>> it is my pleasure to introduce and most of you know him general john kelly, commander of u.s. southern command. general kelly: thanks. to those of you that i know, hello, and great to see you again, and two new friends, hopefully we will have a great relationship that starts now. i just came from my hearing on thend i appeared there with north calm commander. -- northcom commander. topics were russia, gitmo, venezuela. they are fascinated when we talk about this network that leads from around the world of into the western hemisphere and into the united states, mostly now through mexico, but the isthmus.

then the bright shiny object is islamic terrorism and extremism. --t came up as well, and took all the questions that had to do with northcom. hour, i guess, and here we go. clarification from what you said earlier today, and then a question on extremism. interdictou expect to 20% of the drugs coming in? general kelly: the collective is supposed to get 40%. somewhere in the past someone said if you took 40% of the cocaine flow that something would happen. i do not know what. i was not here then. i do not know what is supposed

to happen at 40%. a good number. we're worried about 15% to 20%. cias hard to -- dea and do the best they can to reduce the amounts produced, but it is a decentralized production operation, and i think you know this, but we get all of our cocaine from colombia and they do heroic things to fight that battle for us. their number three used to be number one. number one is peru, number two is bolivia. peru is to trip in terms of their cooperation with us, and we help them go after the cocaine. of anyzero cooperation kind from bolivia, and that is too bad because we would like to help them deal with the problem that they have, because even though these countries are not user countries for the most money usedmount of

for intimidation, death, is astronomical. moves up andse up her win moves up to the isthmus, it is violent and it has impacted these countries terribly in terms of the legal violencepolice cannot against anyone, women, kids. it is really horrible. reporter: you made a comment about -- think people have gone from the caribbean to syria. can you give us a little it more depth on where they are coming from, what you think they are doing, and have have you seen any indications these have tried to come back? general kelly: a small number reportedly that have radicalized one way or another in the united states, much larger numbers in western europe going to the

fight, and syria, i would expect while they are in syria they will get good at killing and pick up some real job skills in terms of explosives and the headings and things i bet. eheadings and things like that did if they went over radicalized, you would expect they would come back at least that rag allies, but with good job skills they picked up in the fight. to have any indication now of any scheme to attack the united states? no, but the smaller countries, they do not -- we take for granted in the united states that we have a functioning legal justice system, and fbi, layers of clean policemen and women. a lot of these countries do not have that. so when these people return, or where we canurn, monitor them, check them, know

when they might be coming back to the united states, if they were from the united states, trinidad, jamaica, places like that, sir nine, small numbers -- surinam, they do not have the ability to take those folks. from a recruiting point of view, like our country in western europe, some get recruited or radicalized off the net, the homepages and whatnot, but there radicaluple of pretty mosques in the region. some of the places i just mentioned. that is how -- radical mosques in the region. 100 is not seem like a lot, and is not come up the little countries they come from, a total inability to do with that, that is what their concern is. reporter: those countries are the main ones -- general kelly: jamaica, trinidad and thobago, venezuela,

surinam. reporter: if the u.s. is helping hearinguntries, in your you said if and when those guys could come through the same networks that come through the border, we are talking at the isi at the border threat? general kelly: in general, the countries in the western hemisphere do not have nearly the ability to attract people do, fbi, homeland security, databases and that kind of thing. you are in this part of the world, you travel freely between countries. there are legal ways to do it, but there are simply people walking across borders, and as i've described many times, the network that comes through the isthmus and mexico that carries anything on it -- not to take

anything away from the department of homeland security men and women, at the at, they do an immaculate job, but the amount of movement is what i --nk overwhelms our ability and sophistication of the network overwhelms our ability to stop everything. so i think if they get back to some of these countries that i have described, it is easy for them to move around. reporter: as far as how the u.s. -- general kelly: depending what country is, we share a great deal of either intelligence or information. we have worked out some ways as an example to share information with some of these countries that then interdict drug movements, as an example. it is not technically intel, but information. there are other countries we share information with. i do some of that, but some of our intelligence agencies -- law enforcement is huge in -- we think of dea agents working the

streets of boston or something there theyibut have networks that they work with, very cooperative police institutions that work with dea and fbi and other countries like appeared other countries, they are pretty much on our side in any -- ofight and terrorism. reporter: this morning you said sequestration would eviscerate your capacity. i was one of personal -- general kelly: "eviscerate"? reporter: i got "he this rate." == "eviscerate." p3'sral kelly: we have navy

that fly over the caribbean. we periodically get j-stars. j-stars is a game changer because it can see the entire caribbean and into the pacific. b-52 sortiesse that are carrying sensor packages, and we have contract isr that we simply pay for and try to fill in the gaps. we do not get an awful lot of -- loseter: where would you the most capability and how would you make up with that t sequestration -- general kelly: we would lose if the percent of the isr we have not, but we would lose the navyp3's that would be hit pre-heart. they would have to prioritize within their own agency to decide what they are going to

