you re suggesting from the sources you re talking to there has been a more significant, a more robust u.s. or western presence on the ground. boots on the ground and how hesitant we are to send boots on the ground. we ve had a boots on the ground presence in syria. reporter: i think boots on the ground suggests a mass of soldiers and amass of capability. we don t have boots on the ground. we do have special forces capability sniper capability. we have been working inside syria and iraq at the moment, directing air strikes on targets, for example. that s the key bit that we re missing here. we talk about air strikes in syria and iraq. what we are missing is the ability to be able to penetrate an act decisively. that s what the special forces capability gives the west at the
tremendous strides that were made there but the president still bleflts war there in the first place was the reason isis was able to proliferate in that area. he doesn t blame it pulling out of iraq, he blames president bush and the going in the first place. that s not fanning fuel. what happened with the surge was we began to get people in the country of iraq on our side and made tremendous gains. by pulling out precip usually and not having that infrastructure of trainers and intelligence some and some special forces capability, we have seen the unfortunate results. what we have seen is thousands of people killed. we have seen the persecution and slaying of christians and other religious minorities. we have seen rawb gain influence in iraq in places they wouldn t have been able to otherwise. when that void was created iran moved in.
brigade. an islamic militia group. more than a mile away is what is called the an ex. now known to be a cia facility. there s more security there. based in tripoli but moving around the country is a department of defense sight security team with special forces capability. lieutenant colonel andrew wood takes charge of the sst on february 12th, 2012. the spring of 2012, there was an uptick of terror attacks in libya. that s true. they seemed to be targeting more toward westerners. despite an average of two security incidents every three days, wood and his team are slated to leave libya by summer s end. march 28th, 2012. americans in libya send a cable to secretary of state clinton requesting more security. april 6th. a bomb is tossed over the wall of the benghazi compound. no one is hurt. april 19th, a return cable signed by clinton says security
more than a mile away is what is called the annex. now it is known to be a c.i.a. facility. more security there. based in tripoli but moving around the country is a department of defense site security team with special forces capability. lieutenant colonel andrew wood takes charge on spring of 2012. there was uptick of terror attacks in libya? that is true. bret: despite an average of two security incidents every three days, he and his team are slated to leave in libya by summer s end. march 28th, americans in libya send a cable to secretary of state clinton requesting more security. april 6th, a bomb is tossed over the wall of the benghazi compound, no one is hurt. april 19th, a returning cable signed by clinton says security would actually be scaled back.
i believe we need more in the way of tactical intelligence-gathering. we don t need 100,000 troops on the ground. where we re positioned, for example, in afghanistan is wrong right now. we need more in the way of special forces capability. we need more in the way of drone strike capability. when we collect the intelligence, we should be prepared to act on it. it s just a matter of rearranging some of our national security and military assets that we have in the region. but shoring up the relationship yesterday. i don t see movements in that regard. we share a democratic heritage. we ought to shore up our intelligence-gathering capability and our military-to-military links with india and prepare for what could be a rocky region. greta: thank you, sir. hope you come back. it s going to be a long campaign. thank you, sir. pleasure to be with you.