He and other former senior commanders defended their performance, saying they had done nothing wrong and were unaware of the degree to which sexual assault was a problem among cadets.

"My commander should have defended me and not say he's shocked," said one.

By January 1944, the regional commander in Truk-Admiral Masashi Kobayashi-had 28,000 troops to defend the Marshalls, but he had very few planes.

I asked the military commander why he thought he could take Qaddafi in a place so well defended.

But the British commander in Helmand at the time defended it as a way to release his men from a pointless and occasionally bloody siege of the town.

Hungarian commanders successfully defended the city and Ottomans retreated with heavy losses but at the end, Ottomans occupied nearly all of Serbia.

American commanders defended a strike near the Syrian border, saying they believed they had hit a hideaway for foreign fighters.

Indonesia's top military commander, General Wiranto, defended the new law as being "in line with democracy and human rights."

"We need these commanders to defend our borders," said the Hazara leader, Mr. Saidi.

A13 Endeavour's commander defended spending on space.