military escalation in both syria and iraq, going beyond air strikes to ramp up the battle against isis. the defense secretary, ash carter, acknowledging the pentagon is now prepared to face direct action on the ground, his words, direct action on the ground. president obama reportedly is weighing recommendations to american forces close to the front lines in a dangerous corner of the world where russia and iran are both flexing their muscles and expanding their influence. also breaking, another major shift. cnn has learned that iran has now been formally invited for the first time to join the united states, russia, other countries, in talks on syria s civil war, the future of president bashar al assad. a meeting is set for this friday in vienna. i ll talk about all of that and more with the chairman of the house foreign affairs committee, ed rice. he s standing by live. and our correspondents and analysts are also standing by as we cover all the news that s breaking right now. first
far we can sense the attitude from the ayatollah. this isn t the only attitude we sense from him. he it inscontinues to mass produce and says death to america. so it s the attitude that s equally concerning and we have to get verification. ed rice is the chairman. mr. chairman we ll continue this conversation. thank you. thank you, wolf. still ahead, new details about the last moments of prison escapee richard matt s life. we ll have a live report from upstate new york. outside the prison. stand by. they make little hearts happy and big hearts happy too because as part of a heart healthy diet, those delicious oats in cheerios can help naturally lower cholesterol. how can something so little. help you do something so big.
ledger ledgers, some direct evidence of the cash flow. so i d say it is an important operation. congressman ed rice appreciate your time this evening, thank you, sir. thank you. the u.s. officials say, as the congressman said, that abu sayyaf and his wife may have had pretty important knowledge of the hostages held by isis and who the hostages are and where they may be located, and today, is marking 1,000 days since tious austin was taken by captives, and now there is hope that useful information may be found in the computers or the cell phones that were seized in the raid or in the interrogation as we talked about of sayyaf s wife. here to talk about it more is cnn analyst, and former cia interrogator, david.
here in the situation room. we did hear in the last hour the chairman of the house foreign affairs committee, ed rice, he says he has no doubt north korea is responsible. the obama administration is now calling the cyber terror attack on sony a national security threat to the united states, vowing there will be what white house officials call a proportional response. our chief national security correspondent jim sciutto has more. reporter: despite the mounting evidence, the white house has not publicly named north korea. but they to, as you say, preparing for a response that is proportional but one that doesn t give into any north korean provocation. they re working out how to achieve that balance. several options are under consideration, including tightening sanctions on north korea. with the administration close to publicly blaming north korea for the sony hack, meetings now under way at the white house to
leader, fidel, was not involved in these negotiations. china still has its own issues with human rights and freedoms. but a lot of smiles here at the white house, feeling good about this new opening with cuba. jim acosta, thank you very much. let s get more now from republican congressman ed rice of california. did the president do the right thing? the price that was paid for the freedom of alan gross, was it worth it? the question here in the negotiation, did we get enough for the people of cuba during the noegotiation. in the past, there s been one thing we asked and only two down trips that have held out on this, one is north korea, the other is cuba. we asked that you allow your