and good. news. it's device it's about topics that affect us all. climate change turns. out. costly and misleading. it was misunderstood by everybody are you going to let me finish. this same views about the end. so that simple late last year donald trump ordered and then partially halted the withdrawal of u.s. forces from syria causing many of his allies to doubt his commitment and reliability my guess this week here at the state department is ambassador james

jeffrey a special representative of the u.s. for syria in gauge meant can any of america's policies in that country deliver a successful outcome. james jeffrey welcome to cope with the thank you the sake of context here we go back to december last year the announcements by president trump. he had won basically over isis in syria and little u.s. troops would be coming home from syria was costly and misleading. it was misunderstood by everybody it was misunderstood person and made it clear at the time to us and to other leaders that he wasn't losing the bubble as we say on the fight against by. which you recognized could. constitute itself nor was he.

losing interest in syria he said at the time a that the united states would maintain its air cover over the not be that u.s. special operations personnel he made this point very clear publicly in all the all assad air base in telling the president and secretary of defense are you going to let me finish so. that we continue to deploy special forces troops into northeast syria to go after isis if they started showing signs of a threat it did cost him the resignation of his secretary of defense and my predecessor in the office that deals with can be combating this. because they disagree with the policy and quite a lot of blowback from the congress senator lindsey graham said it was a stain on the owner of the united states i did that it was disastrous to u.s.

national security how could a clever man like that in the u.s. and so this is going to be you go to it so rove the issue is that the president after listening to people including lindsey graham decided that he would keep it was a dual course on so there was a row back. the president after listening to people that he trusted decided that. and his eye was involved in these discussions including with lindsey graham and the reason is the president didn't want to have not he syria abandoned he thought that . as part of his overall. strategy of burden sharing that as the united states did the heavy lifting with at times 15000 ground combat forces in iraq and syria i'm not talking about the air power talking about helicopters helicopters we had a major force and they were involved in considerable combat that the follow on our

. stage 4 we call it the. stabilization phase could be done by perfectly competent forces from other coalition countries many of whom a nato countries we know the qualities a true i i that's what he wanted he told us to go out and find a country why couldn't they come up with say 500 or 600 or few more numbers of troops not a bad question however the answer we had to tell him was they would not commit to forces unless there were some american forces in the statement in december we have won against isis we've beaten them and beaten them badly you know isn't being borne out by defense and it was left last month to the lead inspector general of your anti isis in the heavens result of operation to inform congress of an altogether different reality you know in the history of 50 years roughly that i've been involved in wars i've really seen a statement by any victorious political force that is more close to the truth than

what donald trump said isis was unique in a way that focused the internationals attention from 2014 until about march of this year where is we all forgot about al qaida and why because al qaeda had gone away no all kiter is actually quite active in many different places and terrorism experts are worried about because isis created a state and an army of 30 $5000.00 troops commanded a population of $8000000.00 people with a budget of billions of dollars and now has resurgent cells in areas controlled by you going to let me finish some of you know this same views about the end. so that simple isis as a state in the unique threat that isis presented by its ability to project power into paris khan berlin and other places subnets. axin turkey. that

isis has disappeared and some of the very specific concerns we had particular about the stability of iraq and the region as a whole we now have isis as a terrorist i'm. going to say sion not all that different from al qaeda that is something that we worry about something that we focus on something that we're working on which is why we're keeping troops on which is why the coalition including some i can't tell you exactly how many but it's in the many thousands of some thousands of u.s. troops still in iraq to defy. in iraq and syria so it isn't that we thought the problem is gone away the problem just changed dramatically because we achieved a victory over isis as a political force trump was right in saying that what's been particularly damaging for you a suit syrian allies was the timing of this with the drooled the report from the inspector general said the reduction has decreased the support available to syrian

patna forces at a time when they need more training and equipping to respond to the isis was a combined joint task force also said the drawdown could cause those forces to move into the ships none of that is good is it if it were true it wouldn't be good because from the inspector general does that mean it's true. do you know him to be putting out full so you know inspector generals would not ever deliberately put out a false statements but they often put out in america statements based upon a misinterpretation of one sided information that they get from one or another source had they asked me which they probably should have as a state department official responsible for the political side in the fight against isis you would think that i would have been a reasonable person to chat with they didn't i would have told them you know. gee i've talked with these very same forces 8 times in the last 9 or 10 months and i haven't gotten any complaints about the level of american support even though we have in conjunction with president on to. conducted

