HARI SREENIVASAN, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND ANCHOR:

For more than a decade, the Pentagon has promised to do better handling cases of sexual misconduct in the ranks of the U.S. military, but progress has been slow. While service members are more willing to come forward, the Pentagon estimates that nearly 15,000 military members experienced a sexual assault last year.

Today's "Washington Post" highlights how a complaint against one senior air force officer was handled, in secret, as 90 percent of the cases are, and resulted in very little punishment.

Reporter Craig Whitlock wrote that article and joins me now from Washington.

Let's kind of talk about the bigger picture first before we get down to this example for a second. How prevalent are sexual assaults? Are they getting better or worse?