No, it did not. I mean, were always were always assessing our posture and where we can put our assets. Not something we normally get into much detail on but we always want to make sure weve got our assets positioned properly. As we see where, you know, the focus of our strikes are based on the fluidity of our battlefield maybe we need to reposition our assets to make sure where were spending more time in the air weve got an asset closer to respond if needed. Hi, colonel. As a followup to this question, given the different tactical capabilities of the f16s and a10s is this deployment indicating tactical change in the mission as well or will they do exactly the same thing that f16 did . And the secondly, you mentioned about syrian iraq coalition. What is your understanding about the Syrian Forces . Patrick asked this question last weekend and he said he would look at it. What is your understanding about this new form and is this indicating the same thing or Different Group or can i get y
Radical impact. On the issue of accountability, do you have legislation . I think they have the ability to do it and they simply arent enforcing it. Jeff does it. I dont question him. Its to get the best care possible. I think it wont have the same effe effect. And ive seen that where you couldnt get rid of a bad teacher. Of c you k bcan, but you have to doe work. They want to get rid of this, and we differ there. I think jeff thinks they need more protection. And what ive told the secretary is that they may need to theres a lot of risk analysis thats done in what they do, is it less expensive to just reach a settlement with this individual than it would be to take them all the way through, let them appeal to the protection board and then they end up back at the va and were paying for their Attorney Fees . I get that. But i think were going to have to take one of the most egregious cases. Even if it gets reversed. The American People would be able to see how difficult it appears to be
Believe in july, they we have the right strategy in place. On implementing the strategy. Interagency effort, across all of the departments that are involved. Secretary carter and secretary kerry have been meeting together with their senior staff to in tor and identify issues the campaign and theyre meeting foreign to focus on fighters. They are responsible for two of effort inside the strategy, denying isil safe i would like to speak the ly to those areas. Coalition has removed some of its key leaders in iraq and syria. Regained of them and partners have taken the key border town, which of isils key lines of communication and supply and pressure on its stro stronghold. When we have credible Ground Forces and support them with our air power, isil can suffer. We are working hard to build the capacity of our forces on the ground. Six trained more than brigades and provided training 13,000 personnel. We have more in the pipeline. As secretary carter said, in iraqi raining for the army has
Good morning. The Committee Meets today to receive testimony on u. S. Strategy in the middle east, and i want to thank our distinguished witnesses for appearing this morning and for their service to our nation. Before i proceed, id like to remind our witnesses this committees rules require written testimony be submitted 24 hours in advance of a hearing, and id like to try from now on for our witnesses to adhere to that. The tragic loss last week of Master Sergeant joshua walker, a veteran of 14 combat deployments reminds us of the high stakes of our mission in the middle east and how grateful we are to americans serving there. We need a strategy worthy of those who carry it out and, unfortunately, we dont have that. Whats worse it appears the administration has not even defined the problem correctly. A policy of isil first fails to understand that eye significant for all of the threat it poses is actually a symptom of another power thats now raging across the middle east. The epicenter
Have the forward air observers that would make it more efficient than what youve got today. Can you share with us a little bit about what youre doing to try to improve that situation and how you would like to see that handled . General austin sir, we routinely use all of our Intelligence Surveillance and reconnaissance assets, u. A. V. s and manned aircraft, to make sure that we are understand whats going on on the ground before we employ weapons. And we are diligent in our efforts there, not overly cautious to the point where we where were not able to take advantage of opportunities to engage the enemy, but were very, very mindful of, you know, the possibility of committing civilian casualties. Senator round but were not using any of our own forward air observers at all . Is that fair to say . We dont have any forward air observers on the ground at all . General austin thats correct. Our jtacs are operating in the command center. What that does is allows jtacs to have visibility over