Then a Bar Administration conversation on health care. Then gun violence activists. All right. Good afternoon, everybody. Happy tuesday. As advertised, im going to be joined today by bret mcguirk. Bret has been here a couple times before. Bret just left the National SecurityCouncil Meeting with the president. The president , as you know, convenes his National Security council every few weeks to review the progress that were making against isil. Bret presented the meeting and now is here to provide an update to all of you on that. Brets title is special president ial envoy to the Global Coalition against isil. Hes got a presentation that hell offer up and then hell take some questions, hell leave and then i can take your questions on nonisil related topics from there, okay . With that, bret, you want to take it away . Sure. Thanks, josh. So, thanks for having me. I thought i would give an update on the counterisil campaign. Last time i was here, it was about six months ago. I have a lot of new information which ill convey. The president just convened his National Security council today to discuss the current status of the Global Campaign against isil. An indepth overview of where we are and i want to provide an update overall. We analyze isil and focus our policy on destroying it. In really three dimensions. Its core in iraq and syria and shrinking its space, its networks, finance, foreign fighters and Propaganda Networks and its affiliates. Eight of these affiliates around the world of which libya has been of particular concern to us. The united states, we van integrated Campaign Plan that incorporates our entire government, defense, state, treasury, justice, Homeland Security and the Intelligence Community around specific lines of effort. Its called the icp and its an effort we review and refresh really each quarter to help identify opportunities reinforce areas were having success and address areas that may have fallen behind. The president received a detailed update this to icp this morning. We also, of course, lead a Global Coalition of 68 members. This is one of the largest coalitions of its kind in history to relentlessly combat isil against all lines of effort. Militarily, on the ground in iraq and syria, were supporting partners with training, equipping, advising and air strikes. About 17,455 air strikes against isil terrorists as of this morning. Through Law Enforcement cooperation where were sharing information to find and disrupt plots around the world. Through intelligence, Homeland Security and other channels to combat the flow of foreign fight irs across borders. Through treasury and finance to destroy isils economic infrastructure. And through both governments and the private sector to combat their poisonous ideology and propaganda online, their ability to recruit. Our Global Coalition has also provided billions of dollars to provide stabilization in areas cleared of isil enabling citizens to return. This is not only a u. S. Effort. U sill is an enemy that threatens the entire world. Weve leveraged resources from around the world. Including more than 2 billion pledged through humanitarian stabilization efforts in iraq during Coalition Meetings in july. The u. S. Leadership matters on this. Thats why i want to thank the congress for their close coordination in supporting a counterisil Budget Amendment in the recently passed continuing resolution. These funds will be essential to help accelerate the campaign and assist demining that allows people to return to their homes. Ill be calling on Coalition Partners to make similar contributions over the coming days. Let me update you on some of the update the campaigns we have ongoing now. Particularly in libya and raqqah and mosul. In cert, about a year ago, ice sill controlled approximately 150 kilometers of land on the mediterranean coastline. It was using libya as a haven to plan attacks in neighboring tunisia and isil leaders were encouraging people to travel to libya instead of syria to join isil. They saw it as their growing safe haven. Since that time, at the president s direction, weve eliminated the mastermind of though tunisia attacks. The leader of isil in libya. And now weve just completed operations to liberate cert and its surrounding areas. An operation odyssey lightning, u. S. Military forces conducted almost 500 air strikes in support of units fighting under the authority of libyas government of national accord. While theres still great work to be done, this strategic location in the mediterranean is no longer accessible to isis. Well continue to support the government of National Court as it pursues isil throughout the country. In raqqah. Raqqah remains isis administrative capital. Forces partner with our coalition have entirely severed routes between raqqah and locations in iraq and the Syrian Democratic forces, a coalition of local, a rabs and kurds are aiming to isolate or strangulate the city. Since this operation began about one month ago, the sdf has cleared 700 square kilometers north of raqqah and on saturday began a second phase of operations along a new axis to the west. This is proceeding quite well. The pressure on raqqah is bearing fruit. Isil leaders come out of hiding which allows us to kill them. Today we confirm the deaths of three terrorist leaders in raqqah. Sala gourm at, sammy jidut, and waleed haman. Gormat was a french algerian and a belgian. They were responsible for the paris attacks last year. Also actively plotting attacks when they were killed on december 4th in the streets of raqqah. Haman had been convicted by a Belgian Court for a terrorist