Good diagnosis. Ah yes. And pie the way, the Washington Nationals tonight. Thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. Thats it for this special report. Is this the only way to wipe isis off the face of the planet . You have to hear what the top military office just told the u. S. Senate. Plus senator Lindsey Graham, and others, do any of them agree with the president s isis plan . All here to go on the record. Right now the big news from todays critical Armed Services committee hearing. This will not be an easy or a brief effort. It is complicated. We are at war with isil, as we are with al qaeda. Im not confident how this is going to happen without the assistance of our trained special operators on the ground here. My view at this point is that
this coalition is the appropriate way forward. I believe that will prove true. But if it fails to be true and if there are threats to the United States, then i of course would go back to the president and make a recommendation that may include the use of u. S. Military ground forces. If the objective were to destroy isis, not to degrade them but to destroy them within 90 days, what would be required militarily to carry that out . Its not possible, senator. Truly, there is no military solution to isil. Is it fair to say that most syrians have two things in common, they dont like isil and they dont like assad. Most syrians . I agree. Is it fair to say that most muslims reject what isil does in the name of their religion . Yes. Is it fair to say that if we dont contain this threat and eventually destroy it, that it gets worse over time and a year from now, if theyre still flourishing in syria and this coalition hadnt come about,
america is in danger more in danger of a major attack than we are today . Yes. And senator Lindsey Graham joins us. Nice to see you, sir. Thank you. After todays hearing, you had a chance to question the general and also secretary of defense hagel. Do you understand the Obama Administrations strategy . I am absolutely dumbfounded as to what were doing and why, but i do believe this, destroying isil is the right goal. That if we dont destroy them, they will get stronger and hit us here at home. Its just not about iraq and syria. I just dont know how we destroy isil given what i heard today. What did you hear today . What did general dempsey tell you and secretary hagel tell you is how the Obama Administration intends to destroy in iraq, we use the kurdish forces. We regenerate the iraqi army thats fallen apart. We pull the sunni arab tribes away from isil and hit them
inside of iraq. Let me stop you right there. The sunni people are not wild about the iraqi forces. No, theyre not wild about isil either. Well, but theyre more can i just tell you what they said. The way you win in iraq is you reconstitute the iraqi army from the south. You have the sunni tribes in the west, abandon isil and fight with us, fight with the iraqi army and you have the kurds hit them from up north. Then ask them about syria. Twothirds of isil is in syria, not iraq. So to destroy isil you have to hit them in syria and this is where it all fell apart for me. Theres supposed to be a mythical arab army formed sometime in the near future that will go in on the ground and destroy isil without any substantial u. S. Help. I dont believe thats possible. And the worst outcome is to send an arab army into syria and isil beat them. Whos this arab army that the two Witnesses Today said was forming . Well, i dont know who they
are. The free syrian component is part of it. Im all for training free syrian army, but it would take a lifetime to train enough of them to defeat isil. Youve got turkey, youve got egypt, saudi arabia, youve got forces in the region. Im all for using those foerksz but i dont want to be unrealistic to the American People. I dont see how a large arab army without substantial american support can defeat isil. If we lose to isil in syria, theyre not destroyed, they actually come out of this thing stronger. Do you have a sense today that you got military strategy answers or politics . This is the key. The strategy the president has adopted was made up by him, not our military. This is not a military plan. This is this military strategy wont destroy isil, its designed to protect the promises made by president obama as a politician. The military must be pulling their hair out tonight. Theyre in a box created by our president. This is not rational and it all
goes back that hes stubborn, hes vain and hes been incompetent. Hes going to continue this fight against isil in a fashion where it goes longer than it should and more people get killed than necessary. He is that stubborn. To president bushs credit, he understood that his approach to iraq was falling apart and he abandoned it and replaced it with a new strategy. President obama cannot admit to himself that what hes done in the past is not working. The worst thing a commander in chief can do, i believe, to send American Forces into a ballottl where they cant win. Thats what were asking of our military, to fight isil in a fashion that they cant win. Nice to see you, sir. And ambassador john boem says the time for u. S. Combat troops on the ground is right now. Weve had witness testimony today, general dempsey and secretary hagel. Your thoughts tonight. I think the strategy is
incoherent. Lets try to do this as a matter of logic. n mortal threat to the United States, then your conclusion must be that our objective should be to destroy it. And if you believe that the objective is to destroy it, we should find a way to do it in the quickest possible time with the minimum number of american casualties. The longer we wait, the greater the possibility that isis can consolidate its control over the territory it now has and that the ultimate cost in american or allied lives will be much higher. They dont have a state yet but theyre working on it. It seems to me and senator Lindsey Graham just spoke about it, twothirds of isis is thought to be in sear yachlt the president s plan is addressed to iraq. There doesnt seem to be much of a plan as relates to twothirds of isis which is in syria. Every day they get bigger. The whole idea is if we support the rebels against isis, you know, weve got the armies that were helping president assad who
