ical process here and not as a diminishment of the fundamental commitment to chive our goal. every country in the region is committed to defeat isil. every country, and that is partly what has prompted some of the questions here because of iran's commitment to do that -- >> i'm del walters in new york. 12:00 now east coast time. you are listening to our continued coverage of the senate relations committee. we return you now to the congress. >> -- take a look at it see how it is going, tweak it if necessary, i don't think he has any doubt about the willingness of congress to continue that forward, but perhaps with some start of the art refinements, so i don't think it's a problem. i think we can deal with that and i think in order to achieve the vote that is necessary, the experience of iraq and the

experience of afghanistan, you know create a sufficient cloud over the potential of this vote that i think everybody can say, okay, what is the matter with doing -- reviewing it in three years, but let's go do it. i think that's the commitment that we need and that gets us the stronger vote to do that. >> i appreciate your response. i would just ask you to take that message back and think about what i said because the unequivocal commitment to see it to the end is important, and the enduring presence gives you the chance to come back and revisit it if we expand our military presence. but we have the opportunity to send the necessary signal that congress and the white house are united. >> thank you. >> senator [ inaudible ]. >> thank you. i want to start by thanking you all for your service and your testimony and your engagement

with us today. we recently heard of tragic news of 11 service members currently missing and i believe presumed lost in a training accident at the air force base and i just think it's worth a moment of prayerful reflection on the enormous sacrifice that they have made and the loss their families are facing. i think all of us who are contemplating the undertaking we're about to authorize that i pray we're about to authorize is one that will involve a great deal of sacrifice across many countries in coming years. the question i want to raise is who bares the cost. i think we need to be putting on the table in our conversation about authorizing the conflict against isis the financial cost. general dempsey was right to raise the concerns about dod's budget. the need to pay for this war is

for me a central concern. going back to 1961, president eisenhower said america could choke it's a to death piling up military expenditures. we have used a combination of either spending cuts or increased revenue to pay for every conflict before the 2003 iraq war, and we have added literally trillions of dollars in war. we have to pay for it. i think it's not just fiscally responsible, and i think it's the responsibility of all congress. so i am intending to renew this conversation. in the last congress i introduced an amendment to the aumf that was debated and considered and i will do so

with this as well. i wonder if any of you care to comment on an amendment that would call for a temporary war tax to offset the cost of the conflict against isil? secretary carter i'll start with you if i might. >> you are raising a very important question. my own view is that that question is -- is not best associated with the authorization for the use of military force although it's a very important question. the aumf principle covers the kind of campaign required and the support and authority of the president to engage in that. with respect to the expenditures we are in a situation, and chairman dempsey pressured to this, and i believe

the state department is also in terms of its own budget, of one in which we have had year after year of turmoil, which is disruptive, which is wasteful, which causes all of us and i think this is probably true in the state department budget and any of my other colleagues to have a very difficult time managing appropriately and efficiently. that's a very important problem, and i am -- appreciate your attention to it and agree with what you said. again, this is now -- i'm offering a view off of the top of the head year but i -- i -- i think that that is best dealt with and needs to be dealt with but best dealt with in another way than by incorporating the funding situation in the aumf. and isle say one more thing -- well i think that's -- >> thank you mr. secretary.

the point i'm trying to raise is enduring budget concerns. i feel uncomfortable we continue to use contingency funding to take on these issues. and i would like to took at shouldering the responsibility of paying for this. secretary kerry there have been back and forth and what associated sources mean. both senator isaacson and i have long been engaged in issues related to after ga. there have been organizations pledging allegiance to isil. just this past saturday boko haram pledged allegiance in a statement they posted to their twitten account. and the conflict with boko haram in nigeria is another frankly

good example of a situation where an american boots on the ground presence is not what is called for. an american effort to facilitate and support efforts by the nighians and their regional allies is the best strategy going forward. but in your view if their conflict began to engage some of our coalition partners would this aumf qualify for any groups that have pledged allegiance, and what are the actions they need to take in order to be covered by this aumf in its current language? >> well senator, thank you for the question an important one. as of now, at this moment in its current state merely by pledging as they have pledged or flying the flag or, you know saying that they are now affiliated there's no decision made nor any contemplated that they would be

