorists are carefully chosen and they're screened from a pool of experienced CIA officers. Those selected to conduct the most sensitive questioning had to complete more than 250 additional hours of specialized training before they are allowed to have contact with a captured terrorist.

I want to be absolutely clear with our people, and the world: The United States does not torture. It's against our laws, and it's against our values. I have not authorized it -- and I will not authorize it. Last year, my administration worked with Senator John McCain, and I signed into law the Detainee Treatment Act, which established the legal standard for treatment of detainees wherever they are held. I support this act. And as we implement this law, our government will continue to use every lawful method to obtain intelligence that can protect innocent people, and stop another attack like the one we experienced on September the 11th, 2001.

The CIA program has detained only a limited number of terrorists at any given time -- and once we've determined that the terrorists held by the CIA have little or no additional intelligence value, many of them have been returned to their home countries for prosecution or detention by their governments. Others have been accused of terrible crimes against the American people, and we have a duty to bring those responsible for these crimes to justice. So we intend to prosecute these men, as appropriate, for their crimes.

Soon after the war on terror began, I authorized a system of military commissions to try foreign terrorists accused of war crimes. Military commissions have been used by Presidents from George Washington to Franklin Roosevelt to prosecute war criminals, because the rules for trying enemy combatants in a time of conflict must be different from those for trying common criminals or members of our own military. One of the first suspected terrorists to be put on trial by military commission was one of Osama bin Laden's bodyguards -- a man named Hamdan. His lawyers challenged the legality of the military commission system. It took more than two years for this case to make its way through the courts. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the military commissions we had designed, but this past June, the Supreme Court overturned that decision. The Supreme Court determined that military commissions are an appropriate venue for trying terrorists, but ruled that military commissions needed to be explicitly authorized by the United States Congress.

So today, I'm sending Congress legislation to specifically authorize the creation of military commissions to try terrorists for war crimes. My administration has been working with members of both parties in the House and Senate on this legislation. We put forward a bill that ensures these commissions are established in a way that protects our national security, and ensures a full and fair trial for those accused. The procedures in the bill I am sending to Congress today reflect the reality that we are a nation at war, and that it's essential for us to use all reliable evidence to bring these people to justice.

We're now approaching the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks -- and the families of those murdered that day have waited patiently for justice. Some of the families are with us today -- they should have to wait no longer. So I'm announcing today that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and 11 other terrorists in CIA custody have been transferred to the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. (Applause.) They are being held in the custody of the Department of Defense. As soon as Congress acts to authorize the military commissions I have proposed, the men our intelligence officials believe orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on September the 11th, 2001, can face justice. (Applause.)

We'll also seek to prosecute those believed to be responsible for the attack on the USS Cole, and an operative believed to be involved in the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. With these prosecutions, we will send a clear message to those who kill Americans: No longer -- how long it takes, we will find you and we will bring you to justice. (Applause.)

These men will be held in a high-security facility at Guantanamo. The International Committee of the Red Cross is being advised of their detention, and will have the opportunity to meet with them. Those charged with crimes will be given access to attorneys who will help them prepare their defense -- and they will be presumed innocent. While at Guantanamo, they will have access to the same food, clothing, medical care, and opportunities for worship as other detainees. They will be questioned subject to the new U.S. Army Field Manual, which the Department of Defense is issuing today. And they will continue to be treated with the humanity that they denied others.

As we move forward with the prosecutions, we will continue to urge nations across the world to take back their nationals at Guantanamo who will not be prosecuted by our military commissions. America has no interest in being the world's jailer. But one of the reasons we have not been able to close Guantanamo is that many countries have refused to take back their nationals held at the facility. Other countries have not provided adequate assurances that their nationals will not be mistreated -- or they will not return to the battlefield, as more than a dozen people released from Guantanamo already have. We will continue working to transfer individuals held at Guantanamo, and ask other countries to work with us in this process. And we will move toward the day when we can eventually close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

I know Americans have heard conflicting information about Guantanamo. Let me give you some facts. Of the thousands of terrorists captured across the world, only about 770 have ever been sent to Guantanamo. Of these, about 315 have been returned to other countries so far -- and about 455 remain in our custody. They are provided the same quality of medical care as the American service members who guard them. The International Committee of the Red Cross has the opportunity to meet privately with all who are held there. The facility has been visited by government officials from more than 30 countries, and delegations from international organizations, as well. After the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe came to visit, one of its delegation members called Guantanamo "a model prison" where people are treated better than in prisons in his own country. Our troops can take great pride in the work they do at Guantanamo Bay -- and so can the American people.

As we prosecute suspected terrorist leaders and operatives who have now been transferred to Guantanamo, we'll continue searching for those who have stepped forward to take their places. This nation is going to stay on the offense to protect the American people. We will continue to bring the world's most dangerous terrorists to justice -- and we will continue working to collect the vital intelligence we need to protect our country.

TAPE NUMBER: OA 201

DATELINE: March 26, 2010 Washington DC

James S. Brady Press Briefing Room

10:47 A.M. EDT

10:53 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. I just concluded a productive phone call with President Medvedev. And I'm pleased to announce that after a year of intense negotiations, the United States and Russia have agreed to the most comprehensive arms control agreement in nearly two decades.

Since taking office, one of my highest priorities has been addressing the threat posed by nuclear weapons to the American people. And that's why, last April in Prague, I stated America's intention to pursue the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons, a goal that's been embraced by Presidents like John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

While this aspiration will not be reached in the near future, I put forward a comprehensive agenda to pursue it -- to stop the spread of these weapons; to secure vulnerable nuclear materials from terrorists; and to reduce nuclear arsenals. A fundamental part of that effort was the negotiation of a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia.

