And journalist robert pelton, author of the world s most dangerous places. robert, welcome back to you. and fareed, we have john kerry and he s saying, hey, listen, the threat we made. it s actually the thing that forced syria to agree to these talks to begin with. and then you have the russians saying, get the threat off the table right now. my question to you is, are these negotiating tactics or is this a disagreement that could end the talks really before they even get started? it s unlikely to end the talks before they get started. but i think that it reflects the very different way in which both sides are viewing this. i think the united states is viewing this as an opportunity to actually achieve what even missile strikes or air strikes would not have achieved, which is the destruction of some part of assad s chemical weapons arsenal. remember, air strikes would not actually destroy the chemical
Guarded by hezbollah, so we re not just going to walk in there and start destroying munitions. this may be handed off to the russians as a task, but right now, we re actually really focused on a red herring because assad has done fine killing people with traditional munitions. he s not getting rid of i lost him. guys, let s work on getting him back because i have a lot of questions. he brings up the fact that hezbollah may be guarding these caches of chemical weapons. what about the fact this is in the middle of a bloody civil war and by destroying the chemical weapons that may or may not mean the civil war will go away. we re going to work on getting robert pelton back. coming up next, we ll take you to colorado. deadly floodwaters there. we ll talk to a rescuer working to save a driver. did you see this? live on cnn today? we ll tell you how it ended and what exactly was going through his mind, next. dad. how did you get here?
Robert, let me bring you back in. where we ended, we were talking about this exclusive group of people with this ability and knowledge and expertise to go into a country in the middle of a civil war, and begin the process of incinerating, destroying, et cetera. can you just be really specific and help all of us understand exactly how complicated and how long this process would take once they then get through this war and finding these locations, how do you begin to incinerate? well, first of all, you have to have access on the ground. assad does not control his country. he s lost large swaths of it to rebel groups. so first of all, you would have to secure the physical storage and preparation area in which these chemicals were formulated and then encapsulated in the delivery systems. you would then have to construct an incineration building or it could be a mobile lab. we have some mobile labs. and then you would have to begin the very slow and deliberate process of incinerating ever
0 transferring assad s chemical weapons to international control. and ultimately destroying them. this is significant. russia is assad s patron and protector. and the world will note whether russia can follow through on the commitments that it s made. as for the editorial, you know, we re not surprised by president putin s words. but the fact is that russia offers a stark contrast that demonstrates why america is exceptional. unlike russia, the united states stands up for democratic values and human rights in our own country and around the world and we believe that our global security is advanced when children cannot be gassed to death by a dictator. it is also weather noting that russia is isolated and alone in blaming the opposition for the chemical weapons attack on august 21st. there is no credible reporting, and we have seen no credible reporting, that the opposition has used chemical weapons in syria. and we have been joined by now 34 countries in declaring that the assad regime
Decision has not been made. it s still under consideration. i have made my recommendation? which is? that recommendation is for 13,600 u.s. forces. reporter: i asked jay carney about that specific number and he would not commit whether the president is going to back general mattis recommendation in moving after these unfortunate comments. will the u.s. commit to that kind of force or pull out together as we saw in iraq. there are critics of the administration if we don t leave some forces behind, any security gains that have been made will be completely lost. shep: you wonder how many people will be lost and left behind. robert pelton returned from a five week trip with united states special forces unit. robert knows karzai s bodyguards and author of a book the