captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> brown: president obama weighed the timetable today for bringing home thousands of u.s. forces from afghanistan. good evening. i'm jeffrey brown. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. on the newshour tonight, we preview the president's options ahead of his prime-time address tomorrow on the troop drawdown. >> brown: then, political editor david chalian updates the expanding 2012 republican presidential field, as former ambassador to china jon huntsman jumps in. >> ifill: margaret warner talks to food and drug administration commissioner margaret hamburg about a new campaign to get people to stop smoking by putting graphic warning labels on cigarette packages. >> brown: from cambodia, we have a report on teaching young people about their country's

violent past, even as a new round of genocide trials is set to begin. >> many here who lost family members and many others whose parents were in the regime. learning about had history isn't just a school lesson, it's the story of who they are. >> ifill: and judy woodruff explores investment bank j.p. morgan's multimillion-dollar settlement over fraud charges related to the mortgage meltdown. >> brown: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> okay, listen. somebody has got to get serious. >> i think... >> we need renewable energy. >> ...renewable energy is vital to our planet. >> you hear about alternatives, right? wind, solar, algae. >> i think it's got to work on a big scale. and i think it's got to be affordable. >> so, where are they? >> it has to work in the real world. at chevron, we're investing millions in solar and biofuel technology to make it work.

>> we've got to get on this now. >> right now. and the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> brown: president obama has made his decision about the size and pace of the initial u.s. pullout from afghanistan. white house officials confirmed today that he'll announce his plan tomorrow evening in a nationally televised address. >> the president and his war counselorrers hudled at the whitehouse today ahead of tomorrow night's announcesment.

earlier, second of defense gates and secretary of state clinton, had nothing to say about specifics of the impending troop draw down but gates was publicly favored only a modest reduction, did say that more than just military factors are weighing on the decision. >> there are a lot of reservations in the congress about the war in afghanistan and our level of commitment. there are concerns among the american people who are tired of a deck eight -- decade of war so the president obviously has to take those matters into consideration as well as the conditions on the ground and afghanistan. >> indeed the price of that decade of war has been steep. more than 1500 americans killed and nearly half a trillion dollars spent. and polls show an increasingly weary american public. 56% in the latest survey ready to withdraw u.s. traps as soon as possible. -- troops as soon as possible. since president obama took office, the number of american

troops in afghanistan has tripled to about a hundred thousand. in december 2009 at restpoint, he announced the surge of 30,000 of those troops centered largely in southern afghanistan. he set a time frame for beginning an american withdrawal. >> after 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. these are the resources, we need to feed the initiative while building the capacity that can exrait a responsible transstition of our forces out of afghanistan. >> according to reports today, the president is now leaning toward a reduction of 10,000 troops by the end of this year, with the first 5,000 leaving this summer. another option said to be favored by military leaders would call for a slower withdrawal 3 to 5,000 troops by the end of the year. but some in congress and even reportedly some of the president's top advisors have pushed for a much faster and bigger pull back. releasing of the pull out has

divided congress. republican senator john mccain told abc this morning he wants a minimal draw down. >> the state should never have been set to start with. it was done for political reasons with no recommendation from any of our military laryz but i hope it's modest and i believe that one more fighting season and we can get this thing pretty well wrapped up. >> but among many of mccain's colleagues and the public, last month's u.s. raid to kill osama bin laden in pakistan has bolstered a conviction with a time to begin leaving afghanistan is now. one sign of that, in late may, a house boat garnered a surprisingly large bipartisan coalition urging a faster withdrawal. and today west virginia democratic senator joe mansion said bin laden's al-qaeda cohorts are on the run. that means america's job in afghanistan should be finished. >> intelligence estimates suggest that there are only

between 50 and 100 al-qaeda terrorists harbored there. because of incredible work of our military men and women, the mission of destroying al-qaeda and afghanistan by all accounts has been a success. but the real truth is after ten years, our current mission afghanistan has become less about ensuring al-qaeda and more about building a country where one fran chi has never existed. >> thursday begins the sales job for whatever the president announces tomorrow night. something clinton will appear before the senate foreign relations committee and the president himself will travel to new york. it's home to the army's 10th mountain division which is seen repeated deployments to afghanistan over the last ten years. and we have our own debate now on what the president should announce tomorrow. retired army lieutenant colonel john nagl is president of the center for a new american security, and author of "learning to eat soup with a