Furthermore, since I took office, I've been committed to a "reset" of our relationship with Russia. When the United States and Russia can cooperate effectively, it advances the mutual interests of our two nations, and the security and prosperity of the wider world. We've so far already worked together on Afghanistan. We've coordinated our economic efforts through the G20. We are working together to pressure Iran to meet its international obligations. And today, we have reached agreement on one of my administration's top national security priorities -- a pivotal new arms control agreement.

In many ways, nuclear weapons represent both the darkest days of the Cold War, and the most troubling threats of our time. Today, we've taken another step forward by -- in leaving behind the legacy of the 20th century while building a more secure future for our children. We've turned words into action. We've made progress that is clear and concrete. And we've demonstrated the importance of American leadership -- and American partnership -- on behalf of our own security, and the world's.

Broadly speaking, the new START treaty makes progress in several areas. It cuts -- by about a third -- the nuclear weapons that the United States and Russia will deploy. It significantly reduces missiles and launchers. It puts in place a strong and effective verification regime. And it maintains the flexibility that we need to protect and advance our national security, and to guarantee our unwavering commitment to the security of our allies.

With this agreement, the United States and Russia -- the two largest nuclear powers in the world -- also send a clear signal that we intend to lead. By upholding our own commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, we strengthen our global efforts to stop the spread of these weapons, and to ensure that other nations meet their own responsibilities.

I'm pleased that almost one year to the day after my last trip to Prague, the Czech Republic -- a close friend and ally of the United States -- has agreed to host President Medvedev and me on April 8th, as we sign this historic treaty. The following week, I look forward to hosting leaders from over 40 nations here in Washington, as we convene a summit to address how we can secure vulnerable nuclear materials so that they never fall into the hands of terrorists. And later this spring, the world will come together in New York to discuss how we can build on this progress, and continue to strengthen the global non-proliferation regime.

Through all these efforts, cooperation between the United States and Russia will be essential. I want to thank President Medvedev for his personal and sustained leadership as we worked through this agreement. We've had the opportunity to meet many times over the last year, and we both agree that we can serve the interests of our people through close cooperation.

I also want to thank my national security team, who did so much work to make this day possible. That includes the leaders with me here today -- Secretary Clinton, Secretary Gates, and Admiral Mullen. And it includes a tireless negotiating team. It took patience. It took perseverance. But we never gave up. And as a result, the United States will be more secure, and the American people will be safer.

Finally, I look forward to continuing to work closely with Congress in the months ahead. There is a long tradition of bipartisan leadership on arms control. Presidents of both parties have recognized the necessity of securing and reducing these weapons. Statesmen like George Shultz, Sam Nunn, Henry Kissinger, and Bill Perry have been outspoken in their support of more assertive action. Earlier this week, I met with my friends John Kerry and Dick Lugar to discuss this treaty, and throughout the morning, my administration will be consulting senators -- my administration will be consulting senators from both parties as we prepare for what I hope will be a strong, bipartisan support to ratify the new START treaty.

With that, I'm going to leave you in the able hands of my Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, as well as Secretary of Defense Gates and Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen. So I want to thank all of you for your attention.

Hillary.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, thank you all very much. This is a good day for America and our security. And as President Obama just reiterated, it is one of the highest priorities of the Obama administration to pursue an agenda to reduce the threat posed by the deadliest weapons the world has ever known. President Obama set that forth in his speech at Prague last year. And today, he and President Medvedev reached an agreement to make significant and verifiable reductions in our nuclear arsenals.

Long after the Cold War's end, the United States and Russia still possess more than 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. We do not need such large arsenals to protect our nation and our allies against the two greatest dangers we face today: nuclear proliferation and terrorism.

This treaty represents a significant step forward in our cooperation with Russia. We were committed from the beginning to reset the U.S.-Russia relationship, because we saw it as essential to making progress on our top priorities -- from counterterrorism, to nuclear security and non-proliferation.

Now, we will continue to have disagreements with our Russian friends. But this treaty is an example of deep and substantive cooperation on a matter of vital importance. And more broadly, it shows that patient, principled diplomacy can advance our national interests by producing real results, in this case results that are good for us, good for Russia, and good for global security and stability.

The treaty also shows the world -- particularly states like Iran and North Korea -- that one of our top priorities is to strengthen the global non-proliferation regime and keep nuclear materials out of the wrong hands. The new START treaty demonstrates our commitment to making progress toward disarmament under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the so-called NPT.

So as we uphold our commitments and strengthen the NPT, we can hold others accountable to do the same. I know that Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen will say more about the details of the treaty, but I want to make clear that we have adhered to the Russian proverb that President Reagan frequently employed, "trust, but verify." Verification provides the transparency and builds the trust needed to reduce the chance for misunderstandings and miscalculations.

President Obama insisted on a whole of government effort to reach this result, and that's exactly what this was. He and President Medvedev met several times and spoke often by phone. Secretary Gates, Admiral Mullen, General Jones worked closely with their Russian counterparts. Foreign Minister Lavrov and I met in person, most recently last week in Moscow, and we spoke on the phone too many times to count. Assistant Secretary Rose Gottemoeller worked tirelessly in Geneva for many months as our chief negotiator. Under Secretary Ellen Tauscher, who is here with us, joined her at a crucial time to help complete the agreement, assisted very ably by our State Department expert team, including Jim Timbie. Teams of people at the State Department, the White House, DOD, elsewhere worked tirelessly to make this happen.

Let me conclude by saying that I look forward to working with my former colleagues in the Senate. They will be our partners in this enterprise. I know President Obama had an excellent meeting, as he reported to you, with both Senators Kerry and Lugar. And Rose, Ellen and General Jones and others of us have briefed members along the way. I look forward to working toward ratification to bring this treaty into force.

Now it's my great pleasure and honor to turn the podium over to my friend, Secretary Bob Gates.