a very significant deliberate drawdown of a large percentage of the forces we had there back in march period that's the 1st thing the 2nd thing is. i do not see a surge in isis i look at the actual number of attacks incidents and i such ansel's we would you listen again i did this for a living for 3 years in iraq every day excluding in parts of the time when i was the target and i wanted to every single attack that we were getting in iraq and i have a good idea of what an insurgency or a terrorist operation looks like in nazi syria looks nothing like that it's a handful of attacks a week with almost no lethal casualties that is very few people a dime this is in an area of 30 percent of all of syria the heartland of isis in 20132014 with. a population of several 1000000 people and we're getting 34 attacks 567-8910 attacks

a week you know is that more than we've got in the immediate aftermath of march absolutely and in terms of needing much training those s.t.'s forces and our people who are training them we're fighting a heavily armed conventional force that was dug in incredibly well with artillery with heavy mod is with minefields and everything else that is really an extremely difficult military mission what they're dealing with now is not easy it's counterinsurgency in a way it's counterterrorism it requires a different skill set some new training but i would really deny that that is more difficult than fighting isis when isis was building an army should the top general in the middle east commander in chief of the senior generals have known what was being because commander of u.s. forces in the middle east general joseph folks will confirm to congress in february he was neither informed nor consulted about the president's message is correct and that's a glaring omission on the glaring omission is too high. that's the kind of thing

that i see happening all the time in my government and every other government i deal with unfortunately people make decisions and it doesn't get out to the people in the field in time but the fact that it doesn't come through a tried and tested chain of command is that not worrying the chain of command the united states starts with the commander in chief he took the decision therefore it's a tried and true chain of command is but it's not communicated to the people who have to carry it out it's our it was communicated to the people who carried out what you're saying is shouldn't they have provided their advice to him before hand should they have been asked for the advice they. probably should have been asked for their advice their advice was that they would continue on. with a residual force as i said once the dust settled from the december decision the president listened to them and decided that he would go with a residual force. ambassador jeffrey view of views on how this disastrous war will end seem very different than disastrous war in syria and we're

seeing now we're talking about not the fight against isis which was anything but now we're talking about syria but the syrian internal conflict yes you have views on how this war will end a very different from those of you picture trumpeting president i mean in may you told congress experiences in any god might excuse me we'll probably see several other pathetic sorry and much broken ceasefires that will eventually slow down the conflict that for us is what victory looks like in this war but it's it's worse than that isn't it because the people you would see as the bad guys are winning. they continue to announce cease fires and. the cease fires continue to be broken down but in the last 13 months the regime has taken almost the bad guys if you will has taken almost no territory other than the area around.

khan shake in and just south of it live now we're very unhappy about that because we think it indicates that the regime is thinking again about a military victory and is being supported by the russians so the us this will be a major theme at the u.n. general assembly the russians can deliver that victory no the russians can deliver an advancement in the it live here is the problem is you have a turkish forces also in live to the north of there the russians do not have an answer to that and you have a turkish forces in what we call the euphrates shield area around. and in the afternoon and of course we have forces and we have other partner forces in that not least 30 percent of the country i don't think the russians have an answer and we have a residual force and tom from the south i don't think the russians have an answer to any of that and the russians tell us themselves and state publicly that there is no military only a political solution however it's on that side of the war so they did turn the tide

of office and could continue to do so if they were continue if they can get away with it to try to yes isn't the enduring lesson in this whole tragic who you can get away with mass murder torture and the repeated use of chemical weapons against your people what are the chances that president assad will have to stand trial in the war crimes tribunals pretty pretty close to 0 as navy secretary general just announced a board of inquiry we're expecting new reports from the o.p.c. w on chemical weapons use in 2017 as you know we twice the 2nd time supported by the french and british military action on. based of chemical weapons. and i think the regime we know the regime has taken that seriously he's used them $0.32 and since. we struck him twice he's been very careful. with only one possible use that we're still looking into. and that's been over a year and

