troop levels in afghanistan. what is the current level of our troops in afghanistan?ow many more could be added? good question, because depending on what you are reading, you will see a 9500 oromewhere around 8600. arequestion is if you counting people who are permanently stationed or temporarily stationed. you hear another number of 6800 which is for training and assisting people. the is not listed are contractors supporting those people. if you added up, you can come up with very different totals. what do you think the administration is looking at when it comes to how many more that could be added? numbers whichad are not official are 3000 5000. we heard a figure from 4000 that was floated, but secretary mattis stated in his testimony there has not been a decision yet to increase troops at that time. "4000 more troops for afghanistan?" there could be good reasons why. i want to read a portion of what you wrote. you wrote that a u.s. commander in afghanistan first made a public request for several thousand more troops in early february. it is now late june. the campa

it's like afghanistan. it's -- destroyed but it hasn't collapsed and this is how -- the hope they have. but on the other hand side if you say we want to show there's peace, the whole reconstruction is taking place behind huge walls for security. and high security. so this already shows, she ies to keep the hope but she told me in the car later on she has experienced three times, blasts very close to her. and she said after that, i'm always so afraid when only cars are approaching me. but then she said again, but we have to live, we have to go on. so she tries to cope. peter: give us a word on how important women are for the future of afghanistan, how important they can be. susanne: women have always kept the society together. at the end of the day, the men are out, fight, the women are keeping the families together and raising the kids and everything. and they're very strong. it's not that they are really weak and we have to say we have a complete new generation of women whoo can speak other languages, who

if you look at afghanistan and syria, you have isis k in afghanistan, the taliban in afghanistan. there's fissures between those groups and then there's everybody else. syria, same thing. six or seven different organizations with different agendas and the military can't fix that. mattis think secretary is a military genius, he understands how to navigate these different elements of national power, we need to talk more than just generals. this is, another 10 to 15 year to military input to the national strategy. if we think the military is going to fix this, we are mistaken and we are just going to be investing in another 10 to 15 years of military action with no true tangible result. people of spent time in that region, if we are going to do it, be prepared to be there for another 10 or 15 years. host: one of the most recent actions was the dropping of that bomb on the caves in afghanistan. in april, president trump spoke about that the white house. here's what he had to say. [video clip] so proud trump: we are of our military and that was another successful event. everybody knows

was talking about it invading afghanistan that the enormity of the problems that the u.s. has created in afghanistan is hard to describe at this point the talk about throwing money at a problem there were literally times when the u.s. was flying in big airplanes with just stacks of cash and then the cia was handing them over in an attempt to buy different parts of the countries by warlords in different parts of the country kole law so mistakes about dams that are built that are not that are not used or don't function ways in which the u.s. occupied parts of the country and then had to withdraw and then tried to retake those parts of the country it really is just simply a failure and you don't have to believe a quaker lobbyist you can look at the inspector. no role for the department of defense and some of the reports that they've done of just the big failures in this whole occupation but i think there's a bigger picture here and the bigger picture is we keep thinking as a country that if we send more military troops that's going to somehow being bring peace to afghanistan

host: what years did you serve in afghanistan? caller: served in 2008. host: when you left afghanistan, what was your thought of on how long there would be an american presence there? caller: well, i was told it was going to be about 20 years to win over the youth. that's what i was told. and that was the thing. and it was a peacekeeping mission, but it actually turned otherwise in 2008. but i believe that had we went up and got bin laden, that the americans would have got him, and then we could have had a peacekeeping mission. but if it turned kinetic, as it did, well, then we could just leave, there's nothing -- you know what i mean? i'm not saying leave them, but, you know, if that's -- the people don't stand up for them, because three or four guys can hold a whole village. host: and what do you think about the prospect of, the likelihood of more american troops going back to afghanistan? caller: well, when i was there, the rules of engagement were very, very strict. and i think rightly so, because you can't just shoot people because they think they'r

allies are not countries are not bringing peace to afghanistan you know afghanistan was this as i recall the second poorest country in the world after burkina faso i think in you know when we first started bombing them they had an annual g.d.p. of two billion dollars you know we're spending two billion dollars every day it seems i mean we did you know we spent a trillion dollars there if we could have just poured money on them which george w. bush actually did in the first six months of his presidency when he went to mullah omar and said we'll give you twenty million dollars if you are thirty or forty was in somewhere in the neighborhood if you'll burn the opium poppies which they did you know it's like and then and then after nine eleven well all maher offered to arrest bin ladin and send him to a third country for trial and bush said no i would rather bomb your country how how out of. proportion is all of this well you're reminded that the vice president at the time said you could make the rubble balance ignore when the u.s. was talking about invading afghanistan that the enormity of t