SECRETARY GATES: This treaty strengthens nuclear stability. It will reduce the number of strategic nuclear weapons that both Russia and the United States are permitted to deploy by a third, and maintains an effective verification regime.

America's nuclear arsenal remains an important pillar of the U.S. defense posture, both to deter potential adversaries and to reassure more than two dozen allies and partners who rely on our nuclear umbrella for their security.

But it is clear that we can accomplish these goals with fewer nuclear weapons. The reductions in this treaty will not affect the strength of our nuclear triad. Nor does this treaty limit plans to protect the United States and our allies by improving and deploying missile defense systems.

Much of the analysis that supported the U.S. negotiating position was provided by the Defense Department's nuclear posture review, which will be released shortly.

As the number of weapons declines we will have to invest more heavily in our nuclear infrastructure in order to keep our weapons safe, secure and effective.

I look forward to working with the Congress to make sure that Departments of Defense and Energy have the funding necessary to properly accomplish this mission.

The subject of America's nuclear deterrent and this treaty carries special personal meaning for me. My professional career began as a junior Air Force Officer under the Strategic Air Command, and my first assignment 43 years ago was at Whiteman Air Force Base, then home to 150 Minuteman ICBMs. Since 1971, I have been involved in strategic arms negotiations in different capacities at CIA and here at the NSC. And I particularly recall the day President Reagan signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Treaty, which marked the transition from arms control to disarmament. That process accelerated with START and reaches another important milestone with this treaty.

The journey we have taken from being one misstep away from mutual assured destruction to the substantial arms reductions of this new agreement is testimony to just how much the world has changed and all of the opportunities we still have to make our planet safer and more secure.

Admiral Mullen.

ADMIRAL MULLEN: Good morning, everyone. I would only like to add that I, the Vice Chairman, and the Joint Chiefs, as well as our combatant commanders around the world, stand solidly behind this new treaty, having had the opportunity to provide our counsel, to make our recommendations, and to help shape the final agreements.

We greatly appreciate the trust and confidence placed by us -- placed in us by the President and by Secretary Gates throughout this process. And we recognize the trust and confidence this treaty helps foster in our relationship with Russia's military -- a trust complementary to that which the President has sought to achieve between our two countries.

Indeed, I met with my Russian counterpart, General Makarov, no fewer than three times during the negotiation process. And each time we met, we grew closer not only toward our portion of the final result, but also toward a better understanding of the common challenges and opportunities our troops face every single day.

The new START deals directly with some of the most lethal of those common challenges -- our stockpiles of strategic nuclear weapons -- by dramatically reducing these stockpiles. This treaty achieves a proper balance more in keeping with today's security environment, reducing tensions even as it bolsters non-proliferation efforts. It features a much more effective, transparent verification method that demands quicker data exchanges and notifications. It protects our ability to develop a conventional global strike capability should that be required. And perhaps more critically, it allows us to deploy and maintain strategic nuclear forces -- bombers, submarines, missiles; the triad which has proven itself over the decades -- in ways best suited to meeting our security commitments.

In other words, through the trust it engenders, the cuts it requires, and the flexibility it preserves this treaty enhances our ability to do that which we have been charged to do: protect and defend the citizens of the United States. I am as confident in its success as I am in its safeguards.

Thank you.

MR. GIBBS: All right, guys. We're going to take three or four questions here and then let these guys get back to work.

Yes, sir.

Q Quickly for Secretary Clinton, how confident are you of early ratification in the Senate? And if I may ask, Secretary Gates, you mentioned no limits on missile defense. Do you foresee, in the future, engaging with Russia more broadly in any kind of limitations on U.S. missile defense?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Bob, let me say that we are focused on ratification. We're working hard. We're going to engage deeply and broadly with all of the members of the Senate. And we're also informing members of the House as well. I'm not going to set any timetables, but we're confident that we'll be able to make the case for ratification.

In fact, I think if you look at the last three major nuclear arms treaties, the SORT Treaty of 2003, 95-0; START I Treaty, 1992, 93-6; the INF Treaty, 1988, 93-5. So I think when it comes to the goals of this treaty, and as both Bob and Mike outlined the great balance that it strikes -- there should be very broad bipartisan support.

SECRETARY GATES: I would say that we will continue to try and engage the Russians as partners in this process. One of the technical benefits of the phased adaptive approach that the President announced last year is that it actually makes it easier to connect the Russian radars and capabilities to those in Europe. So we think that there's still broad opportunity to not only engage the Russians, but hopefully make them a participant in a European-wide defense capability.

MR. GIBBS: Jeff.

Q Thank you. For Secretary Clinton, first of all, do you believe these reductions are enough? And, second, could you expand a little bit more on what this means for the U.S.-Russia relationship? Is the reset complete?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Jeff, I think that this was, in and of itself a major achievement in our relationship. And equally importantly, it builds to that foundation of trust and confidence that we are establishing between the United States and Russia. This is a very complex relationship, and it's one that we have given a great deal of attention to from the President all the way through the national security team, because we believe that there are so many other areas of mutual cooperation that we can pursue.

Bob mentioned one: We continue to look for ways to engage with Russia on missile defense in a way that is mutually beneficial and protective of our country's security against these new threats we face in the world.

But our relationship coming out of the bi-national commission that President Obama and President Medvedev announced last summer has covered so much ground. And we'd be glad to give you all an in-depth briefing on that because I think it demonstrates that we're not just talking about the big ticket items -- like START, like Iran sanctions, like European security, like missile defense -- we're back in the business of trying to create more people-to-people contacts and more business investment opportunities. So we are very committed and we're going to continue to work together on it.

Q One for the Russian press?

MR. GIBBS: Yes.