plot in 2015 and was working with the others to plan new attacks. These three dead terrorists join a growing list from their external Operations Network weve targeted and eliminated. They eliminated abad al iraqi. A key facil tirt for terrorist travel through turkey. Coalition strikes also killed al hakim, an isil leader planning attacks in france and throughout europe and the leader of all isil external operations, maumd anani was killed on august 30th as he traveled from raqqah. So the point is, even as operations continue to move towards raqqah, our coalition is relentlessly reaching into raqqah to eliminate isil leaders with a particular focus on those plotting or planning against our homeland and our partners. For the operation to seize and hold raqqah, were in close consultation with turkey. I was in ankara last week for talks on this and other topics. They were quite fruitful. The president s authorization over the weekend for an additional 200 special Operations Forces in syria will help further accelerate our campaign to eject isil from raqqah. I visited these special operators several times, and they are doing truly heroic work to protect our homeland and to eliminate this haven of isil in syria. Briefly discuss the mosul campaign. Were in month two of the most complex operation to date, the liberation of mosul. Thus far a steady and deliberate advance along all axis against isil terrorists using the civilian population in mosul as human shields. I just visited the eastern axis on the outskirts of mosul last week. Secretary carter was in iraq. He visited the west base. And our centcom commander was in the same area just yesterday and gave a very detail to the president this morning. And all of us witnessed this unprecedented cooperation between the Iraqi Security forces and Kurdish Peshmerga which has been essential to this campaign. Our Coalition Since the beginning of this campaign about two years ago, we trained about 65,000 iraqi personnel who are now fighting professionally and fighting heroically. Theyre trapped in mosul, unable to resupply or replenish their dwindling ranks. Throughout this campaign weve conducted over 500 air strikes, destroyed about 100 car bombs, 100 tunnels, 300 bunkers. This is ongoing every single day. Were often asked how long is this going to take, and the answer is, in mosul, it will take as long as it takes. Its useful to remember other campaigns against isil, cobauny, raqqah, significant campaigns. Each of them took about six months. Some have gone faster. Fallujah went faster than anticipated. And the key thing is what isil does in these cities, they set up concentric rings of defenses. Once you break through the crust of that defense you dont know whats going to come next. Eventually they reach a culmination point. They cannot resupply. They run oufts suicide bombers and cull monate. In mosul, we dont know when that will come. Could come soon or a couple of months from now. Our momentum will be sustained and well provide a relentless pressure on the enemy throughout mosul. Every single operation in iraq that we have supported has succeeded, and all the ground thats been retaken has been held and mosul will be no different. How we track this Overall Campaign and how we pressure how were doing. The first is territory. And we actually have a new map here which just came out this morning from our Intelligence Community. And the map demonstrates how isil continues to lose significant ground. Why is this important . What made isil a global phenomenon with all these recruits from around the world, although thats rapidly diminishing is this homeland and caliphate. And all of their propaganda used to talk about this expanding homeland, expanding movement and they can no longer say that because their territory is now rapidly shrinking. So in iraq now, about 61 of territory that had been kroe controlled by isil has been reclaimed. Whats most significant, the last time i was here, there was still a 98kilometer strip of border with turkey in which isil terrorists were able to come in and out. And that is where the paris attackers, the brussels attackers transited through this route. So since then, over the last six months weve worked very closely with the Syrian Democratic forces and also with turkey and the moderate opposition to close off that route. Thats at the number one on the map. Isis has no access to international border. This is significantly impacted the Overall Campaign because theyre now a very isolated entity within syria and iraq and its much harder for them to come in and out, which is critical for them to project their terrorist attacks outside of iraq and syria. Territory, were continuing to shrink as we speak. And that will continue. Leadership. Isils leadership ranks are dwindling. I mentioned some of the recent strikes against their leaders in raqqah. Since the start of the campaign weve eliminated year all of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadis trusted advise er advisers. And as these leaders are replaced we target and kill the replacements and a significant deg riidation in their capabilities and ranks. Baghdadi claims to be the caliph. Weve not seen his face in well over a year. He issued an audiotape about a month ago but issuing audiotapes deep in hiding is not the sign of a confident leader, particularly in todays media age. Eventually well find and eliminate him as well but the leadership ranks continue to diminish. Third undicator, their overall fighting capacity and strength, overall fighters. The number of battleready fighters is at its lowest point its