knife: counterinsurgency lessons from malaya and vietnam." phyllis bennis is a fellow at the institute for policy studies, and author of "ending the u.s. war in afghanistan: a primer." and brian katoolis is a senior fellow at the center for american progress, where he analyzes u.s. foreign policy in the middle east and south asia. >> i want to start with you john nagl. what do you want to hear from the president tomorrow in terms of immediate reductions. >> i actually think the most important thing the president can say is it has long term secure interests in afghanistan and in the region and that we are going to be committed with troops for a number of years to come. >> a number of years. >> for a number of years. in fact it's actually more important than even the pace of this draw down as important as that is. >> all right. ms. bennis what do you want to hear. >> i want to hear our security interests did not involve hundreds of thousands of troops and contractors there, that the president has listened to the 64% of the american people who say that the war is not worth fighting and we should get out

right away. that means as long as it takes to get on planes and get them home. >> i want to hear what the transition phase is. this speech is the beginning of a transition and it signals that. but many people in government who are running this policy, many people on capitol hill don't know what transition means in terms of the security metrics, in terms of what we expect from our afghan partners. and i think the president will talk about this as a transition, but he needs to put more flesh on the bones in terms of what that actually means because ten years into this war we don't have a clarity what the end goals are in that game. >> can we put some numbers here. we talk about saying we're going to be there for a few years but how about right now now? the military talks about the low end, three to 5,000 by the end of the year. >> i think that probably all 30,000 surge troops will be out by the end of december 2012.

i think the president will give as much flexibility as he feels he can to the commanders on the ground to govern the pace and the scope of that draw down. and i would like to say perhaps a brigade worth of troops pull out this summer to get us through this summer fighting season. there are fighting seasons in afghanistan. that matters, perhaps another 5,000 out over the winter and the final 20,000 come out after the 2012 fighting season in october, november, december. >> i think that's complicately off base. >> because? >> number one, i think this notion of this year's fighting season, is going to be a fighting season next year, there's a fighting season every year. that means there's a dying season every year and too many afghan civilians are dying. i think that the hundred thousand u.s. troops along with almost 50,000 other nato troops and almost 100,000 u.s.-paid contractors, many of them security armed forces, they might as well be troopsz except

that they're not accountable to the international laws of war. that has to end. that means right now, say 50,000, -7b 5,000 are get -- 75,000 are getting out in the next 30 days, something like that. the dramatic numbers that we have occupying afghanistan is huge. i think that because we don't have it on the front pages every day, it's too easy for americans who don't have themselves a hood one in harm's way to know -- a loved one in harm's way to now we're occupying that country with 150,000 u.s. troops and nato troops and 100,000 more mercenaries at an incredible cost in afghan blood and in our money that's needed desperately at home. >> all right. you said you wanted to focus on the policy. would you put a number on what that requires. >> i think the bear minimum. we should expect 30,000 troops to come out, before the president decided on the surge in december of 2009.

he secured a commitment from admiral mike mullen and general david petraeus. he asked them pointedly, can we get this job done this 18 months in terms of training the afghan forces. he also said let's not clear areas we can't transition to our afghan partners. those the questions to come back to and at a minimum this is a period of transition that the president far signaled before and at bare minimum we need 30,000 troops. i would go beyond that because i think there's a dangerous slippery slope if we stay there very long with an open-ended commitment that we create this dysfunctional dependency, this culture of dependency on u.s. forces and we need to motivate afghan forces to take control of their own country. >> let's expand on your earlier point because not only the question of a number of troops but which troops and what they're doing, right. >> absolutely. >> your argument is what, the troops there, what should they be doing. >> they need to help build the afghan security forces.

people forget in iraq, the surge that mattered the most was the doubling of security forces and not the 10 to 15% increase in u.s. troops. that's what matters most and i think the key to that is not only to stay there endlessly. i'm just very skeptical of people saying we've got to stay there years on end. we've been there 10 years and at least 13 more years according to the president's plan. the key factor is are we fostering this dangerous culture of dependency among the afghan government that we know has been very corrupt. >> just to be clear, you're not arguing for the kind of dramatic pull out. >> no, i actually think we need to strike the right balance here and this is what the president is going to try to do because there are other issues like pakistan, there are issues like how we do maintain some of the games that are out there. i think what the president is going to do -- >> so much of this depends how one thinks how things are going on the grounds. your argument is if we pull out now, what we have accomplished

