that new tool. next year we'll be launching something similar for shop. next -- for 2016 we'll also have new standardized plans. that means standardized benefits as well as out-of-pocket expenses that will help our customers make more informed decisions, compare apples to apples. in our first year of operation, we had semi-standard products meaning the benefits had to be the same in the essential health benefits benchmark, no substitutions, but co-pays and other out-of-pocket costs varied. and although that was helpful to our customers, it wasn't the complete tools that some needed to make good decisions. we, like kentucky, experienced the same thing. some folks chose platinum when they had very few opportunities

to get medical care. they didn't need it. they were healthy, and others chose bronze and ended up paying more out of pocket than they should have had they made a better decision. our products are very diverse. everything from high deductible health plans, as you say, compatible to zero deductible, nationwide networks as well as regional networks from all major carriers. our successes, in large part due to our partners, we have strong relationships with the broker community, with assisters, navigators, other government agencies, elected officials, the faith-based community has been significant in our efforts, and we find that when we have sunday enrollment events, our numbers always go up in terms of number of applications, completed applications and plan selection. we have strong partnerships with

all of the largest chambers in the district of columbia, and the national association of health underwriters does our training for brokers, and that has helped significantly with our broker community. i think i'm out of time. >> do you need to make, do you need another moment? >> if i can borrow some of your extra time you didn't use. >> absolutely. >> thank you. [laughter] and i did try to talk fast. so we learned many lessons from the first two open enrollments. last year what was successful for us was having storefronts with regular hours. so a person anywhere in the city could just go to a storefront and know that someone will be there, either a broker or navigator or an assister. so we're going to continue doing that. we have one-touch enrollment events where we bring together other government agencies like medicaid brokers, navigators and

assisters to help people enroll. one touch means you don't let the person leave until they're fully taken care of. if they need identity proofing, we're right there to do that. if they need health plan selection, brokers are right there to do that. so it's just one touch, you get everything done in one place. we also did many creative things like 24-hour enrollment events where for 24 hours we were somewhere in the city, mostly in clubs and bars and diners, ben's chili bowl, doing enrollment events, and that helped us with some of the younger population we were trying to reach. on super bowl sunday if you ordered pizza from some of the restaurants we partnered with, you got a flier, and that actually generated a bunch of enrollments. we saw an influx in our data when we looked to see if that

worked. we targeted specific populations who we know have a higher rate of uninsurance. so we did special events at selma opening, we had boys two men barbershop days. on valentine's day, if you love someone, make sure they have health insurance cards. they said better things than that, but you get the gist of it. [laughter] and, of course, during all of the college bowls and other events we were out there doing enrollment and education. for this open enrollment, we have even a bigger challenge. we think we got most of the uninsured, and we're looking for folks who are just hiding from are us. we haven't found you. so our effort is going to focus on each one link one, so because you care, be the link are. reach family, reach a friend, reach a neighbor. so it's going to be very much

localized, more localized. we're also expanding our social networking community through social media and digital campaign efforts. we've learned a whole lot, that certain populations use are certain types of communication. so, for instance, the greater washington hispanic chamber is going to be doing a bunch of texting for us. texting is a major r -- major way that the latino community communicates. so we're going to be utilizing and expanding our social and digital campaign. and just one add, a local business may customize -- make customized dress shirts for men only. maybe they'll expand to women, but they're in our ad, and they say we're saving money and providing great coverage through d.c. health link. we have many local businesses, cupcakes and several breweries, so if you're a beer drinker,

you're probably getting it from one of our customers. and also the other major population we've served are people who had job lock in the past, were afraid to leave their job without access to affordable, stable coverage, and now they have it. so many people in our ads are folks who are entrepreneurs who couldn't leave their jobs before and now have that freedom to pursue their dreams because they have stable coverage through us. and with that, i'll conclude. thank you so much for the extra time. >> great. thank you, mila. so we will now open up for, to take your questions, and again, we have two microphones, here and here. you can submit a question on a green card, and you may tweet a question to hashtagging oe3. and we already have a question here an the microphone. if you could, please, introduce yourself. >> [inaudible] cori and jon, do you have any

idea to what degree -- [inaudible] may have an impact -- [inaudible] do you have any idea -- [inaudible] >> well, i'm sorry, i don't have any data on that. i know in the trade literature there's been a number of articles about the increased use of mental health services, but i can't give you any numbers, and i can't cite any studies that i can recall that gave us numbers. >> oh. anybody else? >> he had asked, i guess, two questions. yeah. so we don't have any numbers,

but i will tell you that we have a behavior health subcommittee under our advisory board that meets, and we have had conversations regarding mental health parity. and to our knowledge -- and we've also engaged the department of insurance in those discussions -- we're not really having any issues with mental health parity in kentucky. but we do have a meeting scheduled on november 9th, and we're bringing together all of the issuers and either their medical directors or their staff that are familiar with behavior health as well as the medicaid managed care organizations to have a fuller discussion on mental health parity. >> thank you for your question. so in january of 2013 one of our working groups was looking at mental health and substance abuse issues, and early on we decided that we weren't going to

allow day limits. so that is from the first day that was part of the requirement in the district. we, like kentucky, are monitoring everything, and one of our high priority areas are folks who have mental health, substance abuse needs. often times, and this is back to our state insurance regulator days, i can tell you that that particular segment of the population doesn't always call you when they need help. so it is extra important if the local societies are hearing of issues even though it's anecdotal, it will help us tremendously to monitor if there is a problem. so i encourage you to get in touch with us. >> okay. let's go to this microphone, and then we'll swing to this side. >> thank you. john graham, national center for policy analysis.

i'm just wondering about how enrollment evolves over the year. first year there was a dropoff, and then you lose a lot of people. looks like the same thing's happening in 2015. is that persistent, and what explains that? >> i'll just take a stab at it and then maybe carrie and mila want to jump in. people, people do sort of move in and out of the marketplaces. people have always moved in and out of the individual insurance market. so people who may sign up in march or april or in this case in january may actually find another source of coverage, you know, halfway through the year and leave. what we don't know is the number of people who are leaving because of the plan itself. so i think that's a question. but there's, this market has really been characterized by a lot of fluctuation historically. >> you know, we've had some

movement. we had a slight decrease based on some recent numbers issued by cms, but that's pretty typical, and, you know, we try to track that as best we can. >> yeah. for us as well. and actually in d.c. after open enrollment we have high volume of people coming in through special enrollment periods. so after open enrollments are are done, every month we have between 500-1,000 people coming in which is significant for us. i can tell you anecdotally people who end up losing their coverage not because they have a job or move away, but because they missed paying their premium , they lost their source of income or their circumstance changed, that's -- i'm seeing

about 10-15 people a month. and the reason i see them all is because i review all of the sep denials before the person is denied access to coverage. and so that is a growing concern for me even though it's 10 or 15 people a month. it tells me that affordability is still an issue, and we may have to look at policy interventions to catch people when they have a bad period. we shouldn't force them to to wait six or eight months to get back in through open enrollment. >> rebecca adams with cq roll call. this is a question i hope a few of you can address. we recently learned that cms has a $2.5 billion shortfall in risk corridor payment, and i'm wondering if you can look ahead and talk about how this might affect premiums going forward. >> so i don't think that it

directly -- so the risk, the request for risk corridor payments going out exceeds dramatically the money coming in from the risk corridor program which suggests that premiums were understated. but the fact now that cms has said they're only going to be paying a portion of that, those requests shouldn't itself have an effect on 2016 premiums. because the information that insurers had to set their 2016 premiums was kind of the same that they had when submitting their risk corridor requests. so that shouldn't have an effect on premiums. where i think you will see more of an effect and a concern is on the solvency side, especially

for those small and newer plans who expected to be getting some risk corridor payments and now they're receiving only a portion of those. that may be more of a concern that we need to look at more. the cms statement, that one-page statement that they put out just had really the top-line information about how much was requested, how much they expect to receive. but i'm hoping in the future they'll provide a little bit more information that we can understand a little better what's driving some of these numbers. is the transition policy that i talked about, is that driving some of this? so being able to examine those numbers by whether the plan was in a state that had the transition policy, i think, would be very helpful in better understanding these numbers. because, remember, in 2014 that transition policy occurred after 2014 premiums were already

