learned the lesson that iraq war didn't help us a. >> a country. >> i know who hasn't learned his lesson because of who he is essentially is john bolton. won't quit. his desire for power and to needle his way is relentless. the man nbc reports as, i love this phrase, actually i hate it, some secretary of state add vericated for bombing iran. this is bolton. >> just as israel twice before has struck nuclear weapons programs in the hands of hostile ates i'm afraid given the circumstances that's the only real option open us to now. >> right now or are you saying leading into the future? >> no, i would have done this five or six years ago. the earlier you strike the more damage can you do. >> unbelievable combination. in 2002 bolton pedalled bad information about the weapon's program. we are confident he said at the time that saddam hussein has hidden and production facilities in iraq. >> i was a member of george w. bush's administration. he supported the iraq war. i course i supported the iraq war. i've written on the subject. some people would probably say endlessly about what the l

washington. 8:00 p.m. in aleppo, syria. 9:00 p.m. in mosul, iraq. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. >>> we're following two major stories this hour. breaking news out of syria first. artillery shells are raining down on aleppo as regime forces are on the brink of taking the city. buses are waiting outside the evacuation point to carry civilians, men, women and children, to safety, but the cease-fire to allow them to be eva eevacuated collapsed. an estimated 50,000 people are believed trapped in one of the last rebel-held areas, according to the united nations, regime forces are executing men, women and children. the white house weighing in as well on the worst in a situation, the humanitarian crisis. listen to what the white house press secretary said just moments ago. >> the idea that you would target a playground and bomb kids hoping that you would then convince people to give up, because you would kill their kids? what kind of a sick mind comes up with a strategy like that? >> much more on the disast

designated terrorist organizations find financial and military support in iraq and libya, to mention a few examples. on the other end of the political spectrum it is another diametrically opposed position in the face of a wave of messy social change to reverse the clock. dysfunctional government that -- orses their people are the terrorist threat. all that was needed was to restore the regime. however decadent and dysfunctional that may be. if the price of old ways of governing is to quash every legitimate demand for change and crush popular hopes thereof, then so be it. we are also quite familiar with the consequences of this strategy, as well as its inherent futility. to stop the legitimate calls for change in the march of progress. the question remains how to reap the benefits the waves of change while minimizing the price thereof. this is the core dilemma of foreign policy planning and the execution in the region. ladies and gentlemen, our isroach in egypt straightforward and i harp hypothesis is twofold. -- and our hypothesis is twofold. it is a prerequisite to breaking through th

administration would focus on that aspect to keep us safe and pull out of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. it seemed like a lot of -- a good time to see what we learned. i profiled their experiences and the lessons they learned. host: why write a book about these folks? guest: it wasn't that, the seminal year was 2011. everybody remembers that we killed osama bin laden with one of these signature kind of raids , that was intelligence driven. we killed an american cleric who led al qaeda. many people thought he was more dangerous than bin laden because he spoke in american vernacular and recruited and was savvy in using facebook. we killed those two leaders. time the president decide to pull the troops. this model was going to be how the focus of how we were going to keep ourselves safe and it was shrouded in unbelievable secrecy that they would not admit for a long time we were behind some of these strikes. everybody understood as a journalist we were behind them. shrouded a lot of secrecy and it bothers me as a journalist. on thisgoing to depend model, we should understand th

vehicles for the fights in afghanistan and iraq among other places. in this strategic transition. we're in right now we must widen the spectrum of our current and future capabilities to account for this great change in the great change economic, political, social and technological underway in the greater and fiercer competition we face. i say this because today dudes he no fewer than five immediate but also distinct and evolving challenges. we are counting the prospect of russian aggression and coercion. especially in europe. something we haven't had to your worry about for 25 years but now we do. for managing historic change in the asia-pacific, the single most consequential region for america's future. were strengthening our deterrence and defense forces in the face of north korea's continued missile provocations. were checking iranian aggression in the gulf. on helping defends her friends and allies in the east. were counterterrorism and accelerating the certain and lasting defeat of isil. the course were preparing to contend with an uncertain future. ensuring our military is

