You dont have the proof, no one has concrete information or evidence. Charles assad then going as far as to insist that the United States worked, quote, handinglove with terrorists to carry out the attack. Former deputy Homeland Security jim loy. Admiral, how do you respond to this . Well i think we have respond with some kind of a factual, investigatory process that gets facts on the table before we speculate what the outcomes might be in one direction or another. It is disappointing that we had russia veto the resolution from the United Nations Security Council just yesterday. But i think an investigatory, some basis on which facts can be put on the table where judgments can be taken and then options can be exercised going the other way. Charles well, werent those, wasnt there some sort of a factual assessment that led to the Trump Administration retaliation with those 59 tomahawk missiles . Without a doubt, there is very little doubt in the mine of our Intelligence Community that th
Chinas far west where they are preparing to mark a sensitive anniversary but not everyone will be celebrating. We begin with syria cher russia is conducting a second dav of airstrikes. News channels are reporting russian jets have carried out at least 30 air raids targeting rebel positions. Saudi arabia has criticized the russians a, saying they have caused civilian casualties while failing to hit isil targets. The u. S. Which is also conducting aerial bombardment in syria have agreed to talks as soon as possible to avoid clashing with russias air campaign. We all want syria, democratic, syria, a home for all ethnic and confessional groups whose rights are guaranteed but we have some differences as for the details on how to get there. We agreed on the imperative of as soon as possible, perhaps even as soon as tomorrow, but as soon as possible, having a military to military deconfliction discussion, meeting, conference, whichever, whatever can be done as soon as possible. Russia has bee
Essentially that the president of the United States has said, you republicans care about defense. Youre not getting any more money for defence unless i get more money for nondefense. Thats a big conflict. So the process we move forward met the Defense Departments request and president s request for defense but has not met nondefense increases, all of which on defense and nondefense are barred. Captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 captioning performed by vitac really tried to work with us more than anyone else has. 1961, 51 of the budget. Now it is 15 . That is a problem. It is the lowest percentage since world war ii, but that is not the problem we are addressing today. What we are talking about is the tooth and the tail. Hagel suckedtary to shrink the headquarters and major combat command staff. Secretary carter indicated a target 20 reduction of the staff during his time as to be secretary and in august of this year, the Deputy Defense costtary ward said reductions
And good morning, everyone. Welcome to today on a thursday morning. Im Savannah Guthrie. Im willie geist along with tamron and al. Matts been kind enough to yank himself away from the black jack table to join us. I was on a losing streak anyway. The press conference mike tyson had last week was exceptional. He was supposed to talk about his career as a boxing promoter. Instead he started talking about his demons. He said he was a vicious alcoholic, that he hated himself and was trying to kill him. It was a stunning public moment even for a guy whos had a number of stunning public moments. I sat down to talk about what appears to be the fight of his life. Well have that in the next halfhour. Back to you. We will look forward to that. Well begin with the breaking news tied to possible military action against syria. We have more from the pentagon. Good morning. Reporter good morning. This is clearly a new twist over the tensions between the u. S. And russia over potential u. S. Military a
The proximate history of how we got here. The sort of two arcsof the story that led to this point. One of them i think starts in august 2013 in the suburbs of damascus when there was a massive, massive chemical weapons attack on two syrian civilian neighborhoods. That was an attack by the syrian government. They used chemical weapons. They used what was later determined to be sarin gas. That attack in august 2013 killed more than 1,400 civilians including hundreds of children. And the global response, the u. S. Response, naturally, was absolute horror. Outrage. A clamber for a response of sufficient magnitude to match and dissuade and punish an attack that horrific by the syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad. Again, over 1,400 People Killed in that gas attack in 2013. Now, in terms of the american response to that attack four years ago, the decisionmaking process in our government was very much colored by the fact that the Previous Year in 2012, president obama had described the widespread