covered under this at this moment. i mean that's not adequate. but if as secretary carter said they start to attack the united states or join with isil in a specific strategy to attack coalition partners, that would raise a legitimate question and the -- this authorization could in fact under those circumstances cover them. it would have to be -- you know there would be a lot of internal scrubbing of exactly what those activities were what the implications are, and so forth. it would not be automatic, but it would be open to judgment. >> let me ask one last question if i might, mr. secretary. on the topic of the negotiations with iran, i'll make a statement and if you care to comment that would be great. if it is my hope in a long-term agreement is reached the inspection obligations will be enduring and not simply sunset at the end of whatever the term

is, and i think knowing that there was a continuing inspection obligation would give some comfort to those of us who do not trust iran and are not confident that at the end of the window they won't simply immediately return to their previous activities. do you care to make a comment? >> i'll make a very quick comment. and that addresses a lot of the comments we have been hearing from the hill over the course of the last weeks and months. i keep hearing people say we don't trust iran. we don't trust iran. nothing in this agreement contemplated, if it gets reached is based on trust. nothing. in fact, it's based on distrust and therefore, would have to be accompanied by an adequate level of verification whatever that might be. i'll just simply say to you, whatever agreement is reached on not on the basis of some words

and document of trust. it has to be verified and be accountable. >> thank you. >> senator [ inaudible ]. >> thank you, mr. chairman. general dempsey this question is for you -- well first of all let me state this as a statement. i appreciate what you are doing here. i think all of us agree that we need a strong vote on this aumf and i appreciate your efforts secretary kerry to put this together, and -- and this is a very difficult needle to thread because of the wide variance of views in congress. so i appreciate your efforts to do that. and i'm hoping at the end of the day that we do have a strong vote in support of this. so i -- i would urge you to continue those efforts. general dempsey this question is for you. if this passes how will things be different after this passes than they are now? what -- what is this going to

change? >> i don't think there will be any difference in our activities. i think there will be potentially a difference among our -- our coalition partners in the way they view our commitment to the fight, but in terms of the way we apply military force either directly through partners or enables others it won't change. >> thank you very much. mr. chairman this -- what i'm going to say now is a statement for the record. it is not a question. and i want to respond to some of the comments that were made here today. i'm one of the 47 senators that signed the letter that there's been all of this talk about in recent days. you know, this indignation and breast beating over this letter is absolute nonsense. each of us that signed that is an elected member of the united states senate and as much is a member of the first branch of this government. it -- to say that we should not

or be communicating is nonsense. members of congress every single day, communicate with members of other countries, with presidents and heads of other countries, with secretaries of state and foreign ministers from other countries. it is done regularly. every time congress has a recess loads of airplanes leave andrews air force base with members congress who go to meet face-to-face with heads of state. the problem is we have a real disagreement over the talk regarding this treaty. and let there be no mistake. this is a treaty that is being negotiated.

secretary kerry and i were on opposite sides when we were debating the new start agreement. in that was a treaty an agreement between two nations regarding their nuclear capabilities. this is the exact same thing. it is an attempt to reach an agreement over nuclear weapons capability with another nation. it is a treaty and should be treated as such. i hope an agreement is reached. i really hope we get a good agreement. if we don't getting a agreement, there should be no agreement. i will say in regards to what secretary kerry said about other countries in the region and their view of what is happening here, we conceded that they were nervous. i would go further than that. i meet with the same people. i would classify their feeling about this as queasy very queasy. and anybody who doubts that should get the transcript of what prime minister netenyahu