convictions guided the policy we pursued both in iraq and afghanistan. when i took office, the united states was focused overwhelmingly on iraq, where nearly 150,000 american troops had spent years fighting an insurgency and helping to build a democratic government. meanwhile, al qaeda had regrouped in the border region of afghanistan and pakistan and was actively planning attacks against our homeland. so we brought nearly 150,000 troops home from iraq, consistent with the status of forces agreement negotiated by the previous administration and we surged our efforts with our allies in afghanistan which allowed to us focus on al qaeda and give the afghan government the opportunity to succeed. this focus on al qaeda, the most dangerous threat to the united states at the time, paid dividends. today by any measure core al qaeda, the organization that hit us on 9/11, is a shadow of its former self. [ applause ] plots directed from within afghanistan and pakistan have been consistently disrupted. its leadership has been decimated. dozens of terrorist leaders have been killed. osama bin lade

never seen, i covered everything that happened after 9/11 including the wars in iraq and afghanistan. something was going on, and same year, not by coincidence president obama decides to pull all our troops out of iraq. he ran the next year, the president who killed osama bin laden, the commander-in-chief who killed osama bin laden and ended the post-9/11 wars, so clearly we were, and then he gave a speech in the second term in 2013 where he basically tried to define the war on terror as had been over and with a desperate al-qaeda that we could now put it into a more normal threat level and get on with wide temperature of american foreign policy, all very laudable goals. it seemed to be there something going on that we're going to trust this new kind of targeted terrorist killings as being a main strategy against the war on terror, that we could do that. that struck me as interesting or two fronts, one of which we did know much about this targeted program. it was cloaked in almost total secrecy. a few years ago denial, not denied that failed to knowledge they were behind these drone

after 9/11, including the wars in iraq and afghanistan. so something was going on, and the same year, not by coincidence, president obama pulls of troops out of iraq, and the killed osama bin laden, and ended most 9/11 wars, was keeping to a deadline to get out of afghanistan by 2014. so, clearly we were -- then he gave a speech in the second term in 2013, where he basically tried to define the war on terror as being over and that we had so decimated al qaeda that we could now sort of put it into a more normal threat level and get on with widening the an be tour of american foreign policy. so there was something going on. we would trust this new targeted terrorist killings as being our main strategy against the war on terror and we could do that. that was interesting. we didn't know about the targeting and killing program. it was cloak in almost total secrecy. a few years ago, then denial -- not deny but failed to acknowledge what was behind the drone strikes and there were no leaks. very few leaks. so we were relying on the new style of operations we knew nothing about. so is a jour

that is of concern >> and iraq >> yeah, in iraq. father tom, please >> as far as being a family tradition, when i told my 90 year old grandmother was becoming a priest, she told me in greek that's a strange thing, i go why, she said nobody from our village ever became a priest. i grew up in the greek orthodox church. my parents both came from greece and i was nurtured in that faith and went away to college and studied theology at a presbyterian college in indiana and one of my professors said you should study what your faith is about. i ended up at our seminary and here i am in oakland, california serving. greek orthodox tracing its roots back to the apostles. i heard about st. paul preaching in corinth. we have the name of every bishop that was in corinth starting with the one he established up to the current bishop so we have have that long, long tradition and we take pride in that connection because it gives us deep roots. the church was really founded and nurtured in that area of the eastern mediterranean. what we called asia minor, present day syria, north africa and greece

for having me. >>> -- iraq and syria. then a bar administration conversation on health care. then gun violence activists. >> all right. good afternoon, everybody. happy tuesday. as advertised, i'm going to be joined today by bret mcguirk. bret has been here a couple times before. bret just left the national security council meeting with the president. the president, as you know, convenes his national security council every few weeks to review the progress that we're making against isil. bret presented the meeting and now is here to provide an update to all of you on that. bret's title is special presidential envoy to the global coalition against isil. he's got a presentation that he'll offer up and then he'll take some questions, he'll leave and then i can take your questions on non-isil related topics from there, okay? with that, bret, you want to take it away? >> sure. >> thanks, josh. >> so, thanks for having me. i thought i would give an update on the counter-isil campaign. last time i was here, it was about six months ago. i have a lot of new information which i'll convey. th