Q Thank you. And thanks for doing this and congratulations on your success. I wanted to ask, you are facing a difficult task of convincing the U.S. Congress to ratify the treaty. And the Russians will face the same task. So I assume the process was bilateral, mutually beneficial. Please tell me how the Russian interests were taken into account in the negotiations and final documents.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, obviously, the Russian leadership will be in the best position to speak to the Russian interests and how those were met. But what we both believed as we went through this difficult negotiation was that cutting our arsenals by 30 percent was in the best interest of both of our countries, increasing more confidence between us with respect to our nuclear programs. The kind of decisions that the Russian leadership authorized to be made in this negotiation are clearly, in their view, in Russia's security interests.

And you're right, just as we have to go to our Congress, President Medvedev has to go to the Duma. And I think President Obama has said that he would send Rahm Emanuel to Moscow -- (laughter) -- and we all immediately endorsed that offer. (Laughter.) So if it -- you know, if President Medvedev wants to take us up on it, we're ready. (Laughter.)

Q Madam Secretary, congratulations. Obviously a couple of deadlines were missed on the way to today's announcement. What were the sticking points and how were they ultimately resolved? And then what's your message to Europeans who are still concerned about the nuclear missiles aimed at them from Russia?

SECRETARY CLINTON: You know, Jake, in any complex negotiation there are going to be points along the way where negotiators have to go back to their capitals; where the negotiators need to delegate in-depth conversations -- you heard Mike Mullen say what he had to do with his counterpart, Bob, I had to talk to my counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, many times, because the Presidents' -- President Obama and President Medvedev's directions were very clear: We want to do this, and we want to get it done in a timely manner.

But it took a lot of work. Just a few weeks ago I dispatched Under Secretary Tauscher to Geneva because we needed to make it absolutely clear that this was a priority at the highest levels of our government. The Russians responded to that very positively. And we began to just work out the last details.

In addition, though, it's important to note that we made a decision that we wanted not just to have the treaty agreed to; we wanted the protocols agreed to. Sometimes treaties in the past have been submitted while the work on the protocols still goes on. But we thought it was important that we really went through all the technical work in the protocols so that when we went to our Senate or when the Russian government went to the Duma, it wasn't just, okay, so what's going to be in the protocols; it was, okay, we can look at the treaty, we can look at the protocols. So that was also some of the time that had to be taken in order to really get to the point where we both felt like we had the package necessary to go to our legislative bodies.

Q And the message to the Europeans? I'm sorry.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we have consistently conveyed to our European friends and allies America's absolute commitment to our NATO partners and to their defense. The phased adaptive approach that the President concluded was the best way forward on missile defense we think actually makes Europe safer from what are the real threats that are out there.

There is still work to be done in the NATO-Russia Council to build confidence in our Central and Eastern European partners with Russia. But everybody is aware that that is something that is still ongoing. One of the reasons why it's so significant that the Presidents will meet in Prague is because we want to send exactly that signal, that this is good for Europe as well as for the United States and Russia.

Q Thank you, Madam Secretary. I think the average American, when they hear talk of strategic arms reductions, their eyes glaze over. The two things they really worry about are loose nukes getting in the hands of terrorists, which you touched on, and nations like Iran getting nuclear weapons. Could you explain how this treaty paves the way for progress on those two issues?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Chip, you know, as the President said in his remarks, we have a vision, a long-term vision, of moving toward a world without nuclear weapons. We are absolutely realistic about how long that will take to convince everyone that this is in the world's interest. But the steps we are taking add up to something that makes a very clear statement of intent.

So the START treaty, it says to our country, the Cold War really is behind us and these massive nuclear arsenals that both our countries maintained as part of deterrence no longer have to be so big; we can begin to cut that. That's not only in our security interests, but it also is a commitment by the United States and Russia toward non-proliferation and toward the eventual goal of a world without nuclear weapons.

The nuclear security summit that the President will host in two weeks -- largest gathering of international leaders probably since the end of World War II in the United States -- devoted to the idea of how do we keep nuclear materials out of the hands of rogue regimes and of terrorists. We come with more credibility, Russia comes with more credibility, having negotiated this treaty.

Then the Non-Proliferation Treaty in May takes it one step further, about how do we bring the non-proliferation regime into the 21st century, when we know, unfortunately, that terrorist groups are seeking nuclear weapons and states that are not -- they don't have the confidence of the international community in their ambitions, like Iran and North Korea, are also pursuing nuclear weapons.

So you have to look at this as part of our whole approach toward non-proliferation.

Q Did Iran come up in the conversation today?

MR. GIBBS: Let me just -- it was a fairly brief conversation finalizing the treaty. President Medvedev mentioned to President Obama that he wanted to speak with him when they met next in the Czech Republic.

Savannah.

Q You mentioned the bipartisan overwhelming majority these treaties have passed with in the past. Is there anything that concerns you about this particular political environment that you won't be able to get those 67 votes? You can opine on health care while you're at it, since we haven't had an opportunity. (Laughter.)

And for Secretary Gates, is the Pentagon uncomfortable at all about the President's go-to-zero campaign, considering we do depend on nuclear weapons for our national security? Thanks.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first, I think that national security has always produced large bipartisan majorities and I see no reason why this should be any different. We've had a very dynamic political debate in our country over health care, which was brought to a successful conclusion this week to the betterment of the American people going forward.

But I don't believe that this ratification effort will be affected by anything other than individual senators' assessments of whether this is in the best interest of American security. And I think that, as you heard from Bob and Mike and you will hear from many other experts in the administration over the weeks ahead as we testify and make the case to the press and the public for this treaty, we are absolutely united in our belief that this is in America's interest. It's in America's interest in the particulars of this treaty and it's in America's interest because it puts us in a very strong leadership position to make the case about an Iran, about a North Korea, about other countries doing more to safeguard nuclear materials.

