war there? first, barbara starr joins us from 2 pentagon with the latest. what have you learned, barbara? good evening. we know this mission had been planned by the u.s. military over the last several weeks. they were looking at a target in eastern afghanistan, remote mountainous area. there was a complex of isis used tunnels and caves. it was so remote they feel that there was no civilians around. they ve been trying to go after them for some time now. so the mission was planned. it was executed. they will now do the damage assessment. they will fly over the target. they re going to have to determine there were no civilian casualties. they say they don t think so. still to be determined. they ll have to find fought the bomb worked as planned because they ve never used it in combat.
32 of those on the target they would have gotten a bigger yield. the exact place it landed and what it does to the tunnels underground is something the secretary would have advised his generals on. i don t think the president would have been briefed on a weapon in a zone in iraq. if it was pakistan or iran or korea it would have been contemplated. but not in afghanistan. perhaps there is a psychological piece of this. my strong sense is that this was advised by the generals on the ground for the target for the tunnel infrastructure there to get at the isis target. if this wasn t meant to send some broader message about what america can do around the world. mr. jacobs, what do you make of the learning curve what the president is learning about what the military can do and how he is learning it. one of the things he learned
afghanistan or in iraq. possibly if it were something outside, you know, something in pakistan or iran or north korea that were being contemplated. yes. but in afghanistan, i don t think so. but to go to your question, brian, perhaps there is a psychological piece of this, but my sense, my strong sense is that this was advised by the generals on the ground for the target, for the tunnel infrastructure there to get at the isis target. and if this wasn t meant to send some broader message, about what america can do around the world. jack jacobs, what do you make of the learning curve here, what the president is learning about what the military can do and how he s learning it? well, one of the things he s learned is to delegate responsibility and decision making. i mean, he s distancing himself from the micro management that took place in the previous administration. and i think he was involved in it at the very beginning. he doesn t want to do it and he sent the decision making down
talking conversationally right now but in a combat situation, it s a whole lot tougher to figure things out. and then thirdly, you have to understand that isis strategy is at times to actually put civilians in harm s way. now, having said all those things, the military will go through an expensive investigation on this issue to find out what happened, why it happened and how to prevent it in the future. could be a number of things. was this an zedent accidental s? did they hit the wrong building? were human shields placed either in this building or near this building and were there reports of isis fighters on top of the building drawing fire toward that? then finally, was it collateral damage? was one strike hit against an isis target, and nearby there were civilians? that s what the kinds of things the investigation is going to
l. he specializes in and author of dancing with the devil michael great to have you with us. i want to ask you, in the early stages isis was not going after turkey. it seems with the killing of russia, turkey is becoming an isis target. what has changed in the calculations. why is this happening. this is blow back the pa pakistanians discovered. july 15 coup about 17,000 professionals have been fired and rotated around. perhaps what the president has done is purge so many of the