ashar bassad who we do not think has a role and primary root cause of this crisis. what is different this time and degree of hope is that as i said for the first time all countries on all sides of the syrian conflict agree on a process that is needed to end this war and so while we are very clear eyed about the very very difficult road still ahead, the united states and partnership with the coalition is going to remain relentless on all fronts, military, humanitarian and diplomatic. we have the right strategy and going to see it through. so with that i'm going to take some questions and i will begin

>> thank you, mr. president. 139 people killed in paris friday night. sending message they could not target all over the world and equation and time for strategy to change. >> keep in mind what we have been doing. we have a military strategy involves enormous pressure on isil and oil they are trying toship outside and we are taking

targets including most recently against the individual who was on the video executing civilians who had already been captured as well as the head of isil in libya, so not just iraq in syria and so on the military front we are continuing to accelerate what we do as we find additional partners on the ground that are effective we work with them more closely. i have already authorized additional special forces on the ground who were going to be able to improve that coordination. on the counterterrorism front keep in mind that since i came

about these kinds of attacks and every two weeks i meets and every single stream that is presented and shared immediately with the counterparts around the world including european partners. on aviation security we have over the last several years been working so that at various airport sites not just in the united states but overseas we are strengthening our mechanisms to screen and discover passengers who should not be boarding flights and improving the matters in which we are screening luggage that is going on board. and on the diplomatic front we

get all the parties together to recognize there's a moderate opposition inside syria that can form basis for a transitioned government and to reach out not only to our friends but also to the russians and iran the other side of the equation to explain to them that ultimately organization like isil is greatest danger to them as well as us. there will be an intensification of the strategy we put forward but the strategy that we are putting forward is strategy that ultimately is going to work but as i said from the start it is going to take time and aftermath listened to those that suggest

and things we are already doing and one exception is that there have been a few who suggested we put large number of u.s. troops on the ground and keep in mind that and finest military in the world and finest military minds in the world and i have been meeting with them intensively for years now discussing these various options and it is not just my view but the view of my closest military and civilian advisors that that would be a mistake. not because our military could

temporarily clear out isis but because we would see a repetition of what we have seen before if you do not have local populations that are committed to inclusive governance and who are pushing back against ideological extremes that they resurface unless prepared to have permanent occupation of the countries. let's assume that we were to send 50,000 troops into syria what happens when there's a terrorist attack generated from yemen and troops into there or libya perhaps or if there's a terrorist network that's operating anywhere else in north africa or in southeast asia. so a strategy has to be one that can be sustained and the

which focuses on going offer targets, limiting wherever possible the capabilities of isil on the groin, systemically going after leadership, infrastructure, strengthening, shia -- strengthening syrian and iraqi forces and kurdish forces prepared to fight them cutting off borders and ultimately be able to defeat them that's the strategy we will have to pursue and generate partners to the strategy and going to be some things we try that don't work and some strategies we do that do work and provide strategies that work we will double down on

margaret, cbs. >> iraq in syria failed to contain the apbition and ability of the isis to launch attacks in the west. have you underestimated abilities and will you widen rules of engagement for u.s. forces to take more aggressive action? >> this is precisely why we are in iraq as we speak and why operating in syria as we speak and it is precisely why we have mobilized 65 countries and why i hosted at the united nations an entire discussion of counterterrorism strategies and curbing the flow of foreign

foreign fighters in and out of syria and so accuse awareness on the part of the administration have the start that it is possible for organization like isil that has such a twisted ideologist and innocent lives they would have the capability strike in the west and because thousands of fighters have flowed from the west and european citizens a few hundred from the united states and far more from europe when the

impose a significant danger and we have consistently worked with european partners disrusting thoughts in some cases sadly this one was not disrupted in time and handful of people that don't mind dying they can kill a lot of people and one of the challenges of terrorism and not their sophistication and particular weapons they possess but it is the ideologist they carry with them and willingness to die and most circumstances tracking each individual and

preventing the attacks is constant and narrative creating make attractive to recruits and i said that we are containing their spread in iraq and syria control lester tory than they did last year and more we shrink the territory the less they can pretend somehow a functioning state and more it becomes apparent that they are simply a network of killers brutalizing

to reduce the foreign fighters and in time lessen the numbers of terrorist who can potentially carry out and terrible acts like they did in terrorist and that's what we did with al-qaeda. that doesn't mean al-qaeda no longer possessing the capability of potentially striking the west al-qaeda and peninsula that operates in yemen we know tried to target the west and we are consistently working disrupt those acts but despite the fact we have not gotten as much attention as isil they still pose a danger as well so goals here consistently have to be

and also recognize this is not conventional warfare and play into the isil narrative and into a state and we use routine military tactics that are designed to fight a state that is attacking another state. these are killers with fantasies of glory who are very savvy when it comes to social media and able to infiltrate the minds of not just iraqis or syrians and individuals around the world and when they activate the individuals, those individuals can do a lot of damage. and so we have to take the approach of rigorous on our counterterrorism efforts and consistently improve and figure

information, how we can infiltrate the networks, how we be reduce the operational space even as we also try to shrink amount of territory they control to defeat the narrative. ultimately to reclaim territory from them ending of syrian civil war and why diplomatic efforts are so important and iraqi efforts with the differences of shuni differences and diplomatic differences inside iraq are important as well. jim? >> thank you, mr. president. in the days and weeks before the paris attacks would you receive warning in daily intelligence