gases his people. I dont pretend to have the answer, but isis is in syria. Weve got multiple opponents in a complex struggle. I dont think we should do anything to build up agents of iran like the assad regime or the baghdad government. If we destroy isis inevitably their power will be enhanced because one of their adversaries will be defeated. And if we do nothing and isis grows in syria . Then the threat to the United States will grow. So both lousy choices. The issue is how do you deal with the mortal threat to the United States. I believe it is a huge mistake to place the safety of the hands of the United States in terms of troops on the ground in the hands of the iraqi army, the free syria opposition, the sunnis of western iraq or the kurds. Thats why you need americans now. Look, if this is in syria. Yes, of course. Boots on the ground in syria. There is no border between iraq and syria anymore. Isis has erased it. If we dont take this into account, we will inevitably lose. The fact is that putting American Safety in the hands of others who have failed before, like the iraqi army for god sakes is going to endanger us and cost us more in terms of american lives down the road. If people dont think isis is a real threat to the United States, then stand up and say so. Because if thats true, its not worth any american lives. All right. What do we do about assad . I think you leave assad in place. Ive long believed assad is a sideshow. The real problem is the regime in iran. My viewpun is the only solution regime change in tehran. First we have to deal with isis because its the threat in the near term. The longterm threat is a nuclear iran, the worlds central bank of international terrorism. The president has no strategy to deal with iran. His own director of national
intelligence said earlier this year the sanctions have failed to stop the iranian or even slow down the Iranian Nuclear weapons program. Ambassador, nice to see you. Thank you. The u. S. Now expanding its fight against isis in iraq. Yesterday the u. S. Conducting its first offensive air strike. The strike was southwest of baghdad. Still some critics say president obama is ignoring the advice of his generals. Is he . Good evening, sir. Good morning. Of course you have a military background i like to point out. Is the president ignoring his generals or doing exactly what his generals want . Well, we can just look at what they have said publicly. In 2010 the president asked general austin, who was the leader of the u. S. Forces in the middle east, what was the right course of action to deal with isis and the threat in the region. The general requested not only that troops be allowed to remain in iraq to preserve the gains that we had made but also route 24,000 troops that would be required to deal with the growing threat of isis. The president not only rejected that, but as you know fully withdrew from iraq and declared victory, and we are now seeing five years later the effect of the obama policies, the obama doctrine, if you will, which is basically stick your head in the sand and rpretend all the problems are going away and theyre just getting worse. So do you assign the growing of isis on president obamas failed policy . I think theres no question that had we dealt with this growing threat a year ago or two years ago as many members of congress have been pushing for, they would not be the threat they are today or control the land mass they control today. Nobody believes that the strategy that the president has laid out will fully destroy and remove isis from the region. What would you do . Well, i think that as ambassador bolton outlined, if you believe it is an immediate threat to our allies and eventually threat to the United States, then the only answer is to completely destroy and eradicate them. The only way that happens is with men and women from the United States military on the ground in combat. We cannot do it exclusively through air power. None of the commanders that came before us in our classified briefings and others have suggested that. And so at the end of the day, this is basically a strategy to hold them. Tread water . To stop them from gaining more grounding. But at the endb1ln of the day s not a winning strategy. The fundamental question that we have to stop and ask ourselves is the question that the 9 11 Commission Report asked us. Is america and its allies capturing, killing and dissuading more people in the war on terror than the rad recr pulling into the war on terror . And right now without question, our military commanders and anyone whos watching the situation understands theyre winning this war. Isis is growing at a faster rate than their opposition is and the men and women that the president
right now plans to try and train will be a pittance compared to the fighters that isis we know already has and the recruitment tool that simply america getting involved becomes. The fact that were going to be over there training handfuls of people at a time will only add to the recruitment tool. And its too little too late. But the short story for us is we dont get to play commander in chief as members of congress. If what hes asking for we believe isnt sufficient, i think we have a responsibility at the end of the day to still give him what hes asking for but at the same time say up front, mr. President , with all due respect, based on the testimony given by your own commanders, you need to follow what they say, which is to put troops on the ground in a full force attack. Listen to colin powell, the man who endorsed him for president , who said during the gulf war he was also the man who went before the u. N. And said there was weapons of mass destruction on february 5th, 2003. So im talking about how you win a war. No, no, but he doesnt come