So I believe that a vast majority of the Senate at the end of the day will see that this is in America's interest and it goes way beyond politics.

SECRETARY GATES: Let me first say a word about ratification from my perspective. There has been a very intense continuing consultation on the Hill as the negotiations have proceeded. Two of the areas that have been of concern in the Senate, among senators, are, are we protecting our ability to go forward with missile defense and are we going to make the investment in our nuclear infrastructure so that the stockpile will remain reliable and safe.

We have addressed both of those. Missile defense is not constrained by this treaty. And we have in our budget, the President's budget that went to the Hill for FY '11, almost $5 billion for investment in the nuclear infrastructure and maintaining the stockpile. So I think we have addressed the concerns that there may have been on the Hill and so I echo the sentiments of Secretary Clinton, that I think the prospects are quite good.

In terms of going to nuclear -- to zero nuclear weapons, the President has been very realistic in terms of -- you know, when he originally discussed this -- perhaps not in his lifetime. And we realize that other countries have substantial numbers of nuclear weapons; others are attempting to develop them. So we will do this in a realistic way.

But what this treaty does, and some of the other steps -- trying to get control of fissile material, the Non-Proliferation Treaty and so on -- are concrete steps to move in that direction. But I don't think anybody expects us to come anywhere close to zero nuclear weapons anytime soon.

Q Madam Secretary, to what degree in the preamble will missile defense be addressed? And did the Russians in any way, shape, or form insist upon some kind of linkage on future missile defense plans with the United States? And is there any concern that you have about Russian dissatisfaction with the Bulgaria-Romania component that they believe was not adequately conveyed to them before it was released in those two countries?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Major, if I could -- Robert, could I ask Under Secretary Tauscher to address this?

MR. GIBBS: Sure.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Just fresh from Geneva.

UNDER SECRETARY TAUSCHER: Thank you, Madam Secretary. President Obama and President Medvedev met in July and discussed and had an agreement that this is a strategic offensive weapons treaty, and that there is an inter-relationship between strategic offensive and defensive. But that is the discussion -- where the discussion ended. So I think when you see the treaty and the protocol, there are no constraints on missile defense.

When it comes to Romania, the phased adaptive approach is in phases, as you can see -- 2011, 2015, and 2018 deployments. And we have gone to extensive lengths to brief the Russians. Frankly, the phased adaptive approach has been up on the Web. The Ballistic Missile Defense Review has been up on the Web for weeks and months. So we've gone through extensive briefings with the Russians. We don't pre-clear any kind of conversations we have with allies and friends when we do things with them -- with anyone, including the Russians. But we certainly talked to the Russians soon afterwards, and they knew about the Romanian invitation for the 2015 SM-3 deployment.

MR. GIBBS: Roger, do you have one? Did you have one?

Q Well, yes, I'd like to follow up with the Secretary of State on Iran -- you've touched on a little bit -- and with that, Russia's cooperation now. What does that portend going ahead with Iran and the sanctions and getting them onboard?

SECRETARY CLINTON: We've had very constructive talks with all of our partners, and in-depth consultations with the Russians -- most recently last Thursday and Friday when I was in Moscow. We are working on language. The Russians are involved in -- being consulted on that drafting process.

So we are pursuing the plan that we set forth from the very beginning of this administration -- a two-track process where the first track was engagement, which the President has fulfilled in every way as he has reached out to the Iranians; and the other track of pressure in the event that the Iranians would not engage or refuse to comply with their international obligations.

The recent IAEA report that Director General Amano put out, summarizing many of the questions that raise concerns about Iran's behavior was I think widely viewed as an authoritative source -- not coming from the United States -- that summarized why the international community needs to move on this second track.

So I believe that you'll see increasing activity in the very near future as we work to bring to fruition a resolution that can muster the votes that are necessary in the Security Council.

Q And Medvedev was going to talk with the President in Prague on this?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, President Medvedev and President Obama have talked about this continuously.

Q He's going to talk to the President in Prague?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I think as Robert Gibbs said, when they are together they talk about this.

MR. GIBBS: We'll take one more from Ms. Thomas.

Q In view` of the pressure on Iran, do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Helen, I've missed you. (Laughter.)

Q Thank you. (Laughter.) We both got honorary degrees.

SECRETARY CLINTON: We did. We were -- Helen and I were out on the new Yankee Stadium field for the NYU commencement last --

Q Don't step on the grass. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: Yes, we didn't step on the grass, we were very careful. But, you know, she was, as always, in the center of activity.

You know, Helen, one of our goals is to try to move, as we have said, the world toward a recognition that nuclear weapons should be phased out. So from our perspective, that is our goal in fulfilling the President's vision. It is what we are doing with the nuclear security summit, where a number of countries from the region of the Middle East will be present. It's what we're doing with the Non-Proliferation Treaty conference in June. And it remains one of our highest priorities.

So I'm going to reaffirm our commitment to convincing countries that the path of non-proliferation, of lowering the temperature when it comes to nuclear weapons -- which we are doing with this treaty -- is the path they want to be on.

Q Verification is such an important part of this whole process. And for the American people, when they hear you talking about the new treaty, how can you assure them or what would you say to them about your level of confidence in the verification process that says that everyone will be working in good faith here? Secretary Gates?

SECRETARY GATES: Sure. The verification measures for this treaty have been designed to monitor compliance with the provisions with this treaty. So, for example, because their -- our throw-weight of missiles was not an issue, for example, telemetry is not nearly as important for this treaty as it has been in the past. In fact, we don't need telemetry to monitor compliance with this treaty.