could be lost. >> will be lost. >> and i think the success on the ground in the south and southwest of afghanistan which has been the majority of the surge troops have been working for the last 18 months was pretty undeniable. we've got afghan governance starting to take hold, we've got economic development moving into place and we have increasingly the afghans able to take charge of their own future. that's ultimately what we're trying to make happen across all of afghanistan. the taliban is still strong. we've not had the resources to clear that out. that's what i expect to be the priority over the next year and next fighting season. we are still building afghan security forces who are going to hand security off to. an awe drupt withdrawal with a result in the taliban, the loss of everything we've gained and incredible suffering for the afghan people who want us to be there. >> you don't see that scenario. >> i don't see that scenario at all. i think that what is clear is that what we're trying to build

in afghanistan is a kind of military that is accountable to a vision that we have for afghanistan, not the vision that the people of afghanistan have for their own lives. which tends to be not focused on a national army or national police but a country that has a history as iraq does and so many other places do of a strong national government. this is a country who where people's identity is smaller. it's as people have a particular village, a particular clan who are part of the military. >> what -- >> i was going to say i think the key thing we have to look at is that what we are leaving behind is going to be the same whether we leave this year or whether we leave next year. we can't impose on afghanistan the kind of dramatic western focused military that we claim to be building. it simply doesn't have the basis

to survive there. >> i disagree with one point of my friend jon here. i think you oversell the case for political and economic advances in afghanistan a little bit too much. i think if you look at the senate foreign relations committee and the majority report that came out like a week or two ago which highlights some serious concerns about the capacity of afghan institutions to really sustain themselves. it's a big question. the taxpayers are going to pay $120 billion for operations in a country that has a gdp for 20 billion. we're paying six times as muchs that country is worth. we're pouring a lot of cash in there and i'm not certain we're saying the sorts of sustainable gains that will sustain themselves in the long run. i think one thing that phyllis mentions in terms of these power-sharing processes and an afghan solution. the obama administration is getting much more serious there this, secretary gates and others have talked about reconciliation and power sharing. but i think we've got a long road ahead to understand what is

the bottom line all of the actors that need to be a part of it. >> there's one bottom line here that we have to remember that this is afghanistan. this is their country. this is what admiral mullens said when he was testifying last year and was asked how is it without tanks and without planes how is it the taliban is winning. his answer was to his own question, it's their country. >> let me ask you just very briefly, you heard secretary gates say this is a now political republican is wroig in. how much of -- weighing in. how much of a factor should that be? >> what most should matter to the american public is that we leave a situation in a began stan such that -- in afghanistan such there is no longer a threat to american people in that country. for that to happen we're going to be involved in afghanistan for many years to come. >> it depends on what the president says to. thank you very much. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour, jon huntsman's

presidential bid; graphic warning labels; lessons from cambodia's violent past; and a settlement of fraud charges. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: a rare bombing in the south of iraq killed at least 22 people today, and wounded 37 more. two explosions rocked the mainly shiite city of diwaniyah, 80 miles outside baghdad. officials said at least one suicide car bomber struck as security forces were changing shifts. the attacker rammed into a police checkpoint, setting off a second blast when munitions in a police vehicle blew up. the last major attack in diwaniyah was in 2009. the man who'll preside over u.s. military operations in iraq and afghanistan swept to senate confirmation today. leon panetta's nomination to be defense secretary received unanimous support. he has served as c.i.a. director since 2009. at the pentagon, panetta will succeed robert gates, who leaves office next thursday. the secretary-general of the united nations, ban ki-moon, also won a unanimous vote today. the u.n. general assembly elected him to a second five- year term.

ban has won praise for his work on climate change and his strong support of democracy movements in arab nations, among other causes. greek prime minister george papandreou and his reorganized cabinet survived a vote of confidence in parliament this evening. it set the stage for the government to advocate for new spending cuts and tax hikes. otherwise, greece will not get another $17 billion in bailout help from the european union and the international monetary fund. in brussels today, the european commission president underscored that point. >> next week is the moment of truth where greece -- that it is generally committed to the ambitious practice -- and privatization put forth but by prime ministers -- and the imf. >> sreenivasan: in athens, unions and grassroots activists protested outside the greek parliament again today. they have been demonstrating

against the new austerity measures for the past three weeks. and the leader of the opposition party insisted tonight that the government's plan "simply will not work." he said it must be renegotiated. state lawmakers in california won't be getting paid-- for now-- because they failed to produce a balanced budget. the state controller announced his decision today, in accordance with state law. he said the "numbers simply did not add up" in a spending plan passed by democratic lawmakers last week. governor jerry brown had reached the same conclusion. he vetoed the budget within hours of its passage. on wall street today, stocks scored new gains on hopes the debt worries across europe will ease. the dow jones industrial average was up more than 109 points to close at 12,190. the nasdaq rose 57 points to close at 2687. scientists from around the world are warning that some marine life in the world's oceans face an impending mass extinction. they laid out the findings today in a report to the united nations. the study was led by the international program on the state of the ocean. the group of 27 experts found the oceans are under siege from pollution, overfishing, and