a half so i would say that's an improvement the assad regime has been denied all reconstruction funds from the international community and from essentially every single nation state here under a very strong u.s. and e.u. sanctions and they're going to continue to be put under a lot of pressure whether assad ever stands trial for his walk rhymes of which there are many and he certainly deserves to that's another question but we don't see assad as having won this what we see assad as having. that it is not possible for the opposition militarily to win the war at this point that is what the russians and the iranians have provided assad but i'm busted if the taliban who continue to blow up the soldiers almost make its camp david on the side chop up the political opponents in the lie about it can have business as usual with washington that doesn't have much to worry about that. i would not compare him with either taliban who is a 2nd the saudis. you know i have

a very simple. but tried and true. attitude towards who you really worry about in this world. is basically an international auto horrible flawed that we in the u.s. are associated with as leaders much of the rest of the world particularly. your. view is and western europe in britain and elsewhere are all part of an beneficiaries of and then there are people who are trying to overthrow that order isis is one. among the others and we've listed them in the national security strategy is or in that puts arena in a totally different category and syria has allied itself with iran we see this in the introduction of iranian long range weapon systems of the sort that struck the saudi. petroleum installation over the weekend into syria. threatening israel and thus provoking israeli military responses which is further

complicated the. environment in syria that is you have several was happening simultaneously but the core of all of these wars is the rainy and expansionism in assad's facilitation of that county stabilizing do you think those attacks on saudi oil is that they see as well for the region well i'm not responsible for the region i'm responsible for syria in the fight against isis is that which is why it's destabilizing for the region if this is not this is a serious step in the wrong direction. we just in the woods will this was going to richard haass senior state department official. this is a step in the wrong direction for stabilisation in the middle east again if i were responsible foreign policy or middle eastern policy in and they're responsible for either i would be more quick caught but i'll leave it at that you talked about the

. new trying to have the threat. part of that will do should include justice shouldn't it and if people like us who you say we're not committed to any personality we're not trying to get rid of us by you know that of us i believe. personally as someone spent much of my life that a world order to be truly effective and to be. truly accepted around the world should include justice. but. i recognize that. that is not shared by everybody including much of the american public because once you accept that that is part of it that's. right to intervene or need to intervene this was very popular in the 1990 s. i was involved in the concept when i worked on bosnia the problem with that is that it gets you involved in every internal conflict because typically and every

internal conflict there are major and serious abuses of justice whether that is necessary for world order and not i would just say that's to be debated because the administration have an enduring interest into this just as it says it supports the international and cost of an independent mechanism to see if it does but why did it hold up money for last year the spike lee criticized for doing it. whether you fund something or not and whether you support something politically or 2 different things funding requires prioritization. stephen rapp form a state department ambassador at large for war crimes that the actual amount of the funding is only a fraction of the organizations budget but the symbolism of america reneging on its pledge to help was that the state. the united states including this administration has syria long as provided $10000000000.00 in humanitarian assistance and that is far more than any other country has done again one very

important part of america's view in this administration and at least in theory and prior administrations and i really here too is the idea of burden sharing for example the president before his decision to pull troops out of syria decided that we wouldn't be doing reconstruction funding in the northeast anymore and asked us to turn to other countries and we've been fairly successful collecting it but we have been criticized by the u.s. congress and by some of our partners but again this is a question of if you $100000000.00 look at how much money we've put into humanitarian assistance president trump but we use that. as part of a global coalition against isis global coalition in nato and several other coalitions with many of the same members whose total g.d.p. is roughly double that of the united states that we should not be paying the burden that we're paying and that is simply a view of his it was a view expressed for example in the nato 2 percent by the obama administration before him and it's a view that is held by the american people the american people do not like the deal

in which we have to pay a disproportionately high percent of the costs as well as be in most of the military risk. and losses in these international conflicts that's simply the way it is and i just go back to the issue of justice. because there is some of the willingness to look at allegations of war crimes committed by the coalition in syria amnesty international report that was prime the facia evidence that several coalition at that killed and injured civilians may flouted international humanitarian. be investigated this all 1st of all i'm not a lawyer but. international humanitarian law is not law. it is a political theory. if it's international what is international law are it's the geneva conventions that's where you define what crimes we look very carefully every