of massachusetts served multiple tours of duty in iraq as a u.s. marine. thanks so much for joining us. >> great to be back. >> you served directly under general petraeus when he was commanding various commands in iraq as well. we'll get to that in a moment, but bottom line. how would you assess these eight years president obama's handling of the iraq situation? >> well, look, it's been rather mixed. president obama prevented an attack on the homeland. dealt with an incredibly difficult, complex worldwide situation. especially in the middle east. he did pull the troops out of the middle east, out of iraq, but the problem it -- the problem is he pulled out the troops and had no political plan to ensure the peace. a few year the later had to send the troops back and we're still there now. >> as the president-elect says to the creation or enhancement of isis, did that lead to -- >> it didn't lead to the creation of isis but the problem, left a vacuum in which a terrorist group, turned out to be ace isis, was able to grow. point, next time we pull out of iraq or afghanistan we need a po

policies we pursued both in iraq and afghanistan. when i took office, the united states was focused overwhelmingly on iraq, where nearly 150,000 american troops had spent years fighting an insurgency and helping to build a democratic government. meanwhile, al qaeda had regrouped in the border region of afghanistan and pakistan, and was actively planning attacks against our homeland. so we brought nearly 150,000 troops home from iraq, consistent with the status of forces agreement negotiated by the previous administration, and we surged our efforts, along with our allies in afghanistan, which allowsed us to focus on dismantling al qaeda and give the afghan government the opportunity to succeed. and this focus on al qaeda, the most dangerous threat to the united states at the time, paid dividends. today by any measure, core al qaeda, the organization that hit us on 9/11, is a shadow of its former self. [ applause ] plots -- plots directed from within afghanistan and pakistan have been consistently disrupted. its leadership has been decimated. dozens of terrorist leaders have been kill

clear we could lose in iraq. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >>> my fellow citizens, at this hour american and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger. >> every politician wants us to go crush an army. they give us their flag, and we can all go home and everybody is wonderful, like a world war ii victory. that shit ain't going to happen. ♪ >> in the battle of iraq the united states and our allies have prevailed. [ cheers and applause ] >> the united states and allies invaded iraq in the spring of 2003 and there was a set of assumptions that proved to be wrong. one, that we would be accepted as liberators, and two, that there would be the ability to turn the keys over to a follow-on government after saddam hussein was thrown out of office. >> we got him. [ cheers and applause ] >> saddam being captured, all of a sudden you had all this like sense of relief. okay. maybe you've got these top ten guys the army's going to capitulate, they're going to give you their banners and we can all go home. forget it.

primary lines of communication into turkey and iraq. we are now helping our local partners isolate raqqa from which there's only 15 miles away. isolation face continues according to our plan where generating additional local forces necessary to seize and hold raqqa. in addition to taking back territory were yielding results and if denying isil the finances, supplies, freedom of movement command-and-control it needs to survive. if systematically targeted their oil wells, trucks for smuggling the oil, revenue repositories. we deliberately focused on the isil controls and syria from the territory of controls in iraq. leaders of the terrorist group can no longer travel between raqqa emotional without the risk of being hunted down our expeditionary targeting force or struck from the air. in fact, since we began accelerating the campaign we have killed some of isil's most senior leaders. while these results are encouraging, we have to stay focused on the continued execution of this plan. the inevitable collapse of the control over most one rock over certainly put isil on a path to lasting defe

turn to iraq and syria, i want to ask you about sort of the broader strategies in both places. first i wanted to see if you wanted to share tactical updates from the fight itself, battlefield. i'm not asking you for a full, classified briefing, but if there's anything specific you want to mention that you think recently is worth highlighting, just be curious about that before getting to the broader. >> here is the big idea. here is the big idea how we're trying to approach the campaign in iraq and syria, that is great momentum and pressure. to do it in a variety of different ways. certainly on the ground with our partners, through our targeting of key leaders in the islamic state network, through our targeting of threat -- of financial resources, looking at how we improve our capabilities to address ideology and narrative, toxic narrative that comes out of here and how we enable partners in the area to do this. so what we are trying to achieve, essentially, against -- in a broad sense, we are trying to present islamic state with a lot of dilemmas they have to deal with simultaneously.