finalized. so i would expect in some states for that to be a significant driver of some of these risk corridor requests. >> can -- cori, could you take half a step back and explain what a risk corridor is and what the issue is? i know you got into some of that, but just take a half step back very briefly. >> so the aca has three risk-sharing provisions in it. there's risk adjustment which shifts money between plans based on the relative risk profile of the plan. so mans that enrolled high -- plans that enrolled high-cost people were going to be getting money from those plans that enrolled more healthy people. there's the reinsurance program which i spoke about which provides some subsidies to plans for their high-cost enrollees. then there's risk corridors. and the risk corridor provision was to, in a sense, acknowledging that in 2014 --

and this is a temporary program like the reinsurance program just is scheduled to run from 2014-2016. in the early years of this new program, there was a lot of uncertainty, as i said, regarding who was going to enroll in coverage and what their health spending would be. so the government was going to, in a sense, mitigate some of that pricing risk by sharing some of the costs and some of the gains if insurers' premiums were either too high or too low. so if premiums came out in the end to be too low relative to the claims that the plan experienced, the government would pay that plan to share in those losses, to offset some of those losses. if, on the other hand, the plans' premiums were high relative to what was actually experienced, the plan then would pay the government a share of

those gapes. >> i just wanted, also, just to jump in and put the claims in context with the other, with the other claims in the reinsurance program and the risk adjustment program. so the claims are about 2.9 billion for the risk corridor program this year, and they actually can be continued to be paid out in out years, so 2016 and 2017, as the payments come into that program. but on the reinsurance side, nearly $8 billion were paid out this year in claims for people that, for companies that needed them. there were fewer claims that came in than were expected, so actually the dollars that came out were larger than they were originally going to be. and then also the risk adjustment transfers amounted to about $4.6 billion. so the risk corridor programs are really important for some smaller insurers, it's actually a smaller part of that, of those risk adjustment programs.

>> you want to -- >> we have a question on insurance consolidations and what, in fact, we might expect those to have or those proposed consolidations on premiums. >> well, my research on both shops and the individual exchanges indicates that as the number of insurers in the state increases, you see a decline in premiums. modest, maybe 2% per carrier. but still if there's lots of carriers, that can be pretty significant. so i think it's good news that we're going to see on the individual marketplaces more carriers participating. but overall, the individual insurance market has always been

heavily concentrated market. when i say "always," i say since about 2000. last time i looked at it, in a typical state the largest carrier had 55% of the market. so this is pre-aca. so i would say i don't think, i don't look at consolidation based on my research. i don't look at it as something that will lower premiums. i think it's much more likely to raise premiums. >> mila or -- >> yeah. so just stepping back, recall that the largest component of premiums is claims. so that nick that helps lower -- anything that helps lower claims can help put downward pressure on premiums. but there's still some uncertainty about the impact of mergers, and that will depend in part on the particular market.

regarding both the level of insurer competition that exists in that market right now and also the relative balance of negotiating power between the insurers and providers and whether insurers can get increased power when they're negotiating their provider payment rates and also the enhanced ability to implement some alternative payment and delivery system reforms. so i think there's some potential there, but i think it really is going to vary by market. >> i would just quickly add in some states before the aca the largest carrier was, essentially, a monopoly with 90% or more of the market. and since the aca, certainly, in many places we've seen market share shrink which is good if you believe that smaller market share increases opportunities for other carriers to come in and compete effectively, and that has happened since the aca.

i agree it really depends on where you are. in some cases where you still have a market that's 90% monopoly, it is really hard to enter that market because of the investment it takes by the insurers. so in some cases it could be very helpful to get new players in through consolidation in other states it's not going to be helpful. >> just offer this, want to remind people of carrie's really striking slide of what's happened in kentucky in just a small number of plans. >> right. i mean, prior to the aca we basically had two insurers. but the dominant insurer had 80% of the individual market. so post-aca we have new carriers coming into the market, prices are more competitive, you know? so it's been a tremendous benefit to kentucky. >> okay. let's take a question at the microphone. >> so finally, it's right on that note -- >> and if you could identify yourself, please.

>> so kyle redfield from the congressional budget office. so this is primarily for carrie, but -- yeah. as you noted, there's a pretty rapid expansion of the number of insurers available, so i was just wondering if you have any sense of what was driving that interest and then if there were any, was any impact on premiums as a result. and then -- sorry, before you jump in. separately for, but related for mila, so i'm not an actuary, but is the pool size in d.c. any issue for insurers? does that drive their interest at all? >> so i think the reason that we have more carriers entering the kentucky market is the success of connect. so, you know, we're extremely excited about that. and, you know, those coming in, some of them are offering very, very competitive prices as well.

so, you know -- >> we're not actuaries either. >> yeah, we are not. right. [laughter] >> but we do have one here. >> i have one more thing to add too. one thing to note, too, that i guess some of the carriers that have come into the market have offered medicaid managed care plans. so is, you know, they see this as positioning themselves for those people maybe who are terminated from medicaid due to increased income that a, you know, they'll stay with anthem, or they'll stay with humana, or they'll stay with aetna. so i think probably the medicaid managed care organizations just trying to position themself with the turn as well. >> so you had a two-part question for me. the first one on price competition. after we were created, there was legislation passed in d.c. to make us the sole distribution channel. that means everything is sold

through us. so when you get that kind of private market environment where it's full transparency on one web site, all our customers see prices and coverage options, that created real price competition. in the first year one carrier refiled their proposed rates, twice lowering them once they saw what their competitors filed. another carrier refiled lowering their rates and another carrier refiled lowering their proposed rates and added new products. so, actually, that kind of price transparency has created price competition in d.c. in terms of being a small state -- and those of us who live in d.c., we would like to be officially a state, i'll just make that plug. [laughter] it is a small market, and if you're not in the market, it's a huge investment for the carrier to come in. we try to take policy steps to make it as easy as possible.

but when you have only 15-20,000 covered lives in the individual market, you're not going to have lots of carriers competing for, you know, the 5,000 they may get. on the group side, we have four major carriers, and i say four, it's really -- they're legally organized in a way where united has two or three different companies, aetna has several. so all of the carriers on the group side have various legal entities they do business. it's a larger market, and so there's more incentive for carriers to come in for a piece of that market. >> let me just add that according to mckenzie, of the new entrants in 2016, they are largely provider-based plans and medicaid managed care plans. >> okay. yes. >> hi, bernadette fernandez. my question's about data that

sara presented, but i'd like to hear from the entire panel applicable. the question i had is about exhibit two where you found lower to middle income exchange enrollees essentially experiencing comparable premiums to employer coverage. i wonder how much of that is informed by your exhibit six where a number of enrollees chose low or no network plans. and to the extent that, i mean, those are not exactly comparable populations, but to the extent that the kind of network feeds into the decision making process, i'd be curious to hear and maybe from the exchanges if you know from your enrollees how much that played into their decision and then why that might look a little bit more comparable to employer. >> just a brief perspective on that, we really think that that

equalization and that income range is pretty much driven by the subsidies so that people are just getting really large subsidies in that income range to make what they're paying -- it makes what they're paying for premiums pretty comparable to what people are paying in employer-based plans which are also heavily subsidized. but i think the question about what -- the decisions people are making about their premiums relative to deductibles and putting just so much emphasis on the cost of, on the price of their plan, choosing more limited networks is a good, is a good one and maybe you want to, mila and carrie, want to mention. >> i mean, in kentucky price is the primary factor in selecting a plan. and at the expense of selecting their own networks, we have a couple of our insurers that have very predicted networks -- restricted networks. and we've seen an increase in enrollment in those plans.