climate change. they said many marine species could disappear within a single generation. first lady michelle obama began a trip to africa today, with a visit to the continent's most revered leader, nelson mandela. obama and her two daughters met with the former south african president at his home outside johannesburg. mandela is 92 years old. he had not been seen in public since he was hospitalized at the start of the year. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to gwen. >> ifill: former utah governor jon huntsman ended months of speculation today by officially launching his campaign for president. he was joined on his walk to the stage by his wife mary kay and the come us seven children. new jersey's liberty park which ronald reagan used to launch his 1980's general election campaign. the choice was no accident. >> what we now need is leadership, the trusts in our

strength. leadership that doesn't surprise washington has all of the solutions to our problems but rather looks to local solutions from our cities, towns and states. leadership that knows we need more than hope. leadership that knows we need answers. [applause] >> the governor of utah most recently served as president obama's ambassador to china. when chinese president visited washington earlier this year the president praise man who by then was rumored to be challenging him. >> i couldn't be happier with the ambassador's service and i'm sure he will be very successful in whatever endeavors he chooses in the future. and i'm sure that him having worked so well with me, will be a greater asset in any republican primary. [laughter] >> in the late 0's and early

80's he spent two years in taiwan as a mormon missionary and he is fluent in mandarin chinese. and in the days leading up to today's announcement, huntsman highlighted some even more unconventional parts of his biography, in a series of obscure web videos. another video posted to his campaign website mentions his past musical ambitions. >> left high school a shade shy of graduation to thrafl with -- travel with his rock band wizard. not your typical paul cision here. >> today huntsman pledged to take the high road in the coming campaign. >> i don't think you need to run down someone's reputation in order to run for the office of president. of course we'll have our disagreements, that's what campaigns are all about. >> i want you to know that i respect my fellow republican candidates. and i respect the president of the united states. he and i have a difference of opinion on how to help a country

we both love. but the question each of us wants the voartsdz yoarts -- voters to answer is who will be the better president, not who is the better american. [applause] >> the first week of huntsman's campaign tour was taken to the early nominating state such as new hampshire, south carolina, florida and nevada as well as back to its home state of utah. and joining us now to discuss jon huntsman's presidential prospects is newshour political editor david chalian. >> thank you. >> you should be clear, that was not jon huntsman on that port -- motor cross. >> that's right. he wasn't allowed to right the motor cross anymore. >> who is jon huntsman and why is he running. >> that was the question he was trying to answer today, who am i basically and he wanted to fill that in. that's why we saw the whole family stand up there with him. he's got a really impressive resume going. he served as a reagan political

aide was in singapore for george h.w. bush, representative for george w. bush and as you know, as you said there in the most recent time -- so in addition to his utah governorship. so he does have this broad sort of political resume that he brings to the table. >> would you consider him a good gorve of utah -- good governor of utah. >> it's going to run on that record. he was voted the best managed state in the country. you're going to see it in adds, in all of -- ads and all of his vehicle mail to voters. he has a peculiar to the nomination. you can't just win the nomination based on your biography of el telling the story of who you are, you've got to go through the voters essentially. and he's not in step with the republican primary voters on some issues. >> are democrats or more likely other republicans going to bring up that as the president did in that clip that he actually worked for president obama that

he's going to replace. >> no doubt. it's the easiest thing for other contenders on the nomination to say while you were working for president obama. but i don't think that's the hardest part of the heardal. he answered that question time and began from the other party calling upon him for service. there's some issues he may have a trickier time. >> let's talk about those issues because he is selling himself as a moderate in this case. we've seen a lot of things, he favors things like he says climate change or global warming is man made, civil unions, something which is not orthodoxy right now, at least in the right part of the republican party. is there a sweet spot for someone like john jon huntsman? >> maybe. you can see the way he's approaching it and you would like to highlight those issues. he's not going to iowa and not compete in iowa. he claims he's opposed and he can't get through iowa.