with him. the narrative of what had gone on in iraq and other places. i saw the narrative switch and i saw people talk as if it is an isolated incident. for those of us that are there again had a duty to speak out. so the original hadn't used the word torture but the idea to enhance interrogation in these abusive tactics that have an impact on me and my own experience i was struggling with, so i felt it was a discussion that the american people needed to have and eventually evolved to the point i recognized now it is an enhand interrogation. but i didn't want to do is more importantly i told my story and splayed my role in these things and justified on some level to condemn them completely for the other people involved but to be as honest as i possibly could. >> host: i want to dig more into that as your role as interrogator but before we get there maybe start a little bit with your upbringing. one of the things that was interesting for me in the book is how motivated you were by your religious upbringing growing up in a town in pennsylvania. so talk about that and the relationship tha

guiding the policies we pursued both in iraq and afghanistan. when i took office, the united states was focused overwhelmingly on a iraq where nearly 150,000 american troops has spent years fighting an insurgency and helping to build a democratic government. meanwhile, al qaeda had regrouped in other regions of afghanistan and pakistan and was actively planning attacks against our homeland. so we brought nearly 150,000 troops home from iraq, consistent with the status of forces agreement negotiated by the previous administration. we served our efforts along with our allies in afghanistan which allowed us to focus on dismantling al qaeda and give the afghan government the opportunity to succeed. this focus on al qaeda, the most dangerous threat to the united states at the time, paid dividends. today, by any measure, al qaeda, the organization that hit us on 9/11 is a shadow of its former self. [applause] pres. obama: plots directed from within afghanistan and pakistan have been consistently disrupted. its leadership has been decimated. dozens of terrorist leaders have been killed. os

u.s. forces in iraq where he was able to achieve success against insurgents at a time where very few americans were actually succeeded in that regard. he spent time in afghanistan, 2010, took charge of the international coalition, anti-corruption task force and he's now at the army capabilities integration center where he is in charge of planning army capabilities for future conflict as we go forward. he's done a lot of other great things, in the interest of time i'll leave it at that summary. i would like to introduce, turn it over to lieutenant general mcmaster. >> what a privilege it is to be with all of you. how many history majors are here? i want to know -- there is still some people to convert maybe. i thought maybe it was just going to be an audience of fellow historians, all of whom are talking about how underappreciated we are, you know. but i think this is such a great idea. i mean, the idea of a center for military and diplomatic history, for all the reasons that mark identified, so what i thought i might do is talk about how i think the center can really help us, make us

, this very air force base, and 2014 he vowed there would be no combat troops in iraq. this is before really the fight against isis really accelerated. we're in the middle of the campaign, and mosul and raqqah and syria. we look at some of the deaths, at least this year in iraq, i believe there have been 16 u.s. service members killed in iraq. not all of those have been during the mosul campaign. in terms of troop numbers, he's leaving behind more troops in afghanistan. just earlier this summer that he had vowed to do. these are all challenges. these are all problems handed off to the next president. one final note for you, kate, the former commander here, james mattis, tipped to be donald trump's secretary of defense. >> interesting trivia there. one last question. gone t guantanamo bay, another promise from president obama. he said he would close the place down. will we hear him talk about that? >> reporter: he'll likely talk about values and may get into the aspirational aspects of whether or not they can actually close it. remember just over the weekend, they released one more det

wake of these conflicts and the third to purgatory in iraq and afghanistan. to what extent are these bureaucratic responses that provide a refuge, a technological refuge that isn't relevant to the sources of our recent failures? >> it's a great question. that's a real danger. so i think that many of us are cognizant of that danger, this could be like some kind of cathartic, that war was really hard, let's go on to a cool war that would be more fun, right, or something that -- a problem that could be solved quickly and so forth. i think we're cognizant of that. we're doing a study on warfare, that is what you expect the army to do pay attention to what you are learning. we're not saying that is what all warfare will be. we're looking at other hard threat capabilities and ongoing efforts in afghanistan and iraq. crane said it really well, the historian, he said two ways to fight the military, assume metally and stupid. you hope the enemy picks stupid but they're unlikely to do so. we have to be prepared to fight across a range of contingency operations, we've never been able to p