>> we, are we seeing an increase in the offerings of those kinds of plans, and what other kinds of new products might we see going into the next, you know, this next cycle? we've heard a little bit more about more sharing of risk and provider-sponsored plans coming up. what are we seeing in those kinds of trends? >> so to answer the first question, premiums are the biggest drivers for decision making for our customers. on the networks until recently we really didn't have narrow, what you'd call narrow networks. most of the networks that we offered were nationwide or pretty regional, the coverage; virginia, maryland, parts of pennsylvania, west virginia, parts of delaware.

d.c. consumers are used to the broader networks. we do have a few new products on the group side for 2016 which have more restricted networks, and it remains to be seen whether customers make their decisions based on those networks. i do think that the new decision support tool that i talked about earlier powered by consumer checkbook will help consumers make better decisions not just looking at the premium, but looking at the out-of-pocket liability the consumer may have. >> well, you can see the rest of that discussion online at c-span.org. the u.s. senate is about to gavel in for a brief pro forma session on this tuesday. no legislative work is expected. these pro forma sessions can constitutionally-mandated when both the house and senate are not officially adjourned. and now live to the floor of the

u.s. senate here on c-span2. ring

>> just like that the senate wraps up this brief moment session. lawmakers will be back to work on the 19th when they will consider a bill concerning sanctuary cities. the next pro forma session happening this friday. the pentagon -- situation in iraq that you can see that live on c-span2 get it is expected to start about 25 minutes from now at 11 eastern. later we'll show you discussion on the future of kurds in iraq posted by columbia university. live coverage at noon eastern also here on c-span2. more road to the white house coverage coming up today when ohio governor john kasich speaks in new hampshire. is hosting a town hall meeting and you can see live coverage starting at 12:30 eastern on c-span. later today it's a look at the life and career of margaret thatcher posted by the heritage

foundation. you can see that live at 4 p.m. eastern also on c-span. >> c-span has your coverage of the road to the white house 2016 where you'll find the candidates, the speeches, debates and most importantly your questions. this year we're taking our road to the white house coverage into classrooms across the country with ou her studentcam contest giving students the opportunity to discuss what important issues they want to the most from the candidates. follow the contest and go to the white house coverage 2016 on tv, on the radio and online at c-span.org. >> again, pentagon briefing live at 11 eastern. we will have it for you on c-span2. to get is there a discussion on mandatory minimum sentencing in the u.s. from yesterday's washington to put pressure as much of this as we can into the

pentagon briefing starts, scheduled to start at 11 eastern. >> host: joining us now is a julie with at least against mandatory minimums. to the president and founder and entity talk about the decision by the obama administration to release 6000 nonviolent prisoners. good morning. good morning. >> host: could you tell us can give us a history of how we got to this point of this? >> guest: i think it's afford to clarify it's not exactly the obama administration actually send a. that's also present obama is opening the prison doors in a couple days of letting 6000 people out. it's the u.s. sentencing commission which is an independent agency, part of the department of justice. there are seven commissions on this body and are nominated by the president, confirmed by the senate. technically a part of the administration but they overlap with multiple administrations, periods of time on the commission gone over six years biggest not always is all the

obama administration commissioners to make this decision. i think there's a lot of misunderstanding about how president obama is letting 6000 people. that's not quite true. the u.s. sentencing commission in 2014 voted to drop drug sensing guidelines by to levels which basically means they will shorten of the drug since it bought about 11 months. so that was passed going forward. anyone can into the federal prison system after november 1 was going to go slightly shorter sentence. they decided last summer also to make it retroactive in the summer of 2014 and said that would apply to all the people who are currently in prison that qualified under the criteria of drug offenses at all these different pieces. that was about 46,000 people that were to be eligible to apply for earlier release under this retroactive sentencing guideline. not everybody got it, and as of now about 16,000 prisoners have

been granted an early release but they're not all coming out at once. the 6000 number we keep hearing has been a little been sensationalized the council of the people have gotten out, there in halfway houses come in home confinement. they have been processing to release so officially they released from their sins as of november 1 that they've actually been in the community most of them up until today. we have people who have already contacted us saying i'm in my halfway house, i've gotten home consignment -- and find that. >> host: tallis but that as far as what we're seeing, what events led to that aside from the specific work of the sentencing commission, what kind of led to where we are at now today? >> guest: i've been working this issue for 25 years and so i've seen a real shift and there was an early interest in the '90s that's what corrects some the most extreme senses. and it was this kind of attitude of about 10 years.

in the last five years especially there's been a real interest in trying to reduce oppressive population, trying to acknowledge the we put people in prison for a very long time who need to be punished because they broken a law protecting long punishments. the commission historically and 25 years i've been doing this has tweaked the sentencing guidelines to make sense is fair for all kinds of pressure. in 1994 they made changes to marijuana policy and made it retroactive. and lsd policy and it retroactive so this is a new. in 2007 they made changes to crack cocaine policy and made it retroactive. there's been this effort to correct some of the excesses of the sentencing laws that has impacted literally hundreds of thousands of people. >> host: for the 6000 come is this people who were arrested for using drugs, selling drugs, who qualifies? >> guest: using and selling drugs. i'm not trying to whitewash

this. this is not a bunch of choir boys who kind of to present with the joint and got 20 years. that doesn't happen although there people who believe that it does. these are people engaged in drug activity, illegal sales, purchasing of drugs. these are people of broken a law. there's no doubt about that but they're getting senses that are way, way more severe generally and is sufficient to punish them in a way that he cursed them from doing this again. there is the principles of punishment that involves things like not punishing someone more than is necessary for them to get the message and for the public safety. many of the senses have that trent lott if you to ask questions about this, the 6000 others that will be released, here's your chance to call in and ask our guest questions.

our guest is julie stewart, she is with families against mandatory minimums. she's a president and founder. tell us about the organization. >> guest: i started in 1991 about a year after my brother was arrested for growing marijuana and was sentenced to five years in federal prisons under the federal mandatory sentencing law. he was growing it in washington state which is ironic because of course it is legal there now but at the time i was stunned he was going to prison for five years for his first offense and i thought that it just to make any sense and that members of congress we did know what they had done when they create these mandatory sentences and that maybe if we should and can people go to prison and would lobby for them to say you can have the effect of punishment with less time they would change laws. it was a bit naïve but that didn't have any political expense before so on the other hand, it worked dirty quickly and that congress passed in 1994 something called a safety valve

which actually allows judges have more discretion in certain cases, drug cases and that affects about 25% of his going into prison each year for drug offenses. so it's been significant. but it was a crusade that was based on own personal experience and i find over the two decades of doing this that most people come to us when someone they know has gone to prison. >> host: correct me if i'm wrong, congress sets the minimum and a maximum sentences. distancing commission decide on the guidelines, correct? >> guest: yes. it's confusing but are two two parallel tracks. was mandatory minimum sentences which are passed by congress and they're generally fighters continue sometimes 20 years and that's the floor of the sentence. the judge cannot go below that. distancing commission also creates senses for all crimes, not just drug offenses. and has a general starting point for the judge and it can go up or down depending on circumstances. the guidelines were dramatically

when i first started doing this became advisor in 2007. the judges are still guided by the and but 80% of the time they follow the guidelines of the mandatory minimums they cannot go below. >> host: how can we see long sentences? is misapplied here. they are large sentences, but is the minimum the judge can give. and my brother's case, he had over 100 marijuana plants. that triggered a five year minimum sentence. if he had over 1000 marijuana plants, it would have triggered a 10 year minimum sentence that the judge could not have gone below. means. what the minimum it is amall num at it's not a small number. it means that the minimum amount of time the judge can give. >> host: our first call is from paul in rhode island for our guest julie stewart. go ahead. >> caller: high, good morning. could you explain how the privatization of prison systems

in the for-profit prison systems has influenced the mandatory sentencing trekker i don't actually, thank you for calling. i don't think that private prisons have had any impact on sensing law. i think that there is certainly it's not come it doesn't feel good to think that people are making money off of someone else's misery, and there is a lobby to support, or special in the past, for private prisons. but i think and i had a great deal of influence on sensing law. >> host: that was paul. let's hear from steve in california, san diego. >> caller: hello, good morning. i'd like to know what percentage of these ex-cons will commit crimes in our communities within a year? thank you. >> guest: there are statistics and it's about 50%, maybe less, 47% will commit a crime within the first year but at the end of

the three years after that 66% will commit a crime. to me that speaks very deeply to how failed our present policies are. because if we're trying to actually correct people, difficult department of corrections, we should be doing a lot more while we have been literally in a captive audience to help them address anger management and sort of decision-making and provides and skills training. we do very little when people are in prison to help them prepare to reenter and not go back to the world that they were familiar with. this particular case of the 6000 that are coming out, they are all nonviolent drug offenders to these are not people who commit violent crimes. about a third of them are going to be deported, maybe a quarter of them will be deported. so there are a lot of different pieces to this but there will be some number that will commit more crimes, absolutely. >> host: a columnist talked about the prisoner released in a recent column.

