joining us now is nbc news chief pentagon correspondent jim miklashevski. jim, thanks for taking the time tonight. maybe you can start by explaining something i think has confused me -- >> if i can interrupt you for a second, we've got some news here. >> go right ahead. >> u.s. military officials have told nbc news that those humanitarian air drops have been completed over the sinjar mountains where up to 40,000 of these members of that small religious sect had to flee from sinjar from the isis rebels. now, according to officials, there were c-17s used for those air drops that were escorted by american f-16 fighter jets. the tdrops, it's not clear just how long they took, but now we're told that those air drops of food, water, medical supplies, humanitarian relief, to those iraqis on the ground there, have, in fact -- has, in fact, been completed successfully and all u.s. planes are now out of that specific airspace, steve. >> okay. thanks. that's important information. and i think it leads to the next question which is what we're hearing today about the pos

nbc news pentagon correspondent jim miklashevski. thanks for your time tonight. really appreciate that. we should let you know, we are receiving word right now that president obama is preparing to address the nation at 9:30 eastern time. just about 20 minutes from now from the state dining room. he'll be addressing the nation on the subject of iraq. we'll obviously have full coverage of his statement when that comes, expected 9:30 tonight eastern time. >>> now let's bring in nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell. andrea, i really appreciate you taking the time tonight. so i guess the first thing i want to start on is this point that jim was raising, this might be the first of many, or at least several humanitarian missions because these are people who are trapped in a mountain, they feel if they come down, isis wants to kill them. and it strikes me, it raises a more simple question here of how do you get isis out from away of the bottom of the mountain, from the town they've taken over? is that a job ultimately for the iraqi army? is that a