essence replenish all their forces is still called into question, they had difficulties when they were trying to capture kyiv, i think they ve gotten better at replenishing their weapons stocks. we also know that a lot of the battalion groups, strength between 800 to 1,000 men each, they re now probably around 600 men each, so some of the tactical units they re using is smaller in size than what they had before, however the number of troops in total that the russians can bring into the theater of war that they re fighting in right now is probably greater than what the ukrainians have, so it s possible that the russians could at least get some gains in this territory but the ukrainians are also getting a lot of weapons from the u.s. and other nato countries and that could in
chemical weapons and reinforcing the sort of taboo and norm and international law against them. the president sort of basically saying something like that as well. do you feel like they ve arrived at some coherent policy on syria? i certainly hope so. but let s just look at some of the things they ve been saying, chris. they ve been trying to blame russia, for example, for irresponsibility in the disruption of syria s chemical weapons stocks. i m sorry. the united states army and its contractors destroyed 600 metric tons in 42 days of cw stocks. the opcw and the united nations were responsible for that. as far as i can tell, they did a pretty thorough job. so why blame russia? they don t even know their facts. now, syria might have kept some sarin, some vx, or some other chemicals aside. there s no doubt they could have done that. but this is ridiculous. the inexpertise, the amateurism,
others in able to do. we were combating the proliferation of weapons. that s one of the reasons there was a cia presence in benghazi. because we were trying to figure out how to get those weapons out of the wrong hands and get them collected and destroyed. in fact, we began reducing those heavy weapons stocks. you know, we were working on providing transition assistance to the libyans. i met with the libyans. i telephoned with the libyans. i saw the libyans all during this period. and it was hard because a lot of them knew what they wanted but they didn t know how to get where they were to that goal. we did an enormous amount of work. my two deputies, tom nides and bill burns, went to libya. others in the state department went to libya. there was a constant, continuing effort that i led to try to see what we could do to help. now, one of the problems we faced is that the libyans did not really feel they could
supported the united states and others in being able to do. we were combatting the proliferation of weapons. that s one of the reasons why there was a cia presence in benghazi because we were trying to figure out how to get those weapons out of the wrong hands and get them collected in a way and destroyed. and in fact, we began reducing those heavy weapons stocks. we were, you know, working on providing transition assistance to the libyans. i met with the libyans. i telephoned with the libyans. i saw the libyans all during this period. and it was hard because a lot of them knew what they wanted, but they didn t know how to get from where they were to that goal. and we did an enormous amount of work. my two deputies, tom nides and bill burns went to libya. other officials in the state department went to libya. so there was a constant continuing effort that i led to try to see what we could do to