fought for them. what will happen now? the general said that that will become their second priority as soon as turkey invades, that sdf fighters will move towards the border to reinforce their brothers and sisters, to take up arms against turkey. the big concern amongst u.s. military officials i ve spoken with is those detention centers, their doors will essentially just open up and thousands of isis fighters could spill into the syrian countryside, andrea. and that s exactly what the president had said, he said we re sick of guarding these people and let them go back to europe, which is refusing to take them. of course it s been the sdf that s been guarding them, not u.s. forces. matt bradley, courtney kube at the pentagon, thank you both so much. in a rare rebuke, a rare rebuke from the u.s. military, a retired general, general joseph votel, is slamming president trump s decision to pull troops from syria. take a look at this. for me the overall sentiment
democratic defenders or allies on the ground, they view as terrorists because erdogan feels threatened by them. what are we doing about abandoning our allies? what is the signal from the diplomats that i ve been speaking to, this was a shock to the brits, the germans, the french, people with troops on the ground, the jordanians. the israelis are not happy because this empowers iran. erdogan talked to putin today, who is his closest ally in all this. so russia and iran are the winners here, and assad. absolutely a boost to russia, iran, aside, and isis, which from a security perspective may be the most important impact here. you heard from general votel, the former head of centcom, the former head of special forces, talk about abandonment here. this was a no-process decision, that i can determine. certainly done without
in another short period of time like hours, you ll be hearing about the caliphate, it s 100% defeated. nobody s been able to say that. that doesn t mean there are there s aren t some very bad people walking around and strapping on bombs and all these things. but we ve done a job that nobody else has been able to do. so many questions. our guests stay with us, general mccaffrey and gabby orr. general, your friend, our commander in the region, general votel, mustering up all the influence he has on the commander in chief and asking if he can t spare 400 men and women. also i m curious what roles do you think these 400 will have? you can be assured that number was a top-down driven decision. anytime you hear a nice round number publicly announced, it s symbolic use of american military power. brian, i bring an infantry commander s perspective to a lot of these issues.
visiting afghanistan after stopping in syria today to deliver the news in person to the allied commander that u.s. troops are indeed leaving syria. cnn spoke with general joseph votel in a network exclusive as s traveled amid heavy security. he met with a top commander of the syrian democratic forces to make it clear that u.s. troops are indeed coming home following president trump s decision to withdr withdraw. just last week general votel told cnn he disagreed with the president s decision to pull out of syria but is adamant that he will follow orders from his commander-in-chief. cnn s barbara starr has this exclusive report. reporter: security was tight in northern syria when general joseph votel arrived on site for meeting with his syrian counterpart, the commander of the syrian democratic forces, the troops that the u.s. has been backing in the fight to oust isis from this country. but general votel made clear in
an exclusive interview with cnn that he still believes isis is a threat and a threat directly to the united states. at this point i think they could certainly inspire and, you know, perhaps provide some guidance in terms of that. i think we have to take it very, very seriously. they ve demonstrated the ability to do this in the past, so we should expect that they will attempt to maybe do that in the future. reporter: the general put forth a proposal in their meetings for up to 1500 coalition, including u.s. troops to remain in syria to help. general votel making no promises, saying that the u.s. was looking at how it could continue to help the sdf but making it absolutely clear that u.s. ground forces, more than 2,000 of them, will be coming out of this country, that that withdrawal is going to take