out some baggage himself. I would say he knows how to win a war. We did pretty well in the gulf war. Anyway, always nice to see you. And what was president obama thinking . Critics including ambassador john bolton slamming the president for giving advice to isis. Heres a president who had advice for isil. Pin notes to the victims instead of beheading them, we would react differently. I am thunderstruck. They dont respond to pinning notes. It seems inappropriate to be strategizing on behalf of your enemy. What could the president have been thinking . Does he have any more advice for isis. Joining us is jim gar tee, Karen Tumulty and rick kline. He keeps saying all sorts of things everyone hits him over the head with. I wasnt in that meeting and i im not inside his head. But it struck me as a comment that he was making because he realized that the public was geared up for this. They were very frightened by the videos that came out and even theyre willing to go further than he was in terms of air strikes cns syria. They said in our poll last week that more than half the country thought he was acting too cautiously, too slowly. It seems to me a measure of frustration with the fact public support was getting away from him and pushing him into an action he wasnt sure he was ready to take. I thought it was interesting, i assume the president never thought these comments would become public but he has this tendency, you know, this was not a gathering of white house beat reporters. He likes to bring in columnists and people who write opinion and then sort of conduct these sort of experiments and so i think it was, again, it was an odd comment. It was not president ial. But it was sort of going to this tendency on the president s part
of, again, he likes to conduct these kinds of he talks a lot about whats going on in his head. Maybe he never thought it would become public, his pictures of him playing golf either. Its like this is what he does, this is what he thinks. Lets hope this is kind of a momentary daydream on the part of the president. He doesnt spend a lot of time thinking, well, if i were advising isis, heres what id tell him. Its not like fdr said i would have said blow up the fuel tanks but dont shoot at the ships because that wouldnt have provoked the American People quite so much. Mr. President , youre not advising isis. Youre supposed to be on our side and thinking about what we should be doing to stop them. Does that give us insight to what he thinks, how success. His policy is. He thinks that the policy of the air strikes and im hoping that hes right on this, but thats going to all of a sudden provoke the terrorists to surrender the kidnapped victims an oh, look, you know what, i dont think i dont think he was on isis side when he said that. I definitely dont think that. But i do think hes frustrated by this. Its gotten to a point where they can make this big, public show and its a pretty easy thing for them to do compared to the splashy terrorist attacks weve seen in the past and its provoking a huge response. I know hes frustrated but actually i suspect the American People want clarity, even if hes privately frustrated. I think we want the message of this clarity, not that hes sitting around thinking about it. If thats the case, general dempseys testimony today didnt really add to that in that he, you know, again in hypotheticals talked about the possibility that he could at some point go to the president and ask for u. S. Forces to be put in a combat role and then we had a statement come out of the
administration after that to sort of clarify, which means roll back what the commander of the joint chiefs said. We had the president say that about managing isis. We had secretary of state kerry saying we werent at war, now hes saying we are at war. Theres an awful lot of rollback. Every time we Say Something we get media releases saying what they really meant to say. Can i just say i do hope that this debate in Congress Might bring some clarity. Yeah, congress clarifies things generally. Look, the consequences for misspeaking or going too far on a topic like Affordable Care act, obamacare or stimulus, thats one thing. In matters of war, life and death, the consequence when allies are listening, when foes are listening, the consequences of not being careful and clear in your statements have much higher consequences. All right, panel, stay with us. Right now the Obama Administration racing against the clock trying to convince congress to support the president s isis strategy but lawmakers on both sides of the
aisle expressing doubts. Joe manchin is here next. Also new fears of a jihad right here in america. Tonight we investigate evidence in the murder of a new jersey teenager. Was revenge the reason for the murder . Thats coming up. Plus a federal judge accused of beating his wife. The alleged violence heard in a terrifying 911 call. Youll hear that call. Is the judge going to get the ray rice treatment or something else, coming up. Know that chasing performance can mean lower returns and fewer choices in retirement. Know that proper allocation could help increase returns so you can enjoy that second home sooner. Know the right Financial Planning can help you save for college and retirement. Know where you stand with pnc total insight. A new investing and Banking Experience with personalized guidance and online tools. Visit a branch, call or go online today. Create things that help people. Design safer cars. Faster computers. Smarter grids and smarter phones. Think up new ways to produce energy. Be an engineer. Solve problems the world needs solved. What are you waiting for . Changing the world is part of the job description. Join the scientists and engineers of exxonmobil in inspiring americas future engineers. Energy lives here. Extra curricular activities help provide a sense of identity and a path to success. Joining the soccer team. Getting help with math. Going to prom. I want to learn to swim. Its hard to feel normal, when