"amongst the 50% of nonviolent federal drug offenders, it is difficult to know how many were arrested for violent crime and plea bargain to a lesser offense. nor do we have good data on how many were previously convicted of a violent crime. bureau of justice statistics study found that 95% of those who served ti in state isonsolent >> guest: you know, if they were violent, a prosecutor would not agree to plead down to anything that di could make sure that they serve a lot of time behind bars. i think that's an argument that is commonly used but prosecutors control sentencing basically today. if the prosecutor believes that person is truly violent they will keep them in prison for a long time. if you are allowing them to plead that is because they don't think they are that much of a threat to the public. >> host: carol from michigan you are on next. good morning. >> caller: thank you for having me on. my husband is a criminal and civil litigator.

i'd like to know out of the 6000 people being released from prison, only of them have felonies on their records? basically they are dead in the water because my husband fights to the death to keep going off someone's record. in the state of michigan a bargain away with the minimum sentences, and the judges are giving them even more time. and my husband as a prosecutor attorney and he does really get them good deals. and he feels that if you do have a felony on your record come if you don't commit a crime for five years a felony should come off. which would at least give you a chance at a life. because with a felony on your record you don't have a life, you are dead in the water. i would like her opinion on the 6000 coming out how many of the loonies on the records? and -- felonies.

thank you very much. everyone of these people will have a felony on the record. they are fellows but they spent more of the year in prison and is a felony offense. it's hard and that's part of the trouble with readjusting is that you have the burden of trying to find a job when you have been imprisoned for 10 or 20 years. technology has passed you by. your skill set is atrophied at a public that you have a felony record on your back. many companies, koch industries recently decided to ban the box, a big movement about having companies not check whether or not you're a felon on the application so that they look at you just straight up as an individual competing for the job uzbek not the koch brothers industries but koch industries. >> guest: exactly. i think that's great because it is very, very hard to get a job with a felony record but my

brother is a fellow because he spent five years in priso prisod when they cannot be moved to virginia and lived with me and he wanted to get into real estate. so we took all the real estate courses and passed them and then he went to get licensed and the state of virginia would not license them because he's a felon. the way competition in richmond to the board of realtors and they said, sorry, we're not going to give you a list of licensed because you're a felon. to me that just sets up barriers to people are trying to reenter and get on with allies and be productive citizens. i think it's a great idea that if you haven't commit another crime after five years or 10 years the felony could be expunged but that's just not realistic prospect of a portion of the 6000 are in halfway houses can what's being done to prepare for life? >> guest: halfway houses are intended to provide a buffer between prison and freedom. i think some of them do a good job and some of them are really just a holding cell until the

person can get to home confinement. they tried to get them jobs. they try to help them learn some skills, how to write a resume and things like that. so they do some but it's a shorter period, like maybe six months in this halfway house where they have been imprisoned for decades. they could've been taking skills training and sort of anger management and behavioral modification classes in prison. >> host: from dover, delaware, brandon, next up. hello. >> caller: i have a couple of comments i wanted to make. my first comment was, yes, i do agree with the other ladies that if you take we mandatory minimums that they will not do anything but start getting people more time. okay, then with the minimum was. i just want to say this real quick. c-span to we just had the million man march this weekend and every big event that c-span

has covered they always talk about it that next day or that next week or that monday. i was wonder why y'all wasn't talk about the million man march today? >> host: just alleging that we engage in that topic yesterday. in fact, you can see a portion of it on c-span3. >> caller: know. i was watching c-span yesterday. wasn't nobody talking about it. >> host: we did a question on it actually, so just we did cover it, but you can take on abortion directed to you. >> guest: yes. mandatory minimums, we were directly involved in the michigan mandatory minimums in 1998 and getting rid of the. we managed to get that reduced so that they could get out of prison after 15-20 is depend on their priors and circumstances. so i would argue that we mandatory minimum estimate the judge has a lot more discussion

at the judges are the ones who should have that discussion. right now prosecutors until sentencing either charging decisions. they know if they judge my brother with 100 marijuana plants, that triggered the mandatory five year minimum. if there were no minimums the judge would have a guideline to look at and say it starts year at 60 month or whatever but i think because such a first offense, i will give you 36 months. so that is what judges can do when there's no mandatory minimum. mandatory minimums create disorder for that the judge was the one who knows the most about the person, this is what's so frustrating to me in this whole concept of mandatory sentences is that legislators sitting in the hallowed halls of congress or state legislatures around the country think based on the amount of drugs it should be this sentence. so we are determining a persons sense of based on one factor, drugs, which doesn't necessarily reflect the culpability of the given. they could be a trigger.

they could break in the drugs in texas to california. they're getting paid $500 to drive the truck. when they get arrested they are held responsible for the entire amount of drugs and sentenced accordingly posner julie stewart, our guest. greg, you are next. >> caller: thank you, c-span. this program, all these convicts into society is just another one of obama's boneheaded ideas. now look, that example that you just gave about somebody driving don't from one place to another and get stopped at the does and how much dope is on the vehicle, and he should be responsible for all of it is outrageous. this, america should rise up and say enough is enough.

16,000 convicts on the streets of big cities in america just not going to work. and let me ask you this. the recidivism or eight is the same. and when they get picked up and taken back to present them how much time adequate to serve? are they going to be referred back to the original sense or are they going to pas to have tn the butt and turn them loose traffic for so i want to address the 16,000 or the 6000 or whatever number you want to everybody is going to get out of prison at one point. gilad people who don't are those were serving life without parole. so to say that we're letting these people out on the street, they are coming anyway. the average sentence reduction is to submit a getting out two years earlier than it otherwise would've. if they reoffend they will be convicted for a new crime, the new amount of drugs that have been involved in a whatever the crime i is they will continue since it has nothing to do with the old sense but it will be

worse because they have a prior post a the "new york times" editorial this topic made the point that 10,000 young parts currently are released -- >> guest: is not as if it were never going to come up again. they are coming anyway. they're coming out a little earlier i would argue that's possibly pay since they should've gotten in the first place. probably still too high but they are not the same people that they went in as either. dana bowerman went in as a meth addict 19 years ago or something is ago. she's getting two years office and social, as they're office and social come out as their office and social, as they're making a half years she'll be coming out at 17 years. she is 44 pitches public is going to do fine. there are so many people who, i don't know, like myself. 20 years ago i was a different i think we all change come we all mature and they're certainly this chronology is what triggers

an aging out of the crime years between 18 and 30 especially or sort of the worst crime years but once you're past that the chances of recidivism is much lower hosting we have four states that legalize marijuana now. will that change since his? >> guest: maybe for marijuana. i mean, we will see. >> host: from silver spring, maryland, hello. comic good morning, how are you? >> host: thanks, glad. >> caller: i want to know what provisions are in place when people are released. one of the previous callers mentioned that once you have a felony conviction you are kind of, you have to wear the scarlet letter for life. and my family deals with that because in 1993 my husband was convicted of a felony. now he is 40, has worked ever since his release, is an

upstanding citizen, but he can't vote. we apply for something recently and it still shows up, something that happened over 20 years ago. he's not, what provisions are what can we do to encourage people to continue to move forward? because not everyone may be in a loving situation or afford a situation to encourage them that although it's hard, although your resources are limited, although your difficult times finding jobs or getting approval for things because of something that has happened in your past, everyone doesn't have that reassurance that is going to be okay. not even reassurance but many people it really doesn't get okay so thank you end up returning to ways that are not productive or are not things that we want for our society. about what can we do come instead ended -- instead of judging individuals can what

could be added after to make the situation better and to realize that a mistake does not turn you into just someone who should be marginalized for life? >> guest: that's a really hard thing to answer. there's nothing that can be done sort of policy wise indirect ways. i think a lot of what you're describing is, there's beginning to be a shift in perception of prisoners for people with felony records that they are not all these worthless people we should throw away the key. i think that with 2.2 million people in prison, and many of them have families and people, today when i talk to people in from about 25 people and i see how many of you know someone who has been in prison, apple the a quarter of fiscal. it is become such a widespread phenomena that it is no longer the other guy who's going to prison. someone else's family, somebody else's problem. the more we accept that, people have become familiarized with

the fact that people go to prison very readily and this country and everyone knows someone. i think will give a bit of a shift that we perceive them, whether we welcomed them back more with open arms. with large corporations encouraging band of the box people are living judge on the application whether they have a failed or not i think that's very helpful. one thing i meant to mention is when these 6000 or 60,000 of anytime anyone gets out of federal prison they are called to check it put under what's called supervised release. there is a probation officer for all of that time. made its monthly to start with, iit becomes every few but after that but have to do your analysis task of all kinds of oversight to make sure that they are not after committing any crime. that's adequate a guaranteed no welcome will commit -- >> we will leave this at this point to go live to the pentagon for a briefing on the situation in iraq.