, he recalled that the intelligence community was wrong in the build-up to the war in iraq to remove saddam hussein, because the intelligence community said there were stock miles of weapons of mass destruction. he said take a look at their word. he really smeared the intelligence community, recalling that blunder that there was a serious blunder leading up to the war in iraq in 2003. >> intelligence is an art and a science. they say we filled 50,000 isil fighters. the original estimate, there was about 35,000. it's hard to know exactly how many people have gone to isil's cause. but when it comes to technology, when it comes to hacking, when it comes to espionage, it's easier to identify. here's what i would challenge president-elect trump to do, tell everybody, including me, why we're wrong. be specific. i think the fbi and the cia have made an incredibly detailed case about russia's involvement in our election throughout the entire world. and here's what i would ask president-elect trump, do you think they're interfering in the balkans? estonia, georgia, ukraine? i'm going there. i

were home from iraq. >> welcome home. >> a campaign promise fulfilled just in time for his re-election bid. but had the president taken his victory lap too early. three years later, chaos had descended on iraq. cities that americans had bled for. mosul. >> isis now controls western iraq. >> ramadi. fallujah, had been lost again. to a deadly new terror group, isis. >> let me ask you if it is possible in your position to be completely honest and say the rise of the islamic state surprised you? it took you by surprise, it took the administration by surprise? >> the ability of isil to initiate major land offensives, that was not on my intelligence radar screen. >> everyone was stunned that a few thousand militants swept through iraq and syria sewing fear in the region and the war. >> we chop off the heads of the americans, chop off the heads of the french, chop off the heads of whoever you may bring. >> they created a caliphate ruled by strict sharia law meeting out punishmts in the most par bearic ways imaginable. their philosophy may have been misevil but they were masters of the interne

classic case is iraq in 2003, after we took down saddam hussein, we looked for ideas for rebuilding the country. we focused very heavily on nazi, germany. debaa debaathfication was borrowed from denazification. i would argue in hindsight we should have look at other cases, why not look at japan in 1945, or reconstruction, the american south after the civil war, we could have learned a lot from there. history is not going to necessarily fall into your lap. it requires a lot of serious thought. i would add we can't just ignore it even though it's difficult. times we i tried to do foreign policy without history at all has led to disaster because it's based on unfounded assumptions. we need to be aware history is going to be used. the question is how do we use it effectively? history is also important because it gives us familiarization, context, so if you're confronting a narcotics situation, it would be useful if you spent time studying five or 10 actual historical cases. when you go to the next one you will at least know what questions you will ask and have an idea what solutions might a

in the 21st century with a lot of activity in iraq, afghanistan and elsewhere. he was the combatant commander at special operations command, is now the combatant commander at central command, it's a real privilege. general votel, as you surely know, you are widely respected and admired and, therefore, we're looking to you for a lot of good wisdom in this key transition moment not only in the middle east but in our own country. general votel has 20 countries to worry about in the country command, that's a smaller number than the average command but maybe a little higher headache ratio per country, therefore, i think it adds up to a pretty robust portfolio. i thought if we could, general, maybe we would begin with a few words on a number of countries maybe in this case working west to east and starting with egypt. so luckily we get to hear from you when you testify and in other forms so i just want to have a very focused particular question on egypt. i know you've had a lot of important counterterrorism collaboration with egypt, they are an important partner, but it also strikes me as

believe that he's learned the lesson that the iraq war didn't help us as a country. >> i know who hasn't learned his lesson, that's who he is, essentially, that's john bolton. that guy won't quit. his desire for power and to wie weedel his way into every republican administration is relentless. here he is, john bolton, the man msnbc refers to as being eyed for secretary of state has advocated for bombing iran. here he was last year. this is bolton. >> just as israel twice before has struck nuclear weapons programs in the hands of hostile states, i'm afraid given the circumstances, that's the only real option open to us now. >> right now or are you saying leading into the future? >> no, i would have done this five or six years ago, because the earlier you strike, the more damage you can do. >> oh, my god, bolton on fox. he was a strong booster of the iraq invasion, still is. in 2002, bolton peddled bad information about that country's weapons program. he said, we are confident that saddam hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and construction facilities in iraq. last month

there are multiple presidents. a classic case would be in iraq in 2003. after we took down saddam hussein, we looked for ideas for rebuilding the country. we focused heavily on nazi germany. argue and in hindsight we probably should have looked at some other cases like japan in 1945 or the reconstruction in the american south after the civil war. we could have learned a lot from there. history will not necessarily fall into your lap. it requires a lot of serious thought. i would add that we cannot ignore, at times we had tried to do foreign policy without any ledory at all -- that has to disaster because it is based on unfounded assumptions. the question is how do we use history effectively? history gives us familiarization. context. a counter confronting narcotics situation for example, it would be useful if you spent time studying five or 10 historical cases. when you go to the next one, you at least know what questions you will ask and you will have an idea of what solutions might actually work. doing events, a variety of events to try to bring historians from around the countr