said about it last week. i think the characterization that he made of how he feels -- his country feels is very representative of how other countries in the region feel. mr. chairman that is a statement for the record. i yield back my time. thank you. >> senator paul. >> thank you mr. chairman and thank you to the panel for coming today. madison wrote that history demonstrates what the constitution supposes that the executive branch is most prone to war, and therefore the constitution vested that power in the legislature. madison also went on to further write that the separation of powers would be protected by pitting the ambitions of one branch against the ambitions of another. there will be points of dispute. these points of dispute are important, no one side will be able to declare victory. but i'm not particularly happy

with being lectured to by the administration about the constitution. this is an administration who i believe has trampled the constitution at many turns. this is an administration that seek seeks to behave as it chooses to. this administration is in direct defiance of what senator obama ran on and was elected upon. he said no country should go to war without the authority of congress unless under eminent attack. i signed the letter to iran but you know what the message i was sending was to you. the message was to president obama that we want you to obey the law. we want you to understand the separation of powers. if this agreement in any way modifies legislative sanctions, it will have to be passed by

congress. that's why i supported senator corkers legislation that says exactly this. however, i have sold senator corker privately, i think that's the law anyway. that this will have to be passed. you cannot undo legislation. i signed this letter because i signed it to an administration that doesn't listen. at every turn tries to go around congress because you think you can't get your way. the president says the congress won't do what i want so i have a pen and i have my phone, i'm going to do what i want. the letter was to you. the letter was to iran but it should have been cc-ed to the white house, because the white house needs to understand that any agreement that changes or removes legislation will have to be passed by us. people can have different interpretations of things but i'll go through a couple of things that bather me about the aumf. the aumf in 2001 says that

nations or organizations that planned, authorized committed or aided in the attacks on 9/11 are the target. that's what the authorization is about. i don't read boko haram into that. if we're going to read boko haram into that that is such a stretch that it's meaningless. senator murphy talked about vagueness. it's pretty specific in 2001 what we were supposed to one. i was all in favor of that. we had to do what we had to do with afghanistan with those that attacked us. if we had to go other places we should have authorizations. we have a new authorization that says we don't authorize enduring and offensive operations. the problem is it is so vague that i trust the military when the military says this isn't what we're contemplating. i trust you. but the thing is there will be another president who i may or may not trust. i have a certain degree of lack

of confidence in this president. is it 100,000? that would be my question i guess to secretary carter. we're saying it's not 697,000. is it a 100,000 troops? or could it be? >> thank you, senator. it doesn't have a number in it. and that reflects the basic approach that this draft aumf -- or proposed aumf takes, which is to not attempt to enumerate or number but to set a scope and a limit -- a very meaningful limb -- >> could it mean a hundred thousand, i guess? >> -- a meaningful limit.

and it gets back to the whole logic of the campaign which is to enable those in the region who can make a victory stick. >> right. i understand -- i understand -- i understand not wanting to put a number on it. and when the authorization was passed in december it didn't put a number on it defined sort of the mission more precisely. i see nothing that we're doing over there now that wouldn't have flown from the definition from december. the problem is we now have boko haram without a geographic limit. it's disdainful to say, we want you to pass something, but it doesn't matter because we can just use 2001. if boko haram is a threat to the country, bring it to me and i'll vote. and i'll listen honestly on whether we need to attack boko

haram in nigeria. but i understand how thanks change over time and how people transmute words to mean things they really weren't intended to mean. if 2001 can be applied to boko haram, i'm very concerned about voting for this as it is worded because if we're going to go to war in libya, i want to vote for war in libya. if we're going to war in nigeria, i want to vote for a war in nigeria. i'm not talking about knocking out a cell of people organizing to attack us. you may be able to interpret that under the imminent attack -- >> you are listening to the ongoing testimony before the senate armed services committee concerning what is called an aumf or authorized use of military force in this case the battle against isil the debate being just what does that battle insure. and as you can hear there is a lot of ambiguity in the aumf

itself and secretary kerry pointing out this is a not a state, this is a situation that is moving from country to country. we'll take a brief break and we'll be back. and we are continuing to develop >> you pick the hot topics and express your thoughts the stream it's your chance to join the conversation only on al jazeera america