this is just getting under way. >> all right. so we are pleased to be joined today by colonel steve or from operation and your resolve. he could give an opener. said to me i if you want to give him a question list. if about and i think he can have. if not i've got the mic ready to go phil donahue style is having trouble hearing. [inaudible] speculative a question now. steve, can you hear us speak was you look younger, too. spent you look really skinny spent i can hear you loud and clear. can you hear me speak with steve. over to you. >> thank you, jeff. i appreciate it and good morning members of the pentagon press corps. it's good to see you again for our second briefing from

baghdad. i want to imagine a few things before we get to questions. i know you questionable and run through a couple of facts, page updated on current events. as of 12:00 today, the u.s.-led coalition has conducted a total of 7440 airstrikes with 4798 in iraq, 2642 in serious. in ramadi, the isf continues to move to isolate any forces were occupying the capital of anbar province. we conducted 292 strikes against isil, in and around the city since operations began. we conducted 52 strikes just in the last 10 days. the strikes have killed hundreds of fighters come destroyed mortar positions, vehicle borne ieds, explosive facilities, heavy machine guns and even sniper positions.

aided by our strikes, rocky ground forces have advanced 15 kilometers over the last seven days and we've seen some encouraging developments. last week for the first time iraqis f-16s provided direct support to maneuvering iraqi ground forces. over the past week the cts, the counterterrorist service come in particular has stood out in very tough fighting along the western approaches to ramadi. iraqi ground forces racially trained and equipped by the coalition have been deployed around the ramadi in time for the decisive phase of this operation. we now believe that battlefield conditions are set with the isf to push into the city. northern iraq, a recent peshmerga operation returned

more than 400 square kilometers of territory to government control and liberated 23 villages which will allow thousands of iraqis to return to their homes. in syria were out their operations continue in which recently conducted an aerial resupply, friendly forces have liberated hundreds of square miles and cut daesh off from all but 68 miles of the six-mile long border with turkey. also in syria since the beginning operations, the russians have conducted approximately 80 strikes in syria including the recently reported cruise missile strikes from the caspian sea. these strikes have been clustered around homes in hamma, only a fraction of the strikes have been against isil or in isil dominate every. coalition airstrikes have

included while taking care to minimize civilian casualties. before the two questions i do want to briefly highlight some of the effects our operations. in addition to enabling local forces to fight iso, coalition airstrikes or killing leaders a isil relies on for command and control, finance it, logistics and propaganda. even as the replace their facilitators, our airstrikes are forcing the enemy to change the way they communicate, the way they move, reinforced and resupply. when we strike an enemy leader we call it age the ice.com hidebound individual. coalition ati specs are depleting isil spend. recent hci struck some eliminate key emulate including -- on august 18 and -- on august 24. he was isil second-in-command.

he was responsibresponsib responsible for operation both in iraq and syria. hussein was a top recruiter. recently we've also eliminated a number of social media savvy isil members who use of social media as a weapon an attempt to recruit westerners. hvi strikes have killed approximately 70 senior and mid-level leaders since the beginning of may. that equates to one hvi killed every two days. in the last two months strike near mosul have killed eight of isil topic in the city including hockey. we assess this pressure creates paranoia, causes the need to continually reevaluate their security. from the days following the leadership strike what was he is a isil routinely conducts searches of their own fighters, their own officials. there no to execute suspected spies and those with in practice poor operational state. hvi strikeforce isil to avoid

second and third tier leaders. for example, in july we killed their leader. hvi, so he killed in july can we killed the leader. he was replaced by his deputy and we killed in september. hvi strikes make isolators reluctant to communicate and afraid to move around the battlefield for one simple reason. they fear sudden death. without i will take your questions. >> you have given us lost -- lots to chew on. let me go back to roam onto. i believe you said that u.s. now believes that battlefield conditions are set for the iraqis to move into the city. why haven't they done so, and can you give us an indication that it's an imminent move by

the iraqis? what's holding them up? >> bob, thanks for the. what we've seen is good progress over the course of the last week to 10 days, maybe two weeks. as i told you before, progress fighting have slowed down substantially over the summer for several reasons, environmental, extreme heat that was here, social which includes the religious holidays that came up during the late part of the summer, and some other factors. all those factors are now beginning to fade away and were starting to see progress. like i said, isf has tightened their ring around the ramadi. they are perching on several axes. effective made about 14 to 15 kilometers here in the last few weeks.

we are seeing movement. we are also seeing some other combined arms integration. we are seeing iraqis f-16s providing direct support to maneuvering forces. we are seeing iraqi forces approach the hardened obstacles that isil is placed around the ramadi in a more efficient way. so i don't have anything is his holding compound. i think they are moving. we would like to see them move as rapidly as possible. we believe that now a combination of the recent successes that it had along with the increased airpower and increased isr that we have allocated to the ramadi fight, we believe that now is the time for a final push into ramadi. so we are continuing to encourage the iraqis. the iraqis are encouraged by the own success that they've had here recently and we'll continue to watch and see how this

develops. >> steve, tom bowman. we saw you two weeks ago and you said we're urging the iraqis to take ramadi. today you're saying we believe they can do it. a coupl couple people i talked e building have said they're not even sure if iraqis can take ramadi. that's one question. also you could talk about besides the iraqi security forces what are the roles of the sunni tribal fighters, and also maybe the shia militias here? >> sure, thanks, tom. so precautions there. first, can they take it? we believe they can. they have the combat power. they have the training and had the isr and they have the airpower that we are providing. and begin to be secure i said

that we believe that they are beginning to move, and in the last two weeks they had beaten up 15 kilometers so i think that's a sign that there is progress. the iraqis are starting to make progress. the environmental conditions have lessened so that they're able to maneuver. they've conducted a few places, portions of the been on the lines have withdrawn and been replaced by fresh troops, many of whom are trained by coalition forces freshly trip, freshly trained, in possession of some of the new equipment that we've given them, specifically designed to help them reach these. that said, i don't want to overstate it. this is going to be a tough fight. it is going to be a tough fight. but we do believe that like a second we deeply the conditions are set. the role of the sunni

volunteers, good question. primarily we see the sunnis, they will participate in some of the fighting but really we see them as part of the whole force, along with the federal police. we see the sunni tribal volunteers who we've been training, i believe trained a proximate 5000 of them so far, trained and equipped about half of those. so we will get them into the fight and we see them really as the whole of force. try to get what you third question was. i can't remember what your third question was. >> the shia militias. >> shia militias, right. as you know it's a pretty broad group. the pmf who are working with the iraqi security forces, whether sunni or shia, pmf will also

work with their but it's all about whether the they are working for, whether the in command and control of the iraqis kurdish forces. we see some pmf who are shia around come in the battlefields, around the ramadi in fallujah. this is really an isf fight, i've got to be honest with you. there are elements of the pmf on the battlefield but this was more of a conventional iraqi security forces led fight. along with the tbs of course look us in the opening they have -- [inaudible] >> stars and stripes, good to see you again. a couple follow-ups on ramadi. can you give us any sense of how far a way the isf troops are