keep doing. the same would apply to the coast guard cutters. guard, the commitment is doubled, but that only takes it to five. if he was hit by sequestration. he would have to make it his own priorities, could he make it the drug fight, does he focus more is hehow are you doing -- focusing closer in? takes money tor contract if you do not have the money. that would fall through quickly. you talked about -- i was wondering if you could walk to the process and once that would be resolved, what steps

will be taken next? general kelly: we have two judges that put temporary orders in place that restricted the use of female guards because they are female. call me crazy, sounds like gender discrimination, but i am not a lawyers why cannot make that determination, nor am i a judge. under certain circumstances. when we move them to do certain things, we cannot use female guiards. when we move them to do other thing, they are fine with the female guards. you can see they are master manipulators, and in a very real open we are part -- we ourselves to this. anyways, we had two judges, two separate orders, so they can study the problem. in the meantime, the guards

follow the order, even though i that i am almost ashamed that i am doing it because i am discriminated against, my soldiers, because they are female. they are trained, capable, ready. so the first group, they turned over in december, and ironically a number of the women that worked at that particular camp were national guard and they were prison guards in their other life. the thing they could understand was in the prisons we work in, we work with men on the time, muslim men all the time. -- apparently, i am told there is all sorts of case law that allows exacting what we were doing with the women. long story short, we were restricted. this happened about november. of the judges, military judges, lifted the temporary order, but we still have one in andcase of of some other -- i misspoke this morning. five andere was a 9/11

another one. then 15 of the soldiers then come in the normal equal opportunity process, anyone for any reason, if they feel they have been disseminated against complaint, and 15 of the guards did that. seven or eight of them were men, and the rest were women. the governing document for us is andarmy regulation 600-20, it requires an investigation. it then requires to try to settle the issue, so we sent e-star because the judges are kernels and the tenants, we had to send an investigating officer that is more senior to those two. so we sent the one-star navy admiral down. we kept the complaint informed

and briefed up at which is part of the process. signedmander at gitmo off on it. it was found to be discriminatory. cannot be do anything about it. we hope that the second judge lifts the order, and we are just back to normal. but we do not know. judge does note lift that, what is the process going forward? general kelly: i understand there is an appeal process. reporter: [indiscernible] it is out of my hands if it goes to that point. reporter: i am from french television. what is your view on the 9/11 to the thinking that this trial is never going to happen? that is my first question. my second question, do you think onentanamo will close m

day? general kelly: i wish you had not asked any of those questions. i do not run the commissions. i support them. ae commissions -- there is commissions process, a law, you know that. i know they are frustrated. all i can tell you is once again my defense is always another look -- i am not a lawyer, i am is simple marine, i know right from wrong, but i do not know what the contributions are, so i should not comment on the length of time that commission is taking because i do not know what the process is in that courtroom. mark martin is the head prosecutor. i'm confident mark is doing whatever he needs to do to push this thing along. the families are very frustrated. the other question is about closing gitmo.

guantanamo naval bases a hugely useful facility to the united states. and one of the big things -- i migrationsion in mass type scenarios, and this happened before, and it happens pretty regularly where we pick tians that are trying to go somewhere else, they are brought to gitmo, and they are under dhs authority at that point, and they repatriate. i listen to their stories and make a decision if they go to haiti or back to the united states. when that process gets overwhelmed, and the last time it got really overwhelmed was in the mid-1990's when 47,000 haitians, and who knows how many died, the u.s. coast guard, navy saved all of these lives, move them to guantanamo, and then the military then does not take

responsibility for it, but houses them, takes care of them. hs is still in charge. that's dhs is still in charge. youeed them in the way that and particularly has got guidelines for refugees, and and we assist at dhs repatriate them. it is a very useful base. if you are talking about guantanamo in terms of detention ops, i do not know. the president wants to close it, and until that happens, i will prisonersof those in a dignified way that sees to their every need. reporter: in talking earlier about the situation with female guards, the second judge is the holder. these arelly: commission judges. this is not an federal system, but the commissions. reporter: also this one, talking about guantanamo, you mentioned

some of the pretty abusive behavior, of some of the hard-core types toward the guards frick you mentioned -- toward the guards. what happens when one of them is abusive? general kelly: splashing, if you do not know, they concoct a cocktail, usually feces, urine, vomit, and when the guard comes to take their trash or move them debt each one of the guards, -- each one of the detainees, whether in the sommunal setting, living a a group, or in individual cells, but in the individual cells they have to get recreation time every day, have to get -- go out to the playground -- playground -- the rec field, they go to that. when the guard moves them to