the caucus growing electorate is more conservative part of the republican party. he's going administrate to new hampshire where npts inents can also vote. moving on to south carolina maybe building an organization there and a big state like florida where he absorbedded a middle of the road not as well. he could be on his way to nomination. >> are he and mitt wrong knee are mormons, of the mormon faith, that would be a first, is that something which we have any evidence the americans are ready for that big a change. >> a gallop poll out just in the last couple days shows one in every five americans, 20% say that they would not support a nominee of their party who is a mormon. but the vast majority is fine. in fact, we've seen those numbers get smaller, those that actually would not vote for someone because of their mormon faith. since mitt romney ran the last

time around, the country has a little more comfortable as the polls show but it is something that's again part of the biography and he's putting biography front and center so there will be an exploration. >> his campaign headquarters is in orlando, florida, what do we read into that. >> that's where his wife is from. that is a key state for the nomination, for the republican party, it's going to be early in the process. and it's a key state of course in the general election should jon huntsman get there, he will be really positioned in that battle ground state. >> there were how many candidates now. >> i guess we're up to eight now. >> eight major candidates. >> yes, definitely. >> thanks, a lot. >> my pleasure. >> next, new >> brown: next, new government restrictions on how cigarettes can be marketed and sold. margaret warner has the story. >> warner: it's the biggest change to cigarette pack health warnings in 25 years. the food and drug administration

today released nine color images that will cover the entire top half of cigarette packs, front and back, beginning in september, 2012. the images show gruesome consequences of smoking, including a smoker's corpse, a man's chest with smoke exiting a tracheotomy hole, and a diseased lung next to a healthy one. at the white house today, health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius said the new labels will discourage smoking among those who do, and those considering it. >> with these warnings every person who picks up a pack of cigarettes is going to know exactly what risks they're taking. over the last few years we've made giant strides in our fight against tobacco and our efforts are paying off. i'm here today with a renewed sense of hope and momentum we can make tobacco death and disease a part of our past and not a continuous part of our future.

>> warner: the first warning label, "cigarettes may be hazardous to your health," was mandated in 1965. the text warnings were made more explicit. a 2009 law required the stronger warnings being introduced now. some 42% of americans smoked in 1965; now only about 20% do. but the decline leveled off in 2004. tobacco is still the leading cause of preventable death, the c.d.c. says, with more than 440,000 a year. cigarette makers did not respond today and declined an invitation to appear on our program. but a lawsuit many of the firms filed against the 2009 law is making its way through the federal courts. in it, the companies contend that the huge negative images and other new marketing restrictions infringe on their commercial free speech rights. dr. margaret hamburg is the f.d.a. commissioner, and she joins me now. >> thank you. >> so these are some pretty horrifying images. what's the theory behind them,

behind using them? >> well, as you note, smoking is our leading cause of preventible death in this country. it's a pretty horrifying medical and public health problem, and we need to address it aggressively. these graphic smoking health warnings really are designed to help make sure that people are aware of the risks of smoking, that they are encouraged to stop smoking, if they do smoke. and importantly, to discourage people who are just trying a cigarette or two for the first time, from ever taking up this deadly habit. >> is there solid research data showing that a graphic photo image like these is more effective in deterring behavior, than say a very bold text warning like smoking kills or smoking causes cancer? >> well, there is information from the experience of other countries that have already implemented graphic health warning labels, that it does

increase awareness of risks and it does increase the intent of smokers to stop. and it appears to discourage new smokers from taking up the habit. that's very very important. and as we were launching this new component of the 2009 law, we conducted a lot of research. we did the larg es study ever done in consumer response to warning labors by 18,000 participants and learned a lot about what people respond to, what messages they take away from seeing the warning labels. we think this will make a difference. >> i understand you started with something like three dozen images and you chose these nine. why these nine? >> well, we chose these nine based on the research that we did really looking at consumer response to the different warning labels. we looked at different age groups because we want to target different types of people, different targeted audiences.

>> so everything from young parents to older people. >> right. and young people, 13 to 18 year olds as well and we included smokers and non-smokers because we wanted to really understand people's response to these health warning labels. then we looked at the experience of other countries, we looked at the existing research and scientific literature and we took public comment from stakeholders and experts. with all that information we selected these nine graphic warning labels that we're putting forward today. >> did you have kind of a taste threshold? were some images so grotesque you decided you couldn't use them. >> it's interesting, there were some that were in fact more gruesome amongst the 26 that we were choosing from -- the 36 that we were choosing from but we made our choices based on what we found in our research. of the countries in fact use images that are considered i think a lot more striking but a

lot more gross. >> now one thing i want to make sure we have here is this will be the entire half, i don't have the cigarette mac, the entire top half 09 of the pack. >> front and back. >> the typical convenience store when they're in a rack behind the counter, we have a photograph here that your agency put out, you can see it's very, will it be very hard to actually read the brand name of the cigarette, is that part of the intention? >> well i think different companies may deal with where to put their brand name different. >> but they have to -- >> it will have to be at the bottom of the pack, it will not be as visible. i think the reason for having the warning label at the top is you can't cover it you up by putting it in some kind of container because you've got to open that packet every time the smoker opens a pack of cigarettes, they will see this graphic image of the serious health consequences of smoking and they'll see that warning. and they'll also see the