Nonetheless, there still is a bilateral agreement to exchange telemetry information on up to five missile launches a year. I think that when the testimony of the intelligence community comes on the Hill, that the DNI and the experts will say that they are comfortable that the provisions of this treaty for verification are adequate for them to monitor Russian compliance, and vice versa.

MR. GIBBS: Thanks, guys.

END 11:23 A.M. EDT

Kosovo is moving to build itself a regular army, angering its neighboring country Serbia, which has floated the idea of military intervention.

In a vote set for Friday, Kosovo's 120-seat parliament is expected to easily approve draft government-submitted legislation to turn an existing 4,000-strong paramilitary force into an expanded, lightly armed army.

Belgrade does not recognize the independence of Kosovo, a landlocked former Serbian province lost two decades ago after an uprising by ethnic Albanians and a campaign of NATO airstrikes.

Officials in Pristina have denied claims by Serbia that the proposed army's main purpose would be to take over and ethnically cleanse Kosovo's Serbian-dominated north.

Kosovo officials said it will essentially be a security force handling crisis response and civil protection operations _ essentially what the current paramilitary force does.

Its main tasks would be search and rescue, explosive ordnance disposal, firefighting and hazardous material disposal.

Lieutenant Colonel Sylejman Cakaj was one of the commanders of Kosovo Albanian paramilitary unit KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) during the war with Serbia in 1999.

Cakaj, a military leader of Albanians in Kosovo, have become a battalion commander of Kosovo's Security Force, and today he is in charge of training of young soldiers in military skills.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Cakaj said that formation of new Kosovo army is not meant to harm anyone, especially Serbs in Kosovo, it's aim is to serve all of Kosovo citizens but also to join international peace missions abroad.

Cakaj said that some 4 percent of Kosovo Security Force today is filled with ethnic Serbs, and that these soldiers would be also transferred to new Kosovo Army.

The new army will have a 98-million-euro (111 million US dollars) annual budget, with 5,000 troops armed with light infantry weapons and 3,000 reservists.

A UN Security Council resolution from 1999 specifies that Kosovo is under the authority of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo with security provided by the NATO-led peacekeepers. NATO and the US have helped train the current Kosovo Security Force.

The US backs formation of the new army through a long process leading to multiethnic representation, starting with a change to the country's constitution that makes no reference to an army.

This, however, would require support from ethnic Serbian lawmakers, who strongly oppose the move.

Long-simmering tensions soared after Kosovo slapped a 100-percent tax on Serb imports last month _ in apparent retaliation after Serbian lobbying thwarted Kosovo's bid to join Interpol, the international police organization.

Serbian officials say the tariffs are a virtual embargo designed to force Kosovo's remaining ethnic Serbs, chief consumers of the affected goods, out of the country. The European Union, the United States and Russia have all urged lifting of the tariffs.

Although Serbia has increased its saber-rattling, it is highly unlikely to take military action.

That would trigger a direct confrontation with some 4,600 NATO-led peacekeepers, including US troops, stationed in Kosovo since 1999. It would also almost certainly prompt Western sanctions and Serbia's isolation.

Serbia lost control over Kosovo after a 1998-99 war that left more than 10,000 dead.

Serbia's bloody crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists and civilians in Kosovo prompted NATO airstrikes. In 2008, Kosovo declared independence.

The US and most of the West recognize it, but Russia and China do not.

North Mitrovica - 11 December 2018

1. Bridge dividing Albanian and Serbian community in Mitrovica

2. Road block on Serb side

3. NATO-Kosovo Force (KFOR) patrol next to the road blocks

4. NATO KFOR patrol behind the bridge road block on Serb side

5. Graffiti showing Serb soldiers and Serbian flag, sign reading (Serbian Cyrillic) "It's worth dying for this country"

6. Graffiti on the wall, apartment block

7. Graffiti showing people, a two headed eagle, Serbian symbol, and Serbian King Petar Karadjordjevic (who led Serbs in First World War)

8. Nebojsa Jovic, former Serbian soldier, leader of the group "Guardians of the Bridge," which guards the bridge of Mitrovica

9. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Nebojsa Jovic, former Serbian military commander and leader of group "Guardians of the Bridge":

''What they (Kosovo Albanians) should know from our history is that there was never a "small war" in these territories. Every time there was a conflict in Serbia, Kosovo and Metohija, it turned into a war on a bigger scale and none of us here want this war on a bigger scale. Now, it's all in the hands of our state. (Serbia) But if Serbia decides to stand on a side and watch this happening, we will definitely not peacefully stand aside. We will not allow the so called "syndrome of old man Vukasin, 'to sit back and watch this unfold. We will not allow them to, figuratively speaking, "come over here with knives.' What we said in the past, when they previously announced the formation of their (Kosovo) army, it's not a problem. You (Kosovo Albanians) form the army, we will conduct massive mobilization of everyone in the (Serbian) north. All male population from 23 to 63 years of age will be picked up for service. Not to attack anyone, but only to defend ourselves."

10. Protest of local Serbians in front of United Nations mission in Northern Mitrovica

11. SOUNDBITE (Serbian) Igor Simic, leader of Serbians in Northern Mitrovica:

''I will be very direct. Even if they (Albanians) use weapons and come here to attack unarmed Serb people - we will stand barehanded in front of them - first us - representatives of Serbs, and our people behind us. We, Serbs here, are not attacking anyone - we are just defending our right to stay and live here, in our ancient homeland. No one can strip us from this right."