from ramadi? you said did manage to gain about 15 kilometers of what is the distance from the city that gives you confidence that this battle is approaching closer cracks and then switching topics to syria train and equip, just to clarify or. will the new program had the same kind of restriction that the old program did, that people receiving this equipment shouldn't be able to use against the assad regime? thank you. >> thanks. where are the iraqi forces positioned? they have essentially encircled the city. there are for a push into the city with iraqi security forces, occupied all four of those approaches and kind of squeezing

in. so i don't have, i don't know the exact distance from city center to the frontline of the iraqi security forces. it's at the point now where distance is less of an issue because it's a dense open terrain. that time distance factor is going to be much different than on the approaches to the city. so i will put in more colloquial terms, i would say the isf are probably around falls church, if it was washington, d.c. that were talking about. maybe they're coming onto arlington at this point. just to get a sense of what this is like. so they haven't entered the city center proper put their serving in the outer suburbs, if you will. i hope that answers the question. thanks for that episode we need to talk about a little bit. i'm assuming there will be some more questions i guess i will start off with events over the weekend. i think it's been accurately

reported there was a c-17 airdrop over the weekend, approximate 50 tons of ammunition were dropped into syria, specifically for the syrian arab coalition. these are, this is sort of a team of teens. this is a group of smaller city in arab fighters who have come on their own join together to form a coalition, maybe in the 5000 range. so this group, we learned about this group as part of our ongoing operations in syria. got to know the leader. we vetted the leader. we gave that leader some specific training on some of our specialized equipment, and now we have provided that leader and

his forces with the 50 tons of ammunition. restrictions, what we've done here, and this isn't because a couple of things, couple pointsf points i want to make first. one, not anything you. this is not a major shift in how we have been conducting operations in syria, in my view. we have been supplying, i mean, we didn't airdrop in kobani almost a year ago of ammunition dump 23 bundles if i recall. is dropped by the way was over 100 of bundles. this is part of our program to equip, train and equip forces who are fighting isil. in this case the syrian arab coalition fighters, they have been fighting isil in the vicinity of rock a -- raqqa.

they been fighting isil for much bigger not anywhere near coalition from not anywhere near pushing for stricter specifically near isil which is if we are interested in fighting. so while these forces are, we can ask, we want them to fight iso. i'm not prepared to talk about requirements or restrictions or pledges or anything like that. we are looking for forces who are pursuing the same objective we have, which is defeat and ultimately the destruction of isil. so the next obvious question, will this continue? the answer is yes. begin it has been ongoing. i saw some headlines, $500 million failed train and equip program. on is that i those headlines are

misleading. we have spent a lot of money on the train and equip program that majority of that money or a large portion of that money bought equipment. so does 50 tons of emanation that were dropped into syria the other night is ammunition that we purchase with train and equip money. so we spent about 300 million of that syria train and equip money, made a little more and equipment we purchased it still going to get used to equip syria, serious. does that answer your question speak with i guess any other clarification on restriction 50 said he wouldn't talk about it but the department was pretty clear that in the previous iteration of those forces would not be targeting the assad regime to i don't get the sense that there's the same type of restriction on this new iteration.

>> welcome in this case, you know, the syrian arab coalition is nowhere near the assad regime so it's kind of a moot point. >> karl, nbc -- colonel, nbc. you opened your remarks today by taking off a number of isis, hvi targets that have been killed by coalition airstrikes. in the past that proposition has been a risky one because they are so easily replaced by others. and there are also figures out there that some 20,000 isis fighters have been killed by coalition airstrikes, but how many of those have been replaced? is there any indication that the overall force, the overall leadership of isis, has been sufficiently degraded by these

airstrikes? >> well, there are indications. sufficient i guess this is objective term but what i will tell you is, we are drawing up their bench, right? by killing this many of their leaders, they're having to go to second and third tier leaders become like i said, i gave that one example where that a local leader, killed him, his deputy came up, became leader, killed him. we haven't found the third guy yet but when we do find them we will kill him. so this is a great impact on the enemy's ability to fight. it has an impact on their ability to command and control their own forces. itch of paranoia within this group. so sufficient? if some have an impact it has degraded their ability to conduct operations. it's significant to know, jim,

isil has not had one single, they've not gained an inch of territory in iraq since ramadi. not a millimeter. all they've done is hunkered down and watch all the friends get killed from the air or from the ground. i think we're having an impact. we have picked some of us up in some of the chatter we hear. we see this. we've recently seen a number of isil fighters fleeing also. i think that was just reported today as a matter of fact. so we are seeing these indicators about all is well in the so-called caliphate. we are pounding them from the airport they are under pressure from the ground in iraq. are under pressure on the ground in syria. so the vice this beginning to tighten again i do want to -- i did some pretty optimistic the i don't want to overplay that though. to be sure, there still come we estimate between 20 and 30,000 enemy fighters out there on the battlefield. that's a lot. the numbers of killed can we try

to stay away from body count generally speaking i'm not going to argue with the numbers that you just cited, but we try not to get into that. what i would say is we have eliminated isil fighters as fast as they been able to recruit them. as fast as they can recruit them we are able to eliminate them. and and adding to the fact fact that we've been eliminating the leaders, bring in second tier leaders, a lot of novice fighters and you're beginning to see the edges fray. and what else did you have? i think that was it, right? >> thank you. >> hi, steve. you mentio mentioned in your opg remarks that rush has conducted a to airstrikes in syria and over the past week we have heard repeatedly -- russia -- the purpose of russia's strikes into syria is to bolster the assad regime. and so my question is do you any indication the assad regime has

been able to gain any territory in light of those 80 strikes in either areas around hamma or holm? >> i have seen any indications that the assad regime has been able to make progress based on the russian airstrikes. what we have seen though, this is an important note, we have seen isil make progress based on russian airstrikes. in the northwestern portion of syria. we have seen russian airstrikes and we've seen come in this one area anyway able to take advantage of those airstrikes. the other thing we have seen as a result of russian airstrikes, the u.s. announced that it had to seize humanitarian operations in syria because of the danger posed other airstrikes. i find these airstrikes to be

reckless and indiscriminate. they're doing exactly the, having the exact opposite effect of what russia has claimed the want to be the they claim publicly they want to buy isil in reality these reckless, indiscriminate, irresponsible airstrikes have had the effect and we will -- and will have effect only a prolonged the suffering of the syrian people. so to answer your question specifically, have not seen any regime progress based on russian airstrikes osh of the things based on russian airstrikes, none of which are good. >> hi, steve. this is joe. i want to go back what you mentioned about -- could you tell us what is the size of the pmf militants among the iraqi forces? is it fair to say that they share 75, maybe more, percent of the iraqi ground forces?

>> joe, i don't have those numbers and they're no not realy numbers for me to put out anyways. those are the type of numbers that the iraqis would have it i will certainly ask them and see if they're willing to put something out. but what's important to note is that the pmf who are working with the iraqi government, they are pmf that we, too, will work with. >> could you update us on that type of the ammunition that has been provided to the syrian arab coalition forces? >> sure. that's an easy one. it was 50 tons of ammunition. it was all ammunition, so

bullets primarily 556, machine gun ammunition, assault rifle ammunition. ever hand grenades in there. there were some mortar rounds, and rounds for rpg sevens. >> steve, jennifer, fox news. the ammunition that you dropped, are there any restrictions on it being used against the russians? and also can you tell us that when was the last time a russian pilot flew up next to a u.s. coalition plane? how often is it happening and how dangerous is it? >> thanks, those are excellent points for me to clear up. we want the modern syrian opposition, we are supporting moderate street opposition who

are fighting isil. so it's difficult to put a restriction on a bullet obviously, but we have supplied this ammunition and this equipment to forces who we are satisfied are focused on fighting isil. i forgot the rest of your question, i'm sorry. >> okay. so there are no restrictions on the animal being used against the russians if they happen to be on the other end of the modern syrian opposition. when was the last time that a pilot, a russian pilot approached a u.s. warplane? how often is happening and how dangerous is it? >> and begin to be very clear on that, there are no russians where that ammunition landed. there are none there.

pilots and safety. i don't know the last exact time, i think it was probably sounded is the last time i recall where a couple of russian aircraft came within visual recognition and distance of a couple of coalition aircraft. visual identification took place. our pilot conducted themselves a properly and everyone went about their business. but it is dangerous. it's dangerous if two sets of aircrafts come into the same piece of airspace without very clear laid out protocols for safety of all involved, which is why we sat down with the russians to establish some safety protocol. we have had two meetings already with the russians on this matter. i think there are future meetings scheduled. i think their future meetings

are scheduled -- although i don't have those details. so yeah, there's always going to be some risk that there are uncoordinated actors in the battle space. it at risk, there's simply no question about it. what's important to note is u.s. and coalition pilots have exploiter situational awareness based both on our capabilities as flyers and on our capabilities for information. ..