watch a mover, they will splash them. that is a form, and it is a vile. they can also assault the guards. that is when we move them we move them, and there is a certain way -- the department federal bureau of prisons has the guidelines for this. it is the same way they are moved if they are in the state prison. the state prison in any state in the union can federal prison system, leavenworth, what a coke brig,venworth, quantico there is an accepted practice, act off fromt protecting them. if one of my trips gets killed or seriously injured, loses an eye, that is mission failure for me down there. we sometimes will have a detainee be very corporative for a long time, and the first tryrtunity he gets, he will

to scratch an eye out or assaulted. i will not back off on the common procedures for movement of these guys from one point when other. that said, the folks in communal, they live in a week communal pod. they have individual cells that they go in and out of, but they have about 22 hours and day where they can walk outside on their own into the that the brick ration field, play soccer, read a book, and it is very much -- it is nothing like prison. it is everything like a detention facility that is well run. golock them down -- they into their cells and night and for about two hours, and then we have like the preventive medicine people come in, making sure their cleaning the place up and there is no -- make sure the place is sanitary enough to live in. search cellsmly for contraband of one kind or another. i do not know if i have answered your question, but the assault detainees from the

who are in the single cells. in the communal setting, which is what we prefer, because it is in a the guard force and we're the good guys and we would like to see them at least in the minimal setting in terms of restriction, but if they go after one of my guards or do something like assault a guard, then we will move them to a single cell for a period of time. and that varies. [indiscernible] you saw the country was imploding. could you address what do you think of some of these accusations that have been launched against united states recently, the apprehension of

what they said was the u.s. pilot? general kelly: the air force pilot. reporter: what is going on there, and the country has experienced coups before. what you think the risks are that it could degenerate into that? general kelly: the first thing i would say about venezuela, it is because they are sitting atop the largest oil reserves on the planet. they have nothing but fiscal potential. but over the years, due to a number of decisions made eye the government -- by the government, the has atrophied to the point now where you have unbelievable inflation rate of 65, 75, 80%. -- thewho tells you charging of the country says now it has gotten to the point like in the old soviet union, if you see a line, you get in the line because you do not know what is in the line, but something must

be at the end of the lung so you get in the line and it might be isad, no, toilet paper that a critical eye demand. everybody talks about the lack of toilet paper in the country. that is where the place is economically. where the place is from a political point of view, and obviously he has cut down pretty well on the newspapers, on the media, there is a fair number of people being arrested that are in the opposition. i think the opposition it has gone from being a political opposition to an enemy now. real restrictions on them. coup? i do not know anyone who would want to take that mess over, but whether be that we see, at the end of his term or wherever, i would not say a -- the same ruling party makes some arrangement to change leadership. i am not involved in any way,

shape, or form with coup planning. i do not know of anyone that is. i would probably know if someone was, and as far as the air force -- they claimed it was a air force pilot. this would be a question for the state department. but i believe it was a u.s. pilot spirit you have to flights all of the drug come out of venezuela. a lot of people in cahoots with this whole thing, because it cannot possibly operate without -- and those rug flights are to believe making their way up the to get toin, trying puerto rico, maybe the dominican republic, or they were going in august exclusively into honduras. these are drug strips or roads where they land, offload, and then they take off again, or just destroy the airplane. that we see them now going deeper further, as the hondurans, with no military help

from us, but some advice and some encouragement, have started to occupy -- they have moved their military -- and these are very remote areas of honduras, on the caribbean side -- they have moved their military out there, and the drug traffickers know they are there, and they have started to deflect the drug so in another direction. reporter: that is a civilian -- an air force: pilot, and the chances are he was on his way -- i do not know what he was doing. all the drug flights that come out of venezuela. tony? you alluded to the old soviet union. you said that putin's policies are leading to a return to cold war tactics. help concerned are -- how concerned are you that the tactics could translate into a confrontation between the u.s. vessels and a soviet -- russian reconnaissance vessel as you

talked about, or bomber patrol, if in fact they have not? how concerned are you that a confrontation could escalate, not like the missiles of october type of scale, but another jfk -- but on a lower level? general kelly: i do not think much at all. i think they are just a nuisance to me. we watch them come, we watch them go. very little possibility of than actually having a confrontation with u.s. ships or airplanes because i do not have any down there. cannot liken it that -- [laughter] general kelly: pastor we saw for the first time since 2008, we force,hree-ship task cruiser, destroyer top ships, and then a military ships, came to the caribbean, they stop that venezuela once or twice, went to cuba once or twice, went to nicaragua, steamed around a

back toit, and went russia. we had a long-range bomber mission, come down, spend a few finally did some airspace, not ours, but another country's, and then it went home -- there is reportedly nicaragua and a few of those other countries, entered into discussions of agreements, with the russian so that they could , but not bases or anything like that. i do not think there is an issue. reporter: are you concerned that russia in a somewhat tipped for tap would become more of a nuisance in your part of the world just to show they are there? think so, but i more of a nuisance, not a threat.

