Patel. We appreciate your time and hope to see you in a half hour. Tonight, Breaking News. After President Trump suddenly pulled u. S. Troops from a key part of syria, turkey now launching its offensive tonight on u. S. Allies, the kurds. The military assault now under way. Air strikes from turkey. The kurds, who had helped the u. S. In the fight against isis, now targeted themselves. And what about the prisons Holding Thousands of isis fighters secured by the kurds . Tonight, abc news has learned some of the kurds have already left their posts at those prisons. Just 24 hours after the white house said it will not cooperate with the Impeachment Inquiry, Speaker Pelosi saying the president is not above the law. And tonight, joe biden saying Thcoastal Systembouto slam new boston. And the major snowstorm. More than a foot of snow elsewhere in this country. And the fire dangers in the west. Power companies tonight cutting off power to Hundreds Of Thousands to protect their own liability. M
reporter: well, david, those kurdish fighters feel they have no choice but to leave those prisons and fight for their own families as turkey invades, but david, you and i both know how dangerous those prisons are. is 1,000 isis prisoners who could simply blend in with the population or flood surrounding areas. and pentagon officials feel this could get much worse if president trump pulls out all the american troops quickly, and i am being told many are doing their best to try and talk him out of it. david? all right, an extraordinarily delicate situation. martha, thank you. meantime, all of this playing out as the impeachment standoff intensifies tonight. it was last night, as we came on the air here, the white house refusing to cooperate going forward. now speaker nancy pelosi saying the president is not above the e den, saying the president should be impeached. here s abc s chief white house correspondent jonathan karl. reporter: as a defiant president trump refuses to
fought for them. what will happen now? the general said that that will become their second priority as soon as turkey invades, that sdf fighters will move towards the border to reinforce their brothers and sisters, to take up arms against turkey. the big concern amongst u.s. military officials i ve spoken with is those detention centers, their doors will essentially just open up and thousands of isis fighters could spill into the syrian countryside, andrea. and that s exactly what the president had said, he said we re sick of guarding these people and let them go back to europe, which is refusing to take them. of course it s been the sdf that s been guarding them, not u.s. forces. matt bradley, courtney kube at the pentagon, thank you both so much. in a rare rebuke, a rare rebuke from the u.s. military, a retired general, general joseph votel, is slamming president trump s decision to pull troops from syria. take a look at this. for me the overall sentiment
soon as congress returns from its recess, he will introduce a motion to sanction turkey if turkey invades, and he told me that he thinks he has 85 to 90 votes to support that motion, extraordinary swell of criticism of turkey. two other important developments i want to mention. first, as the turks prepare for their invasion across the border in northeastern syria, russian and syrian regime forces further south are said to be moving up toward the kurdish areas to catch the kurds in a kind of n of pincer. this is what should frighten us, there are many thousands, the estimates go as high as 10,000, former isis prisoners who have been held in often ramshackle
associates of isis. and they have said essentially they may just need to walk away from those facilities as turkey invades. how likely do you think that is? look, i can t predict it but i think this also produces a better question. what has this presidency and what has this administration been doing for the last couple of months that they did not foresee this problem or try to negotiate a separate truce or peace between turkey and the kurds or at least some level of security agreements so we wouldn t find our sfld in this situation and pompeo was traveling the world trying to fabricate lies against a politic opponent of the president instead of doing serious work in northern iraq. that is the problem here. that is a damn shame and it will cost us geopolitically in terms of alliances probably for decades to come. pompeo is the failure in this situation. pompeo should have been working this out. should have been pressuring the president to work this out. instead he s just the president