iraq and a threat to american forces currently deployed there. in this past october iranian backed houthi militia fired cruise missiles at u.s. navy ships. saudi arabia -- is that working for you, sir? saudi arabia continues to feel the effect of iran proxies and partners as the houthis attack across the border to saudi cities, launch ballistic missiles that can only be deployed with outside help. rece outlines the destabilizing role played by iran highlighting three separate at-sea interdictions of iranian-supplied weapons bound for yemen and somalia. at the same time lebanese hezbollah continues to play a decisive role in syria while iran has demonstrated an amazing capability to deploy shia militias from around the world to the fight. there's no doubt that the next administration will face a range of threats from the more traditional threats in the strait of hormuz to newfound spheres of iranian influence like yemen. one reason i proposed the deal is that i feared that it it would be our de facto middle east policy and countering iran's regional efforts would take second fiddle,

ways. that, and we will continue to do that in the future. in iraq, the main focus is on mozilla. l.e iraqi security -- on mosu iraqi security forces are working very closely and executing with the support of the coalition. it is not a perfect plan. it is their plan. we have figured out ways to bring our coalition give abilities to move them forward. they are on track with where they need to be. mostll be a long fight in -- mosul. at the town in syria, it took us 71 days with indigenous forces to take that area. is a huge, urban area. the islamic state has had years to build up their defenses there. it will not be a cakewalk, but when you are seeing is a pretty good plan treated by iraqi security forces. adjustments to it. we are making adjustments as well with our security resources. that is what we want to try and keep the focus on right now. generally, we are on track. a hard fight will follow in mosul. begun, as youave have seen, isolation in the town -- in the town there. our partners in syria may not be as sick when i, but the coalition is try to do some of that. it is important

. maraudingme, isis was across northern iraq. it seemed to me as sort of bookends that was odd that the cost of the vietnam war and the outcome of the vietnam war 50 years after the gulf of tonkin incident -- which as you know, president johnson went on national television that day in 1964 to ask congress to approve his ability to accelerate our intervention in vietnam. it was a claim that north vietnamese patrol boats attacked the uss maddox. based on that, we escalated the war in vietnam. of course years later, many , admitted that it had never happened. similarly in going to iraq, there were supposed to be weapons of mass destruction. there was supposed to be an imminent threat from iraq. we know what the outcome was there. i was curious, again, not whether we should or should not have a strong military or grow to war, but what are the actual outcomes. living in this country, you get a certain narrative and a certain spectrum of ideas. i thought it would be interesting to strap on the backpack and go around the world and through serendipity and connections and just showing up in plac

organization's home terrain and syria and iraq where it has lost 50,000 fighters in the past two years, according to the pentagon's. were carriedttacks -- by assailants who cited as a motive for acting at home. at the core of the islamic state access and vulnerability is a peculiar blend of theological , something al qaeda, its predecessor and rival ever achieved. the "newhe piece in and our first call is from john in spring texas on the republican line. russia.my concern is i am 65, i was in the cold war and donald trump is talking i don't want to go through that again. that is my main concern. the u.s.t do you think poster should be towards russia, especially under the new president? once is more than enough. hope they would reduce the number of's, not reduce it -- not increase it. is it 900, 700? i can't remember what the number is. we have 20% more than russia does right now. john talking there about russia. you might be interested in this piece. $20 -- $20 billion a year to update the nuclear. a twitter message on improving nuclear capability obama committed spending 20 billion a

d'etats, revolutions and so on. and the iraq wars, depending on what you consider wars and whatnot. host: what is your attitude about war? guest: well, from my last book, which was called "stripping strippingody -- bare the body," the better to remove the clothing to place the stethoscope directly on the skin . in other words, political violence, including more, is a stript seems to me, to away the outside layers and see the various constituents of a society, struggling with one another. i have always found it a fascinating phenomenon. i mean, on one hand, there is the sheer excitement of it, the adrenaline pumping excitement of following a violent series of events, the end of what she simply do not know -- of which you simply do not know, and the society you are trying to understand. it shows people and extremists, institutions and extremists, in general, people and other phenomena under stress. that is true in the war on terror as well, a lot has been exposed about this country that we perhaps would not have thought before was true, and it happens during wartime, so i think, apar