12. Serbian flags

13. Monument of Serbian king Lazar, Serbian flags

ARCHIVE: Pristina - 22 September 2018

14. Kosovo Security Force (KSF) soldiers practicing breaking and entering into hostile building

15. Training bomb explodes, soldiers storming into building

16. KSF soldiers training, jumping over barbed wire fences

17. Soldier crawling under barbed wire

18. Soldier crawling

19. Soldiers jumping over high fence

20. Various of soldier on watch tower

21. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Lt. Col. Sylejman Cakaj, former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) soldier, now commander of KSF unit:

"We are all seeing geo-strategic changes in the world, towards the creation of a somewhat new world order. I believe it is very necessary that following the consolidation of its statehood, Kosovo has its army too, so that the KSF is transformed into the future army, as the country's president has set and it takes over its responsibilities, the ones that we are entitled to as the representatives of the people to be in control of our country, in coordination with international partners, not only to serve inside Kosovo but also abroad. That is a necessity for the time."

22. Photo of President of Kosovo and commander of the army, Hashim Thaci

23. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Lt. Col. Sylejman Cakaj, former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) soldier, now commander of KSF unit:

"The KSF will be a multi-ethnic force and we adapt very well to the statement of the mission. More than 8 percent of the KSF is with minority members. We as the 3rd Fast Reaction Battalion have 4 percent (with minority members) who are very well incorporated in the battalion committing their duties with honesty and at the highest level."

24. Soldiers training rescue of victims of earthquake

25. SOUNDBITE (English) Sgt. Drijon Hasani, KSF Soldier:

"As a member of the KSF we are proud to be, to serve into our army. So whenever, whatever comes next for our KSF I am really happy to accept it."

26. KSF Checkpoint

27. Soldier on an Armoured Personnel Carrier

28. KSF soldiers gathered in the yard of the barracks

29. Officer inspects troops

30. Soldier giving report to commander

31. Soldiers

32. Kosovo flag raising ceremony

33. Soldier pulling up Kosovo flag

34. Kosovo flag

TAPE NUMBER: OA 284

DATELINE: October 6, 2010 Washington, DC

Remarks by the President Awarding the Medal of Honor to Staff Sergeant Robert Miller

East Room

1:52 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Please be seated. Good afternoon. And on behalf of Michelle and myself, welcome to the White House. And thank you, General Carver, for that beautiful invocation.

We are a nation of more than 300 million Americans. Of these, less than 1 percent wears the uniform of our Armed Services. And of these, just a small fraction has earned the badges of our Special Operations Forces.

In the finest military the world has ever known, these warriors are the best of the best. In an era that prizes celebrity and status, they are "quiet professionals" -- never seeking the spotlight. In a time of war, they have borne a burden far beyond their small numbers -- training foreign militaries to stand on their own; bringing schools and medicine to remote villages; and taking to the terrorists and insurgents who plot against us.

Few Americans ever see their service, but all Americans are safer because of it. And our hearts swell with pride just hearing their names, including the legendary Green Berets. Today, it is my privilege to present our nation's highest military decoration -- the Medal of Honor -- to one of these remarkable soldiers, Staff Sergeant Robert J. Miller.

To do so, we are joined by Vice President Biden, and from the Miller's family's home state of Florida, a leader who helped make this day possible, Congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas.

We are joined by leaders from across my administration, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen; and leaders from our Armed Forces, including Army Secretary John McHugh and Chief of Staff General George Casey, as well as Commander of Special Operations Command, Admiral Eric Olson.

We are honored to be joined by Rob's fellow soldiers in whose ranks he served -- his teammates from Alpha Company, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group from Fort Bragg, and those who now welcome him into their ranks, members of the Medal of Honor Society.

Most of all, we welcome more than 100 of Rob's friends and family, especially his father Phil, his mother Maureen and his many brothers and sisters.

It has been said that courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. For Rob Miller, the testing point came nearly three years ago, deep in a snowy Afghan valley. But the courage he displayed that day reflects every virtue that defined his life.

Rob was wise beyond his years. Growing up in Wheaton, Illinois, outside of Chicago, he was the boy in school who penned a poem about American GI's in World War II, men -- like the soldier Rob would become himself -- who he said fought day and night, fighting for what they thought was right.

Rob was born to lead -- the high school gymnast who trained so hard his coach had to kick him out at night so they could close the gym. He was the Army recruit who pushed himself to his limits -- both physically and mentally -- to earn the title Green Beret. He was the Special Forces soldier who, on his first tour in Afghanistan, earned two Army Commendation Medals for his valor.

Devotion to duty. An abiding sense of honor. A profound love of country. These were the virtues that found their ultimate expression when Rob -- just 24 years old and on his second tour -- met his testing point on January 25, 2008.

Rob and his team were in the remote northwest of Afghanistan. Their mission: clear a valley of insurgents who had been attacking Afghan forces and terrorizing villagers. So when they came across an insurgent compound, Rob and his men made their move, unleashing their fire and calling in airstrikes.

Now, they were on foot, heading over to that destroyed compound, to assess the damage and gather intelligence. It was still dark, just before dawn. It was freezing cold -- and silent, except for the crackle of their radios and the crunch of snow under their boots. Like so many times before, Rob was up front -- leading a patrol of two dozen Afghans and Americans on a narrow trail along the valley floor, the steep mountains towering over them.

First, it was just a single insurgent, jumping out from behind a boulder. Then, the whole valley seemed to explode with gunfire. Within seconds, Rob and his patrol were pinned down, with almost no cover -- bullets and rocket-propelled grenades raining down from every direction. And when enemy reinforcements poured in, the odds were overwhelming. Rob's small patrol of two dozen men was nearly surrounded by almost 150 insurgents.

With the enemy just feets away -- some so close he could see their faces -- Rob held his ground. Despite the chaos around him, he radioed back enemy positions. As the only Pashto speaker on his team, he organized the Afghan soldiers around him. But the incoming fire, in the words of one soldier, was simply "astounding."

Rob made a decision. He called for his team to fall back. And then he did something extraordinary. Rob moved in the other direction -- toward the enemy, drawing their guns away from his team and bringing the fire of all those insurgents down upon himself.