imminent, if not does that not call into question the current assessment that there's no immediate specific credible threat to the united states today? secondly address critics and another middle east war and your preference of diplomacy overusing the military makes the united states weaker? >> jim, everyday we have threat streams coming through the intelligence transit and as i said every several week we sit down with all my intelligence we discuss threat streams that may

about potential isil attacks in the west have been there for over a year now and they come through periodically. there were no specific mentions of this particular attack that would give us a sense that something that we need -- that we could provide french authorities, for example, or act on ourselves. typically the way intelligence works and threat stream that is from one source and unreliable of the source and perhaps signal intelligence gets picked up, it is evaluated. some of it is extraordinarily vague and unspecific and there's no clear timetable. some of them may be more

down that threat to see what happens. i'm not aware of anything that was specific in the sense that would have given a premonition of particular action in paris that would allow for law enforcements or military actions to disrupt it. with respect to the broader issue of my critics and answer the question earlier i think when you listen to what they actually have to say what they are proposing most of the time when pressed they describe things that we are already doing and member we are not aware we are already doing them and some of them seem to think i'm more bellacoase in expressing what we

difference because that seems to be the only thing that they are doing is talking as it if they are tough but i have seen particular strategies they would suggest that would make a real difference. few exceptions. primary exception is those that would deploy u.s. troops on large scale to retake territory either in iraq or now in syria and at least they have honesty to go ahead and say that's what they would do. i just addressed why i think they are wrong and well meaning and don't doubt sincerity when it comes to the issue of the dire humanitarian situation in

for no-fly zone and safe zone of some sort and this is an example of kind of issue where i will sit down with our top military and intelligence advisors and we will painstakingly go through what does something like that look like? and typically after we have gone through a lot of planning and a lot of discussion and really working it through and counterproductive and take the steps in part because isil does not have planes and attacks are on the ground, true safe zone requires us to set up ground operations and bulk deaths occurred in syria, for example, have come not because of regime

ground casualties and come out of the safe zone, and become a magnet for further terrorist attacks and how many personnel would be required and how would it end and whole set of questions that have to be answered there and point is this, jim and my only interest is to end suffering and keep the american people safe and if they are a good idea out there then we will do it. don't think i have shown hesitation to act and with respect to bin laden and with respect to sending additional troops in afghanistan or keeping nemarshfield there and determined it is actually going

what i do not do take actions either because it is going to work politically or it is going to somehow in the abstract make america look tough and make me look tough and maybe part of the reason is every two months i go to walter reed and see 25-year-old kid paralyzed or lost his limbs and some of those are people i ordered into battle and so can't afford to play some of the political games that others made. we will do what's required to keep the american people safe and i think it is entirely

a serious debate about these issues. folks want to pop off and have opinions about what they do present a specific plan and somehow think the advisors think they are better than chairman of joint chief of staff and folks each on the ground i want to meet him and we can have the debate but what i'm not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion american leadership or america winning or whatever other slogans they come up with that has no relationship

work and protected the american people and protect people in the region who are getting killed into protect the allies and people like france. i'm too busy for that. >> i wanted to go back to something you said earlier to margaret earlier when you said you had not underestimated isis abilities and organization you once described as jv team that evolved into a forest now occupied territory in iraq and syria and now able to use that safe haven to launch attacks in other parts of the world. how is that not underestimating the capabilities and how is that contained quite frankly and a lot of americans had frustration they see the united states has greatest military in the world, has backing of nearly every other country in the world when it comes to taking on isis.

language why can't take out them? >> i don't know what more you want me to add but described what the strategy is and described very specifically why we do not pursue some of the other strategies that have been suggested. we can retake terror threat tore and he as long as leave our troops there we can hold it and does not have underlying problem

extremist groups. and so we will continue to pursue the strategy that has the best chance of working even though it does not offer the satisfaction i guess of neat headline or immediate resolution and part of the reason as i said, jim, there are costs to the other side. i want to remind people this is not abstraction. when we send troops in, those troops get injured. they get killed. they are away from the families. our country spends hundreds of billions of dollars and so given the fact that there are enormous sacrifices involved in any

don't have any shoot first and aim later. it is important for us to get the strategy right and strategy that we are pursuing is the right one. ron allen. >> thank you, mr. president. i think a lot of people around the world and america are concerned because given the strategy that you're pursuing and it has been more than a year now, isis' capability seems to be expanding. where you aware that they had the capability of pulling off the kind of attacks they did in paris? are you concerned and do you think they have that same capability to strike in the united states and do you think that given all you have learned about isis over the past year or so and given all the criticism about underestimating them do you think you really understand

them and to protect the homeland? >> so this is another variation on the same question. let me try it one last time. we have been fully aware of the potential capability for them carrying out attack and precisely why we have been mounting a very aggressive strategy to go after them. as i said before, when you're talking about the ability of handful of people with not wildly sophisticated military equipment weapons who are willing to die, they can kill a

them from doing so is challenges for every country. and if there was a swift and quick solution to this, i assure you that not just the united states but france and turkey and others who have been subject to these terrorist attacks would have implemented those strategies. there are certain advantages united states has in preventing these kinds of attacks. obviously after 9/11 we hardened the homeland, set up whole series of additional steps to protect aviation, to apply lessons learned and seen much better cooperation between the fbi, state governments, local

advantages to geography with respect to united states but having said that we have seen the possibilities of terror attacks on the soil. there's the boston marathon bombers. obviously it did not result in the scale of death that we saw in paris but it was attempt killing a lot of people by two brothers and crock pot and it gives you some sense i guess the kinds of challenges going to be involved in this going forward. so again, isil has serious capabilities, capabilities are not unique. capabilities other terrorist organizations that we track and paying attention to and possess