hello, i'm del walters in new york. we continue to follow the ongoing testimony before the senate committee, concerning the ongoing conflict with the u.s. and isil. i want to check in with our military expert, retired army major mike lyons. mike it appears based on the

testimony that i'm hearing, the legislative branch is caught up in the debate that the threat to the united states is evolving. it is no longer concerns about a specific nation but a group. and a group has no boundaries or uniform. and the aumf is very vague as a result. >> yeah general dempsey has brought that up a first time. he said before it was a state on state actor. so the military does struggle with it. because it is how it is designed and funded and from it's objective of accomplishing its mission through violent means, it can't do that in a manner that doesn't have another state involved with it that defines rules and really the law of land and war fire. >> we are going to take you back

to washington. this is kentucky senator rand paul. >> i can't vote for something that is going to enable war in libya, and nigh -- nigeria. it's the politicians sincerity i question. >> thank you. i have one follow-up question for you. i understand secretary kerry has a hard stop and if you felt like you want to miss my last question i would not consider it rude and would like for you to get on with your business if you need to. >> i really appreciate that. i do have a hard stop. can i take just one minute for one thing. i just wanted you to know that today the treasury department has authorized -- has initiated additional sanctions on eight ukrainian separatists, or

russian pro-separatists organizations, three of its leaders, a crimean bank and additionally on some yanukovych folks -- supporters. in addition to that, we are today providing immediately some $75 million of additional non-lethal assistance immediately to ukraine in order to help them in non-lethal assistance, and as you know other things are currently under consideration. but i wanted you to be aware of that. >> thank you. we had a ukraine, russia hearing yesterday. and i know there's still the push to provide the lethal support. there were a lot of questions and some statements made today, but all of us deeply appreciate the tremendous amount of effort you put forward in your job.

so if i could gentlemen gentlemen -- chairman dempsey . . . if i can just address the issue of thu -- i assume secretary carter agrees with that assumption, is that correct? >> i -- i do. there -- i do yes. i -- i'm told separately, just to get to your question, if the forces that we train and equip come under attack from assad, would we have the legal authority to help them defend

themselves? and my understanding of that question is that we don't foresee that happening any time soon, but a legal determination i'm told by the lawyers has not been made whether we would have the authority do that or not. >> okay. first of all we thank you both for being here and coming before senate panels is not on your first priority list and this is really just to tease this out a little bit. it's a pretty big issue when you think about the fact that we have authorized the training and quipping, and it -- that the administration apparently did talk some with y'all. for there to be a clear legal determination, that would mean an additional authorization

would need to be approved by congress for y'all to be able to train and equip the people against assad. so i think to come back later with another one doesn't seem to be a an appropriate way to go about things. chairman dempsey what should be our thinking in that regard and what is yours? this >> first, senator, i chuckled when you said how much we enjoy coming over here but the truth is over the course of my four years, the truth is we have an article one responsibility to coming over here. and i want to congratulate you for running a very coredial

hearing today. we're in an active discussion. from the very beginning, though we knew we would come to the point where we had to make a decision about whether or not to protect them. it was always my advice that we had to come to some conclusion to ensure them that they would be protected. the scope and scale is the part that is being actively pursued. but the scope is for them to succeed so they would have a reasonable chance of survival. >> i appreciate the fact that you are not just looking at these issues but other issues in the pacific and all around the world, and you have to balance the resources that we have available to us but back to that issue, i -- can you understand why many of us here knowing that getting turkey involved in some way on the ground probably matters some to our success over time if we're

going to continue on the -- on the policy path that we're on and strategy. it's important so knowing that the president didn't seek the authority to -- to go against assad, solely again, i'm talking about -- not necessarily to take them on directly but to be able to protect the train and equip personnel and also to deal with humanitarian issues and let's face it the northwest triangle right above aleppo that would give many of us some concern that there really isn't a commitment to create an effective ground effort and i just wonder if you could respond to that a little bit. >> i can't ease your concerns but i can tell you when i provide my military advise it is key to the success of the new