>> i've seen nothing to indicate te was any relationship between the meeting and this approach. this was two sets of aircraft who entered the same battle space, is all it was. heightened risk when there's two sets of combat aircraft in the same piece of air space, but this case all aviators conducted themselves appropriately, no incidents, everyone moved along. >> colonel warren, a couple questions, one on ramadi. can you tell us what the strength of the isil forces are in that city? you've talked about how

difficult or how well-defended it is, but how many are inside the city? and the second one is on syria train and equip. you mentioned, i believe, $300 million for equipment. how much was spent training those few dozen fighters that graduated the course, for lack of a better term? >> so we estimate the enemy strength inside ramadi to be somewhere between 600-3,000. it's -- 1,000. it's difficult to get an exact count, but that's a good ballpark. important to note this is an enemy who's had time to digging in and -- dig in and establish some very hard defensive positions. there's trenches, there's berms, there's obstacles, there's what amount to minefields created by ieds.

so it's a strong are, it's a strong defense. it's a strong defense, and it's going to take a very determined effort to break it. but we think the combination of coalition air power and isaf, we think they have the combat power to do just that. syria's train and equip, hard to -- so, again, of the half a million dollars that has been allocated, approximately a little over 300 million of it has been spent. a lot of that money, though, went to buy equipment. unfortunately, i don't have exact numbers for you, tom. maybe we can get those. i don't have 'em. but a lot of that money, you know, some of the money, of course, went to just improving the training grounds, you know, ahead of the exfiltration. some of it was start-up costs. but a lot of it was to purchase ammunition and equipment. and we still have that ammunition and equipment. and we are going to use that ammunition and equipment against isil. so we owe you numbers. i don't have those numbers.

i'm not sure who does have them. so give me, give me a couple of days to work on that for you. and we'll try to get you some numbers, if they're release are bl. but what's important to note and this is a key thing and, again, i've seen these headlines of all this money wasted, it's too soon for that. because so much of this money has been spent on equipment and ammunition and weapons. and the weapons, the equipment and the ammunition is in our possession, and we just gave, we just air dropped 50 tons of that ammunition, purchased with syria train and equip funds, we just air dropped 50 tons of that to friendly, friendly syrian arab coalition members who are going to go use that ammunition to fight isil. so the train and equip program has changed, but it has not gone away, right? we are still training moderate, excuse me, we're still equipping

moderate syrian opposition fighters. we're still equipping them. and this is important, i'm glad you brought it up, and i'm getting excited now, tom, you can see. this is important because we've heard general austin talk about this. we've seen him say this is a complex battlefield, and we tried a program. identify, vet, exfiltrate fighters, train them, infiltrate -- the program didn't work, all right? that program, it was -- for whatever reason, and there's plenty of reasons, that program wasn't coming together the way we wanted it to. so being an adaptive, an agile organization, we have made an adjustment. we've made an adjustment. we've adjusted our approach to what we believe is a fundamental, a fundamental requirement which is to place ground pressure on our enemy, right? we know that, we know combination of air and ground to put pressure are on isil. the air piece we have. we tried the ground piece one

way, we realized that wasn't going the way we wanted it to, and so we have dynamically adjusted to a different approach. and now we're going to work on this approach. and as we find other situations, we will continue to adjust this program. so, sorry i got excited on that one, tom. >> hey, colonel warren, phil stewart from reuters. a quick follow-up on the air incident between russian and u.s. pilots. are we talking about hundreds of feet between the planes or miles? and then i had a question/comment about the iraq intel center with the syrian and the russians. but first on the aircraft. >> it was miles. i've seen two different reports whether it was 10 or 20 miles, but it was miles apart. close enough to get some visual contact, but they were miles apart. >> and then iraq said today, the

senior iraqi official said today it has started bombing islamic state targets with help from the new intelligence center that included representatives from iran and syria. is that, do you believe, is that comment from iraq accurate, and if it is accurate, they're carrying out strikes with intelligence from that center and yet you have no contact with that center. does that mean there's also a parallel campaign that's independent from the u.s.-led coalition now starting to occur within iraq? >> i think what's most important is that the iraqis are fighting isil, right? it's the iraqis who are fighting isil. we are helping the iraqis to fight isil. i have not seen that report you just cited, phil, so i don't know the answer. but what i have seen is one year worth of coalition forces assisting the iraqis to, i

think, what everyone would have to admit is to good effect. again, think where we were a year ago when we were having to air drop supplies to beleaguered and cutoff forces, to where we were a year ago when it appeared baghdad itself might be threatened by an isil advance. so we have been here for a year. we have trained almost 15,000 iraqi security forces. we have taken back 30 percent of the territory that isil once had. we have killed thousands of enemy fighters, hundreds of enemy leaders, thousands of pieces of equipment. so i think, you know, i think anyone would have to agree with the fact that this coalition is here and is providing some very solid support to the iraqi

forces who are fighting isil. >> molly. >> sir, two quick questions for you. one of my questions is about how much money has been spent on equipment versus is training, a part of the first iteration, first program, so thank you for taking that question. a point of clarification, one of the things that the defense secretary had said was challenging about this program, said they couldn't -- is that u.s. law was so strict when it came to vetting for who gets training and equipment. so i wanted to clarify how we can just sort of move this equipment to this new group given that there were so many challenges even getting fighters through the first program to be vetted to get that training and equipment. so can you clarify how that works, we can sort of just move equipment to a new group that you said you just kind of came into contact with and doesn't necessarily train? -- didn't necessarily train?

>> yeah. so a couple of things there. so first off, the vetting is the same. we are going through the same vetting process. with the original program, we were vetting every single person, every single person. so hundreds. and the vetting does take a long time. it takes weeks or even months to get one person through the vetting process. and we were vetting all of them so we could pull all of them out and train them. and part of it is because it was, you know, for our own protection, right? we don't want to accidentally exfiltrate someone who we were going to train who could potentially be a threat to our own forces, our own trainers, right? so it's important to do a good vet. so what we have done now is we're vetting the leaders, just the leaders. so in this case of the recent aerial resupply of the syrian arab coalition, we vetted the

leaders of the syrian arab coalition to insure that, you know, they met the standards that we want met that are both in law and our own standards. those few people, much smaller number, we were able to then give a very brief training, really just a couple of days where we introduced them to law of the land warfare, showed them how to use certain pieces of equipment that they may end up being in contact with and generally slidfy the relationship -- solidify the relationship with them. so i think that's what's able to speed the process up. and i want to be clear, i want to be clear on how we came in contact with these and other groups. you know, this is, this has been a yearlong process of building

ties with syrians, syrian arabs in this case, who want to defeat isil. so it's not that we just stumbled across them, right? it's a process of the contacts that we've been working with as participant of the original train and -- part of the original train and equip program, that's how we've come in contact with some of these other players on the battlefield. so it's not like we randomly met someone on the street. i mean, these are fighters who have demonstrated to us that, you know, they're willing to go after and fight and push back on isil. and as we've observed 'em and, you know, come to some decisions about their capabilities and their veracity and their desire to fight, that's then when we withdraw their leaders, give them a couple of days worth of training and in this case just two days ago supply them with 50

tons of ammunition. >> great. how many of these close calls have there been between russian aircraft, u.s. coalition aircraft, and where -- what city were they nearby or where was this incident on saturday? >> great questions to which i don't have any answers. i don't know. we should know that, so let me try and run that one down for you. it's, i mean, it's happened several times. it's not really a daily thing but, again, the russians have only been flying for not even two weeks yet. it's happened more with our drones where the russians will come and i think really they want to take a look at them. so we've seen instances where the russians are maybe they're flying a pattern, a combat air patrol somewhere. one of our drones or one of our uavs will be nearby, and the russian will break his pattern