1-800-quit number which i think is very important to help support smokers who want to quit. >> now the companies say that you are, that that is interfering with this right of commercial speech. that it's actually too difficult to communicate with potential buyers. do they have a point? >> well, as you pointed out, they did bring a lawsuit at the beginning when this law was first enenacted. the courts in the initial round held up fda's authority to implement this law overall, and including this component, this provision of the law. this is such an important public health issue for the nation. it is taking lives and destroying families. it is costing our healthcare system and our economy so much money. so we think that we have an important role to play in providing accurate information so that people understand the health risk. if they choose to smoke, they

can but they should understand the health risks. >> finally just the fact -- explain the fact, what's your theory that for 20 years really smoking in america went down as we said earlier. it's rounded off at about 20% despite the new restrictions where you can smoke, and higher tobacco taxes. why? >> well, it's interesting and i wish i could fully understand it but i think there's another reason why these warning labels are so important and we need to really reactivate the national conversation about smoking and its harm to health. >> has there been research into stubborn 20% and who they are and why it persists? >> well, there is a lot of assertions out. people are very very interested in understanding that better. and what we're doing today with these brackets and health warning labels is just one component of the kind of integrated comprehensive strategy that's necessary to really bring those numbers down. but you know, part of what we're

trying to achieve and part of what the 2009 tobacco prevention control law was all about was helping to try to stop young people from starting to smoke. we know that most people that are smoking today started smoking before the age of 18. so things that we can do to help people not take up this deadly habit are very very important to make a real and enduring difference. >> commissioner margaret hamburg, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> ifill: next, another in our occasional reports from journalism students around the country. it comes from jake schoneker at the university of california berkeley's school of journalism. his story is about cambodia's most recent efforts to come to terms with its bloody past. >> cambodia is a land in transition, emerging from a

violent past. in the late 1970's, a quarter of the pop little was killed by the khmer rouge. now the new generation is coming of age and helping to rebuild this war torn country. i came to cambodia to find out how survivors of the genocide are confronting their former oppressors, to the youth who will decide cambodia's future. for years, the killing fields have been a place of memory and warming for the two million lives lost during the khmer rouge genocide. thousands were killed here and dumped into mass graves. now it's a museum and one of phnom penh's biggest tourist attractions. this man knows the killing fields well. his name is him hoy and he's a former khmer rouge prison guard. >> i killed five people. i did it at chunk x.

i was forced to kill them. if i didn't do it, i would have been killed myself. >> he worked here at phnom penh's notorious prison also known as s21. thousands of prisoners were tortured and interrogated here before being sent to the killing fields for execution. >> i didn't know why people were being brought here. i 07b8 knew they were to -- i only knew they were enemies of the state. >> they accused me of being a spy for the kgi. >> his friends are part of a small group that survived the khmer rouge prisons. >> they beat me once for 12 days and 12 nights and then my back was so swollen i couldn't lie down. i had to be on my side. >> last yaryks may testified at the at the un backed tribunal, the first ever trial against a khmer rouge official. he had come to confront the former chief of the prison, also

known as doyk. >> we find you of guilty of crimes against humanity of murder, torture. >> he was handed his 13-year prison sentence in case file one of the tribunal. it was a watershed moment for cambodia, but it pales in comparison to the court's second case set to begin in late june. william smith is the co-deputy prosecutor for the case. >> it's different because firstly it has four accused. these four accuse the were in the top leadership positions in the country. >> the khmer rouge commander died in 1998, but on june 27th, the four highest ranking khmer rouge leaders still alive will be brought to trial and made to answer for their alleged crimes against humanity. known as brother number two was second in command how many to polpot. polpot's sister-in-law, minister

