President Barack Obama speaks at the Libya Contact Group Meeting at the UN Building, Tuesday, Sept., 20, 2011

(Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Updated 2:20 p.m. ET

President Obama pledged Tuesday to help rebuild Libya and announced the return of a U.S. ambassador to Tripoli as a transitional government begins to take shape in the north African nation.

"Today the world is saying, in one unmistakable voice--we will stand with you as you seize this moment of promise; as you reach for the freedom, the dignity and the opportunity you deserve," Mr. Obama said in prepared remarks to a high level meeting on Libya at the United Nations in New York.

Mr. Obama warned that it would not be easy as loyalists to ousted leader Muammar Qaddafi continue to fight and Libya's National Transitional Council continues to begin the work of setting up a new government.

"After decades of iron rule by one man, it will take time to build the institutions needed for a democratic Libya. There will be days of frustration," Mr. Obama said.

President Barack Obama awards the Medal of Honor to former Marine Corps Cpl. Dakota Meyer, 23, from Greensburg, Ky., Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington.

(Credit: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Obama awarded 23-year-old Marine Dakota Meyer with the Medal of Honor on Thursday, praising the Kentucky native for his service, valor, and for being "one of the most down to earth guys that you will ever meet."

Meyer, now a sergeant in the Marine Corps Inactive Ready Reserve, is the third living person, and the first living Marine, to be recognized with the Medal of Honor for actions taken in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The sergeant has been deployed in both countries, but it was his action in Afghanistan on September 9, 2009 that earned him the Medal of Honor. Just 21 at the time, Meyer made five trips into an ambush on U.S. troops, exposing his body to gunfire repeatedly while serving as a turret gunner, and ultimately helping to save the lives of 13 American and 23 Afghan soldiers.

In this undated photo released by the U.S. Marines, Sgt. Dakota Meyer poses for a photo while deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Ganjgal Village, Kunar province, Afghanistan.

(Credit: AP Photo/U.S. Marines)

Hours before receiving the nation's highest award for military valor, a humble Marine from Kentucky wonders, why he's being honored for "the worst day of my life." 23-year old Sergeant Dakota Meyer told CBS Radio News, "it's going to be a hard time" when President Obama presents the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony.

Wounded and facing heavy Taliban fire in a remote Afghanistan battle zone in September of 2009, Meyer was credited with saving the lives of 13 Americans and 23 Afghan troops. The military account describes how Meyer killed at least eight attackers despite suffering a shrapnel wound as he fired from a gun turret.

He was also determined to recover the bodies of four other Americans who had been killed in the ambush.

Meyer and two other soldiers dodged heavy gun and grenade fire to retrieve the bodies. Meyer steadfastly rejects the title hero.

"If I was a hero I would have brought them out alive that day. That's a hero. I was just doing my job," he told CBS News.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday she was "encouraged" by news that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to free Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, American hikers currently in prison in Iran, and expressed tempered optimism concerning the prospect of the men's release.

"We have followed this very closely and we are encouraged by what was said today, but I will not comment further on that," Clinton said in a press conference on Tuesday.

She added: "We obviously hope we see a positive outcome from what appears to be a decision by the government."

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Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.

(Credit: AP)

A key Republican lawmaker in House of Representatives is using the power of the purse to pressure the United Nations ahead of a key vote on the future of Palestine.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on Tuesday introduced legislation to significantly change the way the United Nations is funded and pressure U.N. members to vote against Palestinian statehood next month.

The Florida Republican's bill would call for the U.N. budget to be funded on a voluntary basis. It would give the international body two years to make at least 80 percent of its budget voluntary -- if the U.N. failed to meet that goal, the U.S. would withdraw half of its funding until it was reached.

The change would clearly have huge implications for the U.N., given that 22 percent of its budget is paid for by the U.S.

Then-Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell attend a meeting in the Oval Office with President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the White House, June 15, 2004.

(Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Former Vice President Dick Cheney pushed back Tuesday against assertions that the war in Iraq damaged the global standing of the United States and said there was no double standard in opposing waterboarding of American citizens by other nations even as he maintained his support for use of the controversial interrogation technique by the U.S.

"I don't think that it [the Iraq war] damaged our reputation around the world," Cheney told NBC'S Today Show.