none since 2008 or something. you ratchet it up with a few more bomber missions that gets people's attention, obviously, navy ship operations that kind of thing. he has making his point that they can come into our hemisphere, but there's very little support -- the vast majorities of countries like the united states want to associate with us, like the fact we are equal partners, want to trade with us. so nuisance would be the word i would use. reporter: hi, general. was of america. i had a follow-up on the statement about history mists you mentioned. now that you have identified a potential weakness, what are you recommended as the solution? are you recommending more funding to countries that would include venezuela to help them track people where they know they arrest political prisoners? greece suggesting we do more isr

sharing with these countries? what is the solution to stop the islamic state from using this loophole to kind of get to the united states? general kelly: really, the solution -- i think in many ways they are in place. fbi, and theia, way they interact with their counterparts in various countries. a willingness for all the countries in the western hemisphere, pretty much all of them, to cooperate with the united states and other nations. you got to watch them. the cia and the fbi and people like that to a really good job of the network, but it only takes -- there is a lot of people coming and going and it only takes one to cause you problems. agreer me, i continue to -- to the degree that i can to partner with countries that want to partner with the united

states, which is most of them. i very good relationships. my intelligence officer has great relationships with all of their command intelligence officers. my intelligence officer, my navy commander, he has close relations with all of the naval cno's. my army component out of san antonio, same thing. we have very good friends. asl to mill, as well directly to presidents and ofitary's -- ministers defense and foreign affairs. that is the solution, the cooperation piece. this is the last question. reporter: [indiscernible] the united states in joining exercises going on in south navy helicopter sensors

during these exercises -- could you please -- general kelly: i know absolutely nothing about that. i really do not know anything about that issue. i do know that the various ships and vessels that are produced in south korea are considered to be very high quality and the south american countries who are in talks with purchasing some of the smaller naval vessels. the reputation of your naval shipyards is very, very high in the region. one more? reporter: the russian thing, general, you will know that we have had quite a lot of flybys around the u.k. one of the things that has come out of that is as aircraft have refused to communicate in any way. have your people made any attempt to communicate any of these aircraft were ships that have been in the caribbean? general kelly: not in the

southern command. that would be a question for the norad folks. air they have entered the of operations i response before, we do not try to -- and they did not do anything hazardous. they just landed where they landed. one country got a little concerned. they have just been off course a little bit. and one question more. reporter: my question is about one of the units, the national defense university. my organization published yesterday findings that the center -- two professors that ombia,een -- in colu and what is now teaching at the national defense university.

i am wondering if you have any thoughts on that and if you have any thoughts about the vetting process. i wish it didn't work for me, but i did not hear about the chilean. i do not know about the colombian, and i do not know how the professors. i am very heavily involved in human rights. i meet with the human rights groups here in washington about every three or four months, and spend a couple or three hours talking to them. they share their concerns. sometimes they will ask me about specific cases. i can pick up a defense minister in guatemala or simply high up in honduras and can you give me some situational awareness on that. dialogue.od when i travel to the bears

countries, just about every time i go down there, to any country, i will have a discussion for a couple hours with local human rights groups. i was just in cartagena. i never know what i'm going to get, because they have's all specialties. i was in cartagena recently, and to build that were very involved lbgtelping team writes -- writes general, but i get questions about it, but it is caught me off guard for i have ever sat down and had a long conversation with people who are experts in that field. women's rights -- there was another couple of representatives, and then the probably 30% of the colombian that are african disescent. getting a novel a lot of awareness from them. what was interesting to me, and what i get out of these is are

they talking generally about these rights or violations of rights in the society, or are they talking about the government doing something? bia case it is never about the government doing this, it is more about the societal attitudes and how it will take time to change these things, and that is very telling, because there are other countries you good to come where you got to get the president to stop his people from doing x, y, and z. the other thing in colombia, completests have to do with way in the past or farq. human rightt serial abuses, most of them for their existence, but the colombian government has got some human rights issues in the past and they are working those, investigating them. does those.

generally speaking, there are pre-high marks about how things are going today. the hondurans, which has taken off kind of the bad boy list from the oas, which is a new thing. i do not know if that answers your question. back to the vetting, i note this other gentlemen -- i know this other gentlemen is working who has the accusations from colombia? notrter: reports are publicly available. general kelly: if you say it is widely known, then there's probably some process they are going through. thanks for the question. ok, thanks, everyone.