of social action for the khmer rouge. her husband, deputy prime minister of the regem. and he served as head of state for the khmer rouge. >> it was the design of these policies, the design of this revolution, the design of these methods in which these crimes were carried out. >> that makes it the most anticipated trial in cambodian history. there are more than 2000 witnesses lined up to testify against the four leaders this summer. >> when you go to testify, only tell them what really happened here. don't say whatever comes to your head. focus on your own experiences. >> many survivors urge the courts to prosecute a rider circle of the khmer rouge cadre, beyond the four top leaders. but in a country where many of the former khmer rouge have gone on to take positions in government, cambodia's leaders have made it clear that won't happen. including the local governor here. >> we will try only the top

leaders, those most responsible for the genocides. >> with so many victims living side by side with their former khmer rouge oppressors, the deep wounds that divide this country may never be completely healed. but the tribunal is offering a chance toward cambodians to understand what happened and to educate the country's younger generation borned in the aftermath. >> khmer rouge regime came to power on april 17, 1975. the history of the khmer rouge genocide is now part of the national school curriculum. >> i know a lot about it because our teachers tell us in class. it wasn't always that way. until just a few years ago, textbooks in the khmer rouge were bannedded from schools here. but this tribunal whose opened a new man date for public education and the month leading up to the trial this summer, officers of the courts have been traveling to schools across the country reaching out for students. >> brother number two, in

english we call him ideology man. sambaths a public affairs officer with the court. he lost both of his parents to the khmer rouge and attended this school as an orphan in the 80's. his own children attend school here. >> my children did not know what happened to my parents, their had grandparents. we believe there is a lot of people available to learn more about what happened in the past. >> to the many students who are who lost family members to the khmer rouge and many others whose parents were in the regime, learning about this history isn't just a school lesson, it's the story of who they are. >> this is great because we're all cambodian. we went to know about the khmer rouge, even though we're still young. >> okay, you're in grade 12. you answer first. why do we need the khmer rouge

tribunal. >> to pursue justice for the dead and for the survivors. to prevent genocide from happening again. and to teach the youth about the suffering of people in the polpot rea -- regime. >> so many children lost their parents so we must learn about it and accept it. we cannot escape from it, we're cambodian. >> before the khmer rouge turned into a torture prison, the building was used as a school so it's fitting where the museum is being used as a place of learning where the survivors share their stories with the next generation. >> they killed children who were only three or four years old, any older than that they were sent to the fields. >> this is my first time visiting here. i'm so shocked at the things that happened here. >> this is the trial that will touch cambodians young and old.

it's expected to take at least three to five years for the trial to finish. and this may be the last case that the court pursues. but far from an ending, the tribunal offers a new beginning for survivors and perpetrators of the regime. its most important legacy maybe to help a new generation of cambodian. to avoid the mistakes of their eldersed and build a brighter future for their country. >> ifill: reach sambath, the public relations officer for the tribunal whom we saw in that story, died of a stroke last month. he was 47 years old. >> brown: finally tonight, the government penalizes another major wall street firm for fraud, in the lead-up to the financial crisis. judy woodruff has the story. >> woodruff: it's just the second major settlement of the crisis that is tied to one of the largest investment banks on wall street.

the s.e.c. announced today that j.p. morgan chase has agreed to pay $153 million to settle charges of misleading investors as the housing market was collapsing. the firm neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing. but the government accused the investment bank of steering investors toward mortgage securities that another one of its clients, a hedge fund called magnetar, was betting against in a big way, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. to help fill us in the settlement and the back story, we turn to jesse eisinger of pro publica. he and jake bernstein won a pulitzer prize for their coverage of questionable wall street practices. >> thanks for having me. >> so tell us, what is it that the sec is saying exactly that j.p. morgan chase did? what was illegal about it? >> well, these were collection

of deals that were designed to fail. and in this specific field, what happened was a hedge fund bought a little piece of the deal to enable j.p. morgan to go out and sell a $1.1 billion mortgage-backed security deal called a cdo which stands for collateralized debt obligations. they went around the world and sold it but they didn't tell the customers they were selling these securities to that in fact this hedge fund had a much bigger bet against the cdo, and in fact, helped select assets, put stuff into the deal that would otherwise, that would go bad. that made the deal kind of rotten. and j.p. morgan didn't tell anybody this when they were selling it. >> and that's illegal, prommably. >> that's misleading. the sec determined that was a material aspect of the deal that

needed to be disclosed. that this hedge fund had an active roll in selecting the assets that wealth into this cdo. >> we should say this hedge fund which you have looked into had been busy working with a number of other investment firms as well. >> yes. jake bernstein and i felt they had done about 28 deals in 2006 and 2007 with multiple investment banks whereas at least $40 billion all similarly structured. and they worked with all the investment banks, merrill lynch, city bank to structure these deals and of them had exactly the same type of scenario where they would buy a little bit of the deal in order to allow the investment bank to create this much larger deal and go out and sell it around the world to investors but magnetar secretly undisclosed to anybody was actually betting against the