"I just don't believe that. I think the critics at home want to argue that. In fact, I think it was sound policy that dealt with a very serious problem and eliminated Saddam Hussein from the kind of problem he presented before.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gestures as she talks to journalists during a press conference at Chaklala airbase in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Dec. 4, 2008.

(Credit: AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Condoleezza Rice will present her personal behind-the-scenes story of the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and the build up to the Iraq war in her second memoir to be published in November.

"No Higher Honor" will be a "master class in statecraft and diplomacy," her publisher said Wednesday. Crown Publishers promised Rice would reveal how she "kept the world's relationships with Iran, North Korea, and Libya from collapsing into chaos" in her posts as national security adviser and later secretary of state under President George W. Bush.

The book promises to be a "vivid and forthcoming" account, while revealing "new details" about the contentious debate surrounding the invasion of Iraq, said Crown, a unit of Bertelsmann AG subsidiary Random House, Inc.

"The book also takes the reader into secret negotiating rooms where the fates of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Lebanon often hung in the balance, and draws back the curtain on how frighteningly close all-out war loomed in clashes involving India and Pakistan, Russia and Georgia, and in East Africa," Crown said.

Rice, who was the first woman to serve as U.S. national security adviser, now teaches at Stanford University.

Her first memoir, "Extraordinary, Ordinary People," which recounted her family life and upbringing as an African American in segregation-era Alabama, was published last year.

Rebel fighters look through an album they found inside Muammar Qaddafi's compound in Bab Al-Aziziya in Tripoli, Libya, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2011.

(Credit: AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

When Libyan rebels raided Muammar Qaddafi's compound in Tripoli this week, they ransacked the place, finding evidence of the strongman's wealth -- and his preoccupation with former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The image above shows rebel fighters on Wednesday inspecting a photo album, with a series of pictures of Rice, found inside Qaddafi's compound, known as Bab Al-Aziziya.

Qaddafi's interest in Rice has been well documented. In a 2007 interview, as the Washington Post noted, Qaddafi called her "my darling black African woman."

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden lectures at Sichuan University during his visit to China on August 21, 2011 in Chengdu, Sichuan Province of China.

(Credit: Photo by ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)

Updated: 5:49 p.m. ET

GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney is blasting Vice President Joe Biden for saying he could "fully understand" China's one-child policy.

Biden, speaking in a question and answer session at Sichuan University on Monday, was commenting on China's lack of a "safety net" for seniors - a dilemma he likened to America's problems funding Medicare. He said that because of the country's one-child law, "you're in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable."

"You have no safety net," he said in his remarks. "Your policy has been one which I fully understand -- I'm not second-guessing -- of one child per family."

Romney, in a Wednesday statement, called China's policy "gruesome and barbaric," and said Biden's "acquiescence to such a policy should shock the conscience of every American."

Updated at 3:00 p.m. ET

As Libyan rebels closed in on the regime of strongman Muammar Qaddafi today, President Obama warned that the situation in the North African nation remains "fluid" and "this is not over yet."

"But this much is clear, the Gadhafi regime is coming to an end and the future of Libya is in the hands of its people," Mr. Obama said.

As the regime collapses, there's still fighting on the ground, as well as reports of regime elments that threaten keep fighting, Mr. Obama said. Qaddafi, who has ruled for more than four decades, has the opportunity to reduce the bloodshed "by explicitly relinquishing power to the people of Libya," he said.

Mr. Obama said the international community has worked with the National Transitional Council to prepare for a post-Qaddafi Libya for months and will continue to work with the group.

"As the leadership of the TNC has made clear, the rights of all Libyans must be respected," Mr. Obama said, using the preferred U.S. acronym for the group. "True justice will not come from reprisals and violence. It will come from reconciliation and a Libya that allows its citizens to determine their own destiny. In that effort, the United States will be a friend and a partner."

Libyan rebels claimed to be in control of most of Tripoli on Monday, and three of Qaddafi's sons were reportedly in custody.

Qaddafi's whereabouts are still unknown, but White House and Pentagon officials said today they believe he's still in the country. Clashes continued at Qaddafi's longtime command center, known as Bab al-Aziziya, and Al Arabiya Television reports that, according to rebel sources, NATO warplanes would start bombing the compound today.