The fighting was ferocious. Rob seemed to disappear into clouds of dust and debris, but his team could hear him on the radio, still calling out the enemy's position. And they could hear his weapon still firing as he provided cover for his men. And then, over the radio, they heard his voice. He had been hit. But still, he kept calling out enemy positions. Still, he kept firing. Still, he kept throwing his grenades. And then they heard it -- Rob's weapon fell silent.

This is the story of what one American soldier did for his team, but it's also a story of what they did for him. Two of his teammates braved the bullets and rushed to Rob's aid. In those final moments, they were there at his side -- American soldiers there for each other.

The relentless fire forced them back, but they refused to leave their fallen comrade. When reinforcements arrived, these Americans went in again -- risking their lives, taking more casualties -- determined to bring Rob Miller out of that valley. And finally, after fighting that raged for hours, they did.

When the dust settled and the smoke cleared, there was no doubt Rob Miller and his team had struck a major blow against the local insurgency. Five members of his patrol had been wounded, but his team had survived. And one of his teammates surely spoke for all of them when he said of Rob, "I would not be alive today if not for his ultimate sacrifice."

This is the valor that America honors today. To Rob's family and friends, I know that no words can ease the ache in your hearts. But I also know this -- Rob's life and legacy endures.

Rob endures in the pride of his parents. Phil and Maureen, you raised a remarkable son. Today and in the years to come, may you find some comfort in knowing that Rob gave his life doing what he loved -- protecting his friends and defending his country. You gave your oldest son to America, and America is forever in your debt.

Rob endures in the love of his brothers and sisters, all seven of whom join us today. Your brothers laid down his life so you could live yours in security and freedom. You honor him by living your lives to the fullest, and I suspect Rob would be especially proud of his younger brother Tom, who, inspired by his big brother, is now training to be a Green Beret himself.

Rob endures in the Afghans that he trained and he befriended. In valleys and villages half a world away, they remember him -- the American who spoke their language, who respected their culture and who helped them defend their country. They welcomed him into their homes and invited him to their weddings. And in a sign of their lasting gratitude, they presented Rob's parents with a beautiful Afghan flag -- Afghan rug, which hangs today in the Miller home, a symbol of the partnership between the people of America and Afghanistan.

Rob Miller endures in the service of his teammates -- his brothers in arms who served with him, bled with him and fought to bring him home. These soldiers embody the spirit that guides our troops in Afghanistan every day -- the courage, the resolve, the relentless focus on their mission: to break the momentum of the Taliban insurgency, and to build the capacity of Afghans to defend themselves, and to make sure that Afghanistan is never again a safe haven for terrorists who would attack our country. That is their mission, that is our mission, and that is what we will do. And I would ask Rob's team, who were with him that day, to please stand and be recognized. (Applause.)

Finally, Rob Miller -- and all those who give their lives in our name -- endure in each of us. Every American is safer because of their service. And every American has a duty to remember and honor their sacrifice.

If we do -- if we keep their legacy alive, if we keep faith with the freedoms they died to defend -- then we can imagine a day, decades from now, when another child sits down at his desk, ponders the true meaning of heroism and finds inspiration in the story of a soldier -- Staff Sergeant Robert J. Miller and a generation that "fought day and night, fighting for what they thought was right."

That is the meaning of this medal. And that is our summons today, as a proud and grateful nation. So please join me in welcoming Phil and Maureen Miller for the reading of the citation. (Applause.)

MILITARY AIDE: The President of the United States of America, authorized by act of Congress, March 3rd, 1863, has awarded, in the name of the Congress, the Medal of Honor to Staff Sergeant Robert J. Miller, United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty.

Staff Sergeant Robert J. Miller distinguished himself by extraordinary acts of heroism while serving as the weapons sergeant in Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha 3312, Special Operations Task Force 33, Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan, during combat operations against an armed enemy in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, on January 25th, 2008.

While conducting a combat reconnaissance patrol through the Gowardesh Valley, Staff Sergeant Miller and his small element of U.S. and Afghan National Army soldiers engaged a force of 15 to 20 insurgents occupying prepared fighting positions. Staff Sergeant Miller initiated the assault by engaging the enemy positions with his vehicle's turret-mounted Mk 19 40-millimeter automatic grenade launcher, while simultaneously providing detailed descriptions of the enemy positions to his command, enabling effective, accurate close air support.

Following the engagement, Staff Sergeant Miller led a small squad forward to conduct a battle damage assessment. As the group neared the small, steep, narrow valley that the enemy had inhabited, a large, well-coordinated insurgent force initiated a near ambush, assaulting from elevated positions with ample cover.

Exposed and with little available cover, the patrol was totally vulnerable to enemy rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons fire.

As a point man, Staff Sergeant Miller was at the front of the patrol, cut off from supporting elements and less than 20 meters from enemy forces. Nonetheless, with total disregard for his own safety, he called for his men to quickly move back to cover positions as he charged the enemy over exposed ground and under overwhelming enemy fire in order to provide protective fire for his team.

While maneuvering to engage the enemy, Staff Sergeant Miller was shot in the upper torso. Ignoring the wound, he continued to push the fight. Moving to draw fire from over 100 enemy fighters upon himself, he then again charged forward through an open area in order to allow his teammates to safely reach cover.

After killing at least 10 insurgents, wounding dozens more and repeatedly exposing himself to withering enemy fire while moving from position to position, Staff Sergeant Miller was mortally wounded by enemy fire. His extraordinary valor ultimately saved the lives of seven members of his own team and 15 Afghan National Army soldiers.

Staff Sergeant Miller's heroism and selflessness above and beyond the call of duty and at the cost of his own life are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army.

[The medal is presented.] (Applause.)

END

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