not aware the president planned to announce a complete withdrawal from syria. you weren t consulted before that decision was announced. we were not i was not consulted. the fact is the president made a decision and we are going to execute the his orders here to withdraw forces from syria. general votel also weighed in on the potential withdraw from afghanistan saying the u.s. would need to continue bolstering the afghan fight against isis and taliban to the a tune of $4 billion a year. there certainly would need to be continued support to the afghan forces. and without american troops on the ground overseeing that taxpayer investment, there are concerns the money could be siphoned away. general votel said the u.s. government is investigating a report that american weapons provided to saudi arabia and the uae that were supposed to be used to counter iran in yemen are ending up in the hands of iran s proxy fighters. bret? bret: jennifer griffin live at the pentagon. jenni
is not over despite the commander-in-chief calling the group defeated. we should expect that they will attempt to attack us and continue to regenerate themselves and we will continue to put pressure on them. adding even though isis controls an area less than 20 square miles an estimated 1500 isis fighters remain in syria. jenna: votel did not dispute. echoing a new pentagon ig report which warned absent sustained counter-terrorism pressure isis could likely resurge in syria in 6 to 12 months and regain limited territory. so you do agree with the inspector general that isis is a scourge that s lighted in both syria and iraq and has the potential to resurge if not addressed? i do agree. votel then surprised lawmakers admitting he was
they said nothing is going to change. so here the view is very clear that when there s a presidential tweet, it doesn t equate to policy. now, in terms of what actually happened in that helsinki meeting, officials here are still waiting on an official order to somehow take it to the next level. we ve talked to general votel who has been very clear that nothing has come out of that, nothing secretary mattis had had his briefing from the president, but so far there have been no policy changes. look, in general here they do monitor the president s twitter feed very quickly but don t think of it as policy. nick confessore, i want to bring to the conversation something that national security advisor john bolton, who s done a decent job flying under the radar since he s joined this white house staff, said yesterday. he said the president believes that the next bilateral meeting with president putin should take place after the russia witch hunt is over. i couldn t get any farther than that
about official positions that the president outlined. as far as you know, general votel s statements did not violate any official position of the united states, did they? you seem to be giving a great deal of credit to the russian ministry of defense with truthfulness. i might not share that same let me ask you general votel. great belief in his truthfulness. you do not believe that the statements made including those i read violate any official position of the united states, do you? if you would, that s best approached to general votel, department of defense. i m three orders removed fly s an interesting article in buzzfeed news just recently today that just lists a whole series of headlines and i think these are instructive, mr. chair. trump s headline catches pentagon off guard. pentagon is surprised to halt military exercises. trump signals withdrawal soon of u.s. troops from syria.
it. i was with him yesterday in a series of meetings and had a chance of a conversation about it, yes. okay. about our absolutely. okay. so yesterday may have been the first time he was briefed about it. i want to ask that s possible, yes. i was going to ask about general votel, the information that jeanne shaheen, senator shaheen mentioned earlier. we expressed worriness of the working with russia. this is this is an interesting statement. they went after general votel, the head of the cent-com oversees military operations. with his statements, general votel not only discredited the official position of his supreme commander in chief, are you aware what the official position is that is being rerveferenced that statement? you have to speak to them to know. you can understand why we re concerned if it s being reported in russian press as secretary flake and senator flake and senator shaheen said talking