deal. of the investment bankers and other people involved in the deal, mushing the deal knew about magnetar's secret debts but the investors did not. >> how did j.p. morgan chase and these other firms as you say are reportedly being intestigated, how do they defend what they did? >> well the investment banks, they haven't really defended what they did. they essentially say this was in the is past. how far these people are gone, we round up the business and magnetar says that they never selected the assets and they never made any misleading disclosures to anybody. that's true. magnetar was never on any of the prospectuses or any of the marketing materials for these deals because that would have the investment bank making the representations and the manager of the deals making the representations. magnetar was never making any representations to anybody so

they couldn't believe anybody. >> j.p. morgan just to be clear is not admitting guilt. they claim they lost $900 million in all of this. is that right? >> right, yes. now this is typical settlement for the sec. the sec almost never gets anybody to admit guilt in these things. but they're not allowed to deny it either. and they settle and j.p. morgan actually was the biggest victim of their own deal in this kind of ironic twist. and it happened hover and over and these kind of cdo's where actually the investment banks took the top most slice of these kind of mortgage deals which was they thought was either, they thought it was very safe or they thought that they could make a lot of money in the short term on it. basedded on the what they got from the deal. and maybe sort of deal with it later. they kind of made their own

kool-aid even some of the bankers saw magnetar betting against it. in fact what really happened here was individual bankers within these organizations kind of took their own institutions down or caused their own institutions to take losses. they're operating for themselves and not the institutions at large. >> jesse eisinger, put this in the bigger scheme of everything that happened since the financial collapse. how significant is a settlement, the allegations here in the settlement? because we know the sec went after goldman sachs, now j.p. morgan chase. what is that up to? >> right. well it adds up to fractions of bonuses that these bankers made and these banks made in profits in 2007, you know. thisthisthis is chump change. the top executive has not been held accountable to any

significant degree for any of their actions or the bank's actions in the lead up to the financial crises when often they mislead -- misled their own clients. i think people may be frustrated. now the sec is working very hard and these cases are extremely difficult to prove and they've got a lot of detail and it's damning detail in their complaint about this particular deal. and so on the one hand, it's the big victory for the sec as well as the $550 million settlement with goldman about it similarly structured deal. but on the other hand i think there's an enormous amount of frustration on main street about the lack of accountability on wall utility generally. >> is the sec saying why they haven't gone after the main top executives involved in this sort of thing? >> i think it differs from case to case with people like lehman brothers, dick fold or merrill

lynch, stan o'neal. they may not have known exactly what was going on or the specifics of what they knew at the time wasn't, didn't like the levels of securities fraud. i think what they say generally is these cases are extremely hard to prove, that the markets were confusing, that it wasn't clear that things were collapsing when in fact in hindsight we know that they were collapsing. those kind of things have complicated the picture. but in reality, which our project showed was that the crises hit wall street in early 2007, a year and-a-half before main street knew that there was a financial crises. and bankers on wall street knew about the problems and did things that were questionable to keep it going, keep their own bonuses going and gave off the crises. >> jesse eisinger with pro publica, thank you very much.

>> thank you for having me. >> ifill: again, the other major developments of the day. white house officials confirmed president obama has decided on the size and pace of the initial u.s. pullout from afghanistan. he'll announce it to the nation tomorrow night. the ruling cabinet in greece survived a vote of confidence. that cleared the way for trying to pass new austerity measures. and former ambassador to china john huntsman entered the race for the republican presidential nomination in 2012. and to hari sreenivasan, for what's on the newshour online. hari? >> sreenivasan: you can keep up with the field of 2012 g.o.p. presidential hopefuls by reading the morning line e-mail from david chalian and his team. find it on our politics page. our global health unit examines a new report from the united nations on the world's biggest refugee hot zones in a photo slideshow. plus, could snake genomes contain clues to new treatments for heart disease? we have a story on the subject from our partners at "scientific american" on our science page. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org.

jeff? >> brown: and again, to our honor roll of american service personnel killed in the iraq and afghanistan conflicts. we add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. here, in silence, are eight more.

>> brown: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, we'll have full coverage of president obama's announcement on reducing u.s. troops in afghanistan. i'm jeffrey brown. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. we'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. thank you, and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: chevron

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