had descended on iraq. cities that americans had bled for. mosul. >> isis now controls western iraq's most -- >> ramadi. fallujah. had been lost again to a deadly new terror group, isis. let me ask you if it's possible in your position to be completely honest and say the rise of the islamic state surprised you. it took you by surprise. it took the administration by surprise. >> the ability of isil to initiate major land offenses, that was not on my intelligence radar screen. >> everyone was stunned. a few thousand militants swept through iraq and syria sowing fear in the region and the world. >> chop off the heads of the americans. chop off the heads of the french. chop of the heads of whoever. >> they created a caliphate. ruled by strict sharia law, meting out punishments in the most barbaric ways imaginable. their philosophy may have been medieval, but they were masters of the internet. >> come to jihad. >> brother in islam and syria. i originally come from canada. >> luring recruits from malaysia to belgium to new jersey. >> isis claiming responsibility for the -- >> large truck ca

inherent resolve in iraq or syria. there was a carrier in the gulf. right now as part of the operation result. the military launched over 12,600 airstrikes and carried off special forces operations with assisting the military fighting in syria as well as the kurdish -- murder. because of the work of american troops we have made major gains in the territory they control is dramatically shrunk. that is to b the territory and that is to ber credited to the brave folks like scott dayton but the threat posed continuous and increasingly as the battle space shrinks, they undertake the effort to try to destabilize around the world.s so this fights which is the national security priority key involving the operations in iraq will likely continue in the long foreseeable future even after the complete liberation which i'm confident will occur. 800 days of operation an averagg of $6 million a day and i began, honoring scott but he's not the only one who's lost his life in the war. in total, 28 service members lost their lives supporting the operation and inherent resolve. as we speak more

to iraq, there were supposed to be weapons of mass destruction. there was supposed to be an imminent threat from iraq. wasnow what the outcome there. i was curious again not whether we should or should not have a strong military or grow to war, but what are the actual outcomes . living in this country, you get a certain narrative and a certain's actual ideas -- a certain spectrum of ideas. i thought it would be interesting to strap on the backpack and travel to the world and through serendipity and just showing up in places and trying to find out if there are other narratives to have a fresh look at what the real outcomes of these were. brian: we have something of a list of places where you went. it is not the complete list, but reflects the chapters in your book. let me just start with the first one. it is guatemala. i want you to just give us some quick reaction. .e will go through the list what do remember most from what allah? -- from guatemala? moneyuber: i raised through crowdfunding for the project. it was a $10,000 campaign. did, i basically traveled with a backpack, flew fro

soundbite when he was upset about something. [laughter] irber: iraq -- a barbara: really cannot put that on tv. i do not really think we need to go through introductions, if you do not know who they are, you are probably in the wrong place. i am going to start with a couple of anecdotes. i am taking the two former house members as well as the prerogative of the chair. we have everybody up there, too. hi. one of the things about defense secretary's who cover the outagon, you keep an eye because you never know when they will leave their office and go walking around. both of these gentlemen have a long history of doing that. secretary gates, secretary hagel also. secretary rumsfeld showed up in the cafeteria to it to lunch. secretary gates would walk around wherever he felt like it as a former cia director. in secretary hagel would walk around and either stop tourists or young troops, and start talking to them and ask them what they did. secretary cheney would be found walking outside on his own, getting fresh air because he wanted it to. foras also quite well known turning up in hallw

the pulse of one soldier. three tours of duty in iraq. he was nearly killed by improvised explosive device in iraq. we've got an exclusive interview with sergeant anthony cala why trump might be onto something. >>> the dow is set to hit 20,000. the dow industrials straddling the flat line, we are less than an hour from the closing bell. live from the floor of the new york stock exchange. happy to be back with you guys. let's start the "countdown." breaking news that is just hitting the tape over the past 28 minutes. president obama said enough is enough much his administration ejected nearly three dozen russian diplomats, some in the intelligence world but they are all based in the united states. in response, obama says, to what the administration calls russian hacking and influencing the american election process. we have sanctions that are related to thithat wne to tell you about in just a moment. i can tell you that the breaking news is causing chatter and movement on the floor of the new york stock exchange. the dow was making a run for the flat line. three points above. we can

