It s all about will. we say we ll take another year to rebuild this iraqi army. isis will take another year to build up their army and they are improving much faster than the iraqis are. it s a foot race that only isis can win. either we start acting now or isis becomes a state, become a caliphate and we are in a completely different ball game. quickly, is it time to take the gloves off of u.s. special forces let them outside of their training role and allow them to start going out and conducting missions against isis? that s our last best hope when there are no other operations. some type of night raids, following on really good intelligence where we start to kill the middle management of isis. these organizations aren t run from the top and aren t run from the bottom. they re run by the financiers the maintenance people communicators, people who do the recruiting. if they re not being killed right now you can bet the iraqi army won t do it. we ll see if we go from a
The the west has a thousand-year war with islam is islam was ever expanding. when islam began to contract it collapsed. and the caliphate was eliminated. now they ve established a caliphate. they are dead serious about expanding it. unless we begin to take back that ground and make this caliphate, you know irrelevant in the eyes of the muslim world or the radical muslim world we are going to have a bigger and bigger problem. so the key is to act promptly and to make sure that america is involved. we have to have i said today in my speech here at cpac we could put forth 10,000 troops in an advisory role, training role as well as to coordinate air strikes and to provide intelligence, all of these things are necessary to arm the kurds and to make sure that we get isis particularly out of mosul should be our first priority. you are specifically using a word that if used a couple years ago people literally would call
And to make sure that america is involved. we have to have i said today in my speech here at cpac we could put forth 10,000 troops in an advisory role, training role as well as to coordinate air strikes and to provide intelligence, all of these things are necessary to arm the kurds and to make sure that we get isis particularly out of mosul should be our first priority. you are specifically using a word that if used a couple years ago people literally would call you looney tunes. you ve been using the word caliphate. why do you think that s important versus what a lot of other people are saying islamic state or another version of what we think they re trying to accomplish? why is that word so important to you specifically? you know back in the 1930s winston churchill tried to warn the world of what hitler was up to. and the world didn t listen. all you had to do was read his book. that s the same case with isis.
The the west has a thousand-year war with islam is islam was ever expanding. when islam began to contract it collapsed. and the caliphate was eliminated. now they ve established a caliphate. they are dead serious about expanding it. unless we begin to take back that ground and make this caliphate, you know irrelevant in the eyes of the muslim world or the radical muslim world we are going to have a bigger and bigger problem. so the key is to act promptly and to make sure that america is involved. we have to have i said today in my speech here at cpac we could put forth 10,000 troops in an advisory role, training role as well as to coordinate air strikes and to provide intelligence, all of these things are necessary to arm the kurds and to make sure that we get isis particularly out of mosul should be our first priority. you are specifically using a word that if used a couple years ago people literally would call
So you put men and women in a war zone, they re still in a war zone. reporter: taliban attacks are down this year from 2013. but secretary hagel s visit comes during a new wave of taliban violence in the capital kabul. what s the most concerning thing you ve heard from commanders that scares you the most? i think this country, first of all, has made tremendous progress. where afghanistan was five years ago, two or three years ago, is hardly any comparison. but it still has threats. al qaeda, taliban. they have built the afghan security forces, a very strong security force institution. so, yes, still challenges ahead, but i think every sign is that they can do this, but it s still a dangerous place. reporter: one thing that was very clear from our trip to afghanistan is that while u.s. forces transition to a training role they will not be sitting