and come over and take a close look at the drone or the uav. so that's kind of -- there's been much more of that. that's happened several times, a number of times. as far as the manned aircraft, it's been a very small -- i don't know the number. off the top of my head, i can think of two. there may have been two or three more. >> but you didn't say -- so he doesn't know where that incident took place on saturday? >> he took the question. >> all right, thank you. >> [inaudible] thanks, colonel warren, good seeing you. this opposition leader that was vetted, was he trained to call an airstrike, did the coalition tell this leader and others that you've been training that the coalition will provide air support against any threat that they come into encounter with during their fight against isil? and then i have one follow on the turkish border. >> so calling in airstrikes is

not necessarily a term, there was some instruction on how to contact us if you've identified a target. so that we can come and assist, if possible. details on under what conditions we will assist, again, right now these forces are only in contact with isil. so we will help them. as far as other forces, you know, frankly, the policy on that still needs a little bit of development. as it stands though, these forces are in contact with isil, and so we're going to provide them support. they're not near any oh forces -- other forces. they're in an area of the battlefield where there's isil and there's moderate syrian opposition. so we'll come help them as they're fighting isil.

and you said you had a follow up? >> on the turkish border, you mentioned that the syrian opposition had taken away all of the border except for about 68, 69 miles. and i think that's positive because of the reporting last i'd heard it was in the 90s, so they are cutting that border down. but 69 miles is still pretty significant amount of space. what is the biggest hold-up to that last 69 miles, and how is turkey helping with this fight to help close the border? >> yeah, 69 miles out of 600. so that's very significant. you know, it's, you know, not much left. and the problem is, you know, it's become a very hard fight. the enemy is dug in. again, you heard me say this before maybe, what we're seeing there is almost reminiscent of, you know, early 20th century

warfare. you know, static lines, trench lines, berms and very difficult combat, difficult to maneuver in. so that's the problem. the problem is, you know, a determined enemy that's dug in deep and difficult, difficult fighting. turks have been a great partner in this, and of course, our thoughts and our prayers go out to them in their recent tragedy, terrorist attack right in their own country. and the turks have been a terrific help to us in this. they have been participating as an active member of this coalition since the beginning and we continue to be appreciative of the efforts. >> hey, colonel, thanks for doing this. two questions, and you may have partially answered just one of 'em. the u.s. has previously said it would defend the u.s. trained rebels from attack including from assad's forces. does that apply to the syrian-arab coalition, or does

that just no longer apply to any of the rebels we are working with? and then my second question on saturday's incident with a russian air forces, in that case did u.s. air forces change course as in previous incidences with the russian air forces? >> christina, i don't want to give you bad information on the collective self-defense piece. i just don't want to give you bad information. we, of course, will, you know, our whole purpose for fly aring over syria is to strike isil targets, so if any forces are fighting isil, we will come and strike those targets. as we've already demonstrated, there was a situation where forces where we were supporting or with fighting al-nusra, we supported there.

assad regime forces, i just don't want to give you bad information, christina, so i'm -- i don't know. i'm going to have to say i don't know. i just don't know what the policy is there. on the saturday incident, my understanding is nobody had to change course in that case substantially. i think they just acknowledged, you know, visual, called back, continued on their missions. right now, to my knowledge, there's only been one incident, one case where the coalition pilots changed course, decided to approach a bombing run from are a different direction -- from a different direction simply because learn russian aircraft operating nearby. so -- no, i think we do owe you an answer on the assad defense, so we'll kind of, you know, i'll try to -- i'll run that answer down here with our lawyers and try to get back to you on that

one. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. expand to -- [inaudible] colonel -- [inaudible] from "the wall street journal." a quick question on the russian cruise missiles last week. did you have any advance warning of the missile launch, and there was no formal communication from the russians, then did you communicate to them the risks that may have been posed by those missiles? thank you. >> yeah, we had no prior warning here. we did not communicate anything to the russians. i can't speak for what happened in washington though, i can only speak for what's happened here. so we -- no. we here in the joint task force, we here in baghdad did not have any communications with the russians, nor did we have any prior notification. and i believe that the government of iraq here has also indicated they, too, did not have are prior notification. you'll have to check the record on that, but i think i've seen

some reporting in the iraqi press here that the iraqis were not notified either. which, again, thanks for the opportunity. case of reckless and indiscriminate conduct by the russians. >> hi, colonel, this is -- [inaudible] from asp. the kurdish militia has announced that it was -- [inaudible] coalition with the syrian-arab groups. i would like to know if the group to which you sent ammunition is part of that coalition are with the ypg, and i would like to know if that coalition, which is called the syrian democratic forces, could be a partner, could be a value to which you could send ammunition.

>> i saw some press reporting about this syrian democratic coalition. i don't know who the members of the coalition are. but what i do know is that if different ethnic groups are coalessing around this common enemy called isil, that's a good thing. so i don't have details on this particular group or newly-formed umbrella organization. i just don't have the details yet. it was only announced, i guess, publicly yesterday. maybe the day before. so i don't know. but what, again, what i do know is that anytime subgroups coaless around this -- coalesce around in this common enemy called isil, this is a good thing. and, you know, we will, as i think every leader in the u.s. government has said, we will

certainly talk with anyone who's willing to fight isil. >> and then david, then i think we're about out of time. >> hi, colonel -- [inaudible] from the washington examiner. what's going to happen to the u.s. troops that were doing the training of the syrian rebels? are they going to now be doing those couple days of training for the leaders, or are they going to be reassigned? >> jacqueline, that's still to be determined. many of those forces are continuing, there's one final class from the original program that remains in training, so they'll complete that training. exfiltrate -- or infiltrate that organization back into the fight when the time is right. and then to be determined on the way ahead there. no final decisions made. to my knowledge.

>> david. >> steve, dave martin. have you yet seen any information to corroborate the iraqi claim that they attacked a convoy carrying al-baghdadi and that he was seen being driven away? >> dave, the iraqis have since put out a statement indicating they do not believe baghdadi was in the convoy that they attacked yesterday. we agree with that statement that the iraqis have made. >> you had one follow up, go ahead real quick. >> yeah. the international -- [inaudible] has released a report which says the ypg forces have committed war crimes by demolishing the houses. a similar report was also published by the united nations

human rights watch. what would be your reaction to that? >> i'm aware that such a report has been published, although i have not seen it yet. apparently, it came out this morning. you know, anytime there are allegations of human rights violations, this is a concern to u.s. and coalition forces, and this is something we will have to address appropriately. >> all right. thank you, steve, more your time. thankthank you, everybody. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> thanks, guys. good to see you, hope to be able to do this again next week. have a good week. ..

when we take you to the national press club here in washington in just a couple of minutes for a look at future of kurdish people in iraq. hosted by colombia university. live at noon eastern, about three minutes from now. we'll have it here for you on c-span2. before we get to that, news from "the hill" this morning, sara ferris writes, planned parenthood announced tuesday it will no longer accept

reimbursements for donating fetal tissue to medical research, a practice that is legal under current law. the group's president, cecile richards disclosed policy change in letter to national institutes of health which was to explain an effort to take away bias or basis for attacking planned parenthood to advance a anti-abortion political agenda. she says in order to completely debunk the disingenuous argument that our opponents have been using and reveal the true political purpose of these attacks our federation decided going forward that any planned parenthood health center involved in donating tissue after an abortion for medical research will follow the model already in place at one of our two affiliates. currently facilitating donations for teethal tissue research. richards wrote all of that in a letter today. you can read more about that story in "the hill." go to thehill.com. live pictures from the national press club this morning. in just a couple moments we'll

hear the discussion of the future of the kurdish people in iraq. hosted by columbia university. should get underway in couple minutes here on c-span2. [inaudible conversations].

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[inaudible conversations] >> we're live inside of the senger room at the national press club. we're awaiting start of discussion on the future of the kurds in iraq. this is hosted by columbia university. expected to get underway in just a moment here on c-span2.