? he ran against iraq where he said it was stupid, horrible, disastrous. but it wasn't the cia's fault we started that war. the chief briefer for the agency told me on air that no one in the ccia ever told an administration official that iraq had nuclear weapons. >> he has in fact reconstituted nuclear weapons. is that true or not? >> we were saying -- >> can you answer that question? is that true? >> no, that's not true. >> you're saying you made that case when you didn't. so they're using your credibility for making the case as dishonesty, as you just admitted. >> i'm telling you -- >> you just admitted it. they gave you false presentation on what you said to them. >> in some aspects. >> it wasn't them that took us into iraq, it was the vice president's office that pushed for the hard war since day one, and it was john bolton from the state office pushing it all the way. when we learned there were no nuclear weapons, they wanted to blame it on the cia. i watched dana priest and dan millbank cover that for weeks, and yes, i watched claims of undercover identity in order to throw off t

hold areas odf iraq and syria. coming up-- how the u-s plans to fight the group. plus- an election probe causes a call for answers. why some are looking at russia for the election results. plus snow wasn't just a problem here in wisconsin./ how it affected flights in other states. time now 4:xx you're taking a live look outside this morning.. you are watching the fox 6 the fight against isis in iraq and syria continues. with the u-s moving into their next plan of attack. this as u.s. defense secretary ash carter makes an unannounced visit to iraq. fox's kelly wright, has more. it's been a tough fight." the top military official for the united states... defense secretary ash carter visits iraq amid an intense fight against isis in mosul. the visit comes as the syrian city of palmyra fell back into the hands of the terror group. but the united states is now sending extra troops to retake the syrian city of raqqa. carter says: "while the battle for mosul goes on here in iraq, over in syria we're entering a new phase raqqa." there are some new successes in the fight against isis... wit

defender of the u.s. invasion of iraq, which he has called a just war. donald trump has tapped his company's top lawyer, jason greenblatt, to fill the newly-created position of special representative for international negotiations. greenblatt is an expert in real estate law, with little foreign policy experience. the trump transition team said greenblatt's new role would be to assist on "international negotiations of all types, and trade deals around the world." during the campaign, greenblatt defended trump against charges of anti-semitism, serving as his adviser on israel. last month, greenblatt said he doesn't see israel's construction of settlements on occupied palestinian lands as an obstacle to peace. in hawaii, the japanese prime minister abe visited the u.s. naval station at pearl harbor on tuesday, expressing regret for japan's attack on the base 75 years ago. abe was welcomed by president barack obama, and the pair laid wreaths at the site and offered prayers for the dead. as expected, abe did not issue a formal apology. >> as the prime minister of japan, i offer my since

so on. and then the iraq war which itself was kind of several different wars, so i don't know what that number would be, three, four. depending what you consider wars and whatnot. >> and another question, what is your attitude about war? mark: well, from my last book which was called stripping bear the body, i based that title on a quotation by a haitian politician, fascinating man, who said political violence is like stripping bear the body, the better to remove the clothing to place the stethoscope directly on the skin. nerd, political violence including war is a way, it seems to me to see a society with clarity, to strip away the outside layers and see the various constituents of a society struggling with one another. so i've always found it a fascinating phenomenon. i mean, on the one hand, there's the sheer excitement of it, the adrenaline pumping excitement of following a violent series of events, the end of which you simply don't know. and then there's what it shows about the society you're trying to understand. it shows people and tremendousists, it shows institutions and e

are the details on singapore. >> the real differences were between iraq and iran. both beue that should exempt from any production cuts. iraq because it would be the mighty fight isis. iran because it was the lifting pretensionrom its levels. what happened when you get into the evening was iraq finally agreed to be part of the production cuts. it had the highest production cut after saudi arabia. that gave someone a room for trying to, instead of push love their oil production up to the pre-section limits of to go upis only going to the pretension levels. once those three were in line they were able to bring everybody else and and get behind this 1.2 million barrel a day production and oil output starting for the first six months into next year. the big winners are oil producers. the rising oil prices of all kinds of both across the region. singapore,rs in energy and china are also benefiting from this. airlines and refiners are having a little bit of a rougher go of things today. are someng run, there questions in the oil market about how this will play out. morgan stanley put o