ever been. About 12,000 to 15,000. And isil is unable to replenish its ranks. We used to see about 1,000 foreign fighters in 2014 time frame flowing in, i mentioned this before, an unprecedented number of these foreign fighters. Almost 40,000. Its now down to really what is quite a negligible amount in our estimation. And thats thanks to the efforts, our efforts on the ground and special operations that have done an incredible job to clear out that area of the border just south of turkey and now the intervention from turkey to protect its border and make sure these terrorists cannot get in and out. We are also making sure that foreign fighters cannot transit across borders. So about 60 countries within the coalition have really strengthened their laws against the transit of foreign fighters. Plots have been disrupted in about 15 countries and this continues. One of the unsung heros of our coalition which is strengthened is the information sharing among different capitals. This is something thats now really accelerated, and its increased our ability to stay well ahead of this enemy. Fourth indicator is revenue. Were destroying isils economic base. Just last week its only one example but last week, air coalition destroyed about 168 isil oil tankers. The largest strike of its kind. We continue to target their oil and gas infrastructure, bulk cash storage sites and financial facilitators. They cannot pay their fighters. The fighters come thinking theyll have this lavish lifestyle. Thats not happening. Their fighters are not getting paid and we have multiple indications of that. And well continue to maintain this relentless pressure. The fifth indicator is one i mentioned. This is critical. Their axis to borders. They were flowing in and out by the almost over a thousand a month. That is no longer happening. Quite Significant Development to close off their entire axis to international border. Sixth uindicator, media prop ganda. Isil used to have this Media Information apparatus. And it was led by two people. One was Muhammad Anani their chief spokesman and head of external operations and two, a very Sophisticated Media expert named dr. Wahili, the head of all those slick videos they used to produce. Both of them are no longer around. We also have been working very closely with the private sector and within the coalition to get their content off the internet to make it far harder to access. Their overall output is down by about 75 if you just measure these things in 12month increments from august of 2015 to august this year. Decrease of 75 . Twitter, just one example, have taken down 400,000 proisil twitter handles. And the ratio of antiisil information to proisil information has totally flipped from where it was two years ago. And well keep this going. This also is a global effort. So isil tries to recruit with different messages around the world. We have the uk leading an effort to target those who may be recruited in europe. In the gulf region, working closely with the uae. I met the really incredible Young People Working 24 7 to counter the toxix idology and poisonous messages of isil. Saudi arabia is help with that. And in southeast asia, malaysians and other critical partners are helping to counter the message in that part of the world. Very different messages in different parts of the world. Seventh indicator is global cohesion. Isil had sought to be a Global Organization with direct links, financial fighters, leaders between its core in iraq and syria to the socalled affiliates. In response, we strengthen a Global Coalition to find and sever all of those links. The result has been a weakening of their socalled affiliates across the board. I mention libya but also boko haram and afghanistan. Also of these entities are being significantly degraded. Importantly, our coalition also includes multinational organizations such as interpol and europepol to help develop a global database of isis related fighters to stop their transit across borders. My deputy was at the interpol meeting last month to strengthen these relationships and make sure were sharing information we need to stay ahead of this threat. As isils global cohesion weakens, ours is strengthening with cooperation across the globe. I would just say in conclusion, and i mentioned this last time, were having tremendous success against this enemy. It is accelerating. Were now putting pressure on its two socalled capitals of mosul and raqqah. Simultaneous, relentless pressure will continue. Were killing their leaders, taking off their ability to finance and resource themselves. This remains an unpress didnted threat. The fight is not over. This will remain a multy year effort but we have a campaign thats global and i hope ive demonstrated the overall breadth of the campaign. Since weve been doing this a ko couple of years, weve lost five americans in this campaign. Five of our military personnel have been kills in this campaign. And i also, its important to keep in mind because i saw with my own eyes the casualty collection points just outside mosul of the iraqis fighting. We are advising them to fight and retake their territory. Similar to our syrian partners. Their casualties are very high. An operation in syria, for example, which was really important to protect was. Monbag is where the foreign fighters were flowing through and planni inning external operations. They had over 1,000 casualties in that operation. Similar in mosul. The Iraqi Security forces we are training, advising and enabling are fighting heroically and t e taking casualties and continuing to advance. Were proud to work w