coalition strike we have seen no example of war crimes. absolutely not absolutely not but you would take part in any investigation to truth that define investigation find investigation by the mechanism to syria the international independent mechanism to see the u.n. has looked at this the i.a.m. has looked at all of these attacks they've raised questions we've provided answers to. your policy which you to kill 82 with syria has 3 strands doesn't enjoy ensure the enduring defeat of isis. which you've said it's to a terrorist organization so that it's going to keep you busy for a very long time 2nd priority to ensure a political process that will produce a different kind of government who will encourage people to come back and be a decent player in the international arena. has very little chance of that happening without set remaining in he's never going to be a d.c. is the. u.n.

security council voted 15 to 0 for exactly that result and resolution 2254 in december of 2015 it's not irresponsible of the united states to have as a political and diplomatic goal something that the security council has unanimously industries that are going to happen to find this guy well we hope it will but intil it happens we're going to continue our unrelenting pressure on their regime 20 months of bickering over 150 member committee to write the country a new constitution and the prospect of years of high dealing walkouts fights stretching into the distant future is that it or you just described the average diplomatic process that i get involved in. 100 times worse when you in doing it after a war of this nature i would say that every time you get people together saying in geneva which is the plan to start talking about a solution to

a military conflict as opposed to allowing this fighting to continue yeah that's a step in the right direction again we have seen only once in it live and it was a limited offensive it's an offensive a very unhappy about we're working on a u.n. security council resolution condemning it right now but that's been the only case in the last 13 months of fighting breaking out so i would say that we've had more success from 2018 to the present then we did from say 2015 to 2017 for example free and fair elections and has always been a refutation when you have that in the arab world apart from she needs you it's just beginning to well when they are booked as you have a lot of their rations. that's. free and fair elections is a standard that we apply that the u.n. applies certainly if you would ask the u.n. which managed i think now 5 or 6 elections going to last in iraq they would

basically give them fairly good. marks in terms of free and fair so they can do in iraq why can't they do in syria priority iran the removal of all of the rainy and c'mon dude forces from the inside it's you know syria that good is not going to happen the bill to their integrated with the soon to be its forces. a they're not integrated to define an integrated force is integrated in nato yeah they work together to the defense intelligence agency iran continues to field islamic revolutionary guard soldiers support the lebanese hezbollah command the shia foreign fighters in that what that includes militia from iraq pakistan and iran all true but they could leave tomorrow if there was a ceasefire that everybody believed in and. if there was a political solution to the water there would be no reason for these people to stay on the. threshold. i think that. it is. a fundamental policy that

if we do not find solutions to these issues that we've raised to 3 goals i have a different political solution in syria the withdrawal of all commander forces and . defeat of isis that we are going to be on the road to a much bigger and far more dangerous war in syria not only involving forces fighting the terrorist groups but potentially any one of the 6 armies counting the syrian that is present in or over syria today is a policy towards iran going to change. who is left. and i certainly know that i don't know of anybody in the u.s. government at any level that does not. on the region. and sees its use so. as we just saw this week. at the very top of the stretch to. regional security and we act accordingly ambassador james

jeffrey thank you very much. thank you.

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a trip to you know i would not have put myself and my harrison in the danger to move out of the game of the going to give us leave work. that one little bit of them i had serious problems on a personal level and i was unable to live there that much i'm going to. i want to know their story and for my good stir fighting global information for margaret's. sleep. carefully. don't know since she needs to be a good. match. discover the.

subscribe. documentary on you tube. this is a 15 year old girl. being gang raped. his teacher is beating a boy for talking back and class. for the rest of the class once as. i'm sure it's been said by his mother. breaking up last. a child sleeps in the streets because her family through right. here. online bullying. pushes a teenager over the edge. just because you can see violence against children doesn't mean others and there are the invisible visible of us might violence

against children disappear. this is g.w. news live from berlin tonight saudi arabia joins the united states accusing iran of sponsoring airstrikes on saudi oil fields last week at. this attack. was left again ist the kingdom of so did so the out of school or so dave yes it was and i was sold to the international community will saudi arabia is calling for an

international response as the key question remains unanswered where did the draw.