>> pakistan is a key to afghanistan and its security. ensuring that economy does not have sanctuary in south asia. making sure secure border between afghanistan and pakistan is critical. that's one of the interdependent variables. >> to talk about going back to syria. can you talk about the role in iran is playing in syria? is it increasing, in particular the hezbollah >> iran is playing unhelpful role in syria and middle east. some of you may have heard me describe it this way. again, iran, unlike the united states and coalition, is not focused on isis in of syria. iran is focused on propping up the regime committed atrocities in the civil war. addressing the grievances of the save war and syria will be necessary for us to have peace and stability and have a sanctuary for violent extremism. >> staying in the region, are you concerned about any long term implications of the current gulf crisis on regional security and has the crisis affected u.s. military operations in the region? you said something last week on capitol hill that your op

in the last two years well to discuss the situation in afghanistan. political writer and journalist joins me live now on the program hi there don yes so first of all with the taliban extending its presence is needed is decision to deploy more troops the right one. no i don't think so and i don't think it's really to do with defeating the taliban i think we have to to really understand the purpose of nato and the west involvement in afghanistan is really to maintain the relation of colonial dependency on the west of that country. so that they want to deploy enough just enough troops to keep the government just about empower the afghan government just about in power and to keep it dependent on western military aid for its existence and its survival but not enough troops to actually to defeat the taliban or indeed isis so i think what we're seeing here this pouring of more troops into afghanistan is actually just readjusting the balance to maintain the this kind of balance because actually what we're seeing is increasingly afghanistan turning to friendly

about whether or not additional forces allocated to afghanistan. has that decision been made? how many are going and when are they going? how is that going to unfold? >> let me see if i can probably answer that question in a few -- and a few others. first of all, no decision has been made with regard to deployment of additional forces in afghanistan. one decision that was made by the president was to delegate that decision to secretary mattis. but also, this is what's important and probably has been under reported, secretary mattis's decision about additional forces in afghanistan will be made in the context of a broader strategy review for south asia that is ongoing and is expected to report back in the middle of july. when secretary mattis makes a decision about force level which he will communicate to the president, secretary of state and the guidance direction that he received is to do that in conjunction with the secretary of state. when secretary mattis makes that decision about force levels you can expect that he will communicate that in a b

from kabul afghanistan. meanwhile a government watchdog agency is accusing the pentagon of way seemed twenty million dollars of taxpayers' money on what they're calling inappropriate uniforms for the afghan army the special inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction issued a seventeen page report on tuesday telling the so-called inappropriate force pattern camouflage uniforms despite the fact that force make up only two point one percent of ghana stands to rain snow as national climatic data center characterizes the country as mountainous experiencing both cold and snowy winters and hot and dry summers afghanistan is described as being within the desert climate classification according to the reports a former defense minister quotes like what he saw online while the uniforms uniforms rather were then chosen by the afghan defense ministry. and yemen is now experiencing what the un has described as the worst color out early outbreak on the planet more than one hundred seventy thousand people have been in

mission in afghanistan. from the national press club, this is one hour. [indiscernible conversation] [gavel pound] >> good afternoon. ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, members, welcome to the national press club. i am the 100 -- 110th president of this is stored private club. -- given they girl current time and press freedom, we are the constitution. questions it via the cards on your table if you have not already. those of you who are viewing can submit them via twitter @press club dc #npc live. @pressclubdc, #npc live. #headliners. those of you who came a little late, now is a good time to silence your cell phone. we do welcome you to tweet and follow the actions and send questions into the club. some upcoming events. chicago mayor and former clinton senior official rahm emanuel will be here for headliner luncheon. on june 20. newsmaker --ine june 21. another headline newsmaker the same day at 11:00 a.m. with the greek minister of economy. my good colleague peter baker will be here june 29 on his latest book "obama and call of history." following in the

we're not winning in afghanistan right now. pentagon wasted as much as twenty million dollars over the past decade get this by uniforms for the afghan army with the woodland camouflage pattern too bad they didn't conceal the troops forest cover only two percent of afghanistan. got free look like you're on a cruise to shall see thank you. can a guy page six million dollars to mail a tire you can go to because the a bomb in color now the pentagon doesn't even know where they go so all that might have been neat. justification for twenty million dollars of the afghans are were when my auditors asked for documentation of we were basically told quote unquote we don't have the records we just spend the money. coming up next the last international policy king with larry king signs up saudi arabia's new crown prince look at the bottle of a trumps health care bill that. about your sudden passing i've only just learnt you worry yourself in taking your last turn. to us we all knew it would. i tell you i'm sorry suddenly i could so i write

mission in afghanistan. watch the hearing live on c-span 3. later on in the day, the national press club here's from chicago mayor rahm emanuel. that's live at 1:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. a reminder all of our live coverage is available online at c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. >> recently on c-span. new orleans mayor mitch landrieu on the removal of a robert e. lee statue. >> to lay out the reason why these stat choose were erected in the first place and why we can take them down and recover from the age-old bat thals have divided us for so long and because of new orleans' role

from kabul afghanistan. the u.s. state department appears to have contradicted president tom's position on cuts honcho in the gulf states on going to promote a crisis. now that it's been more than two weeks since the embargo started we are mystified that the gulf states have not released to the public nor to the qataris the details about the claims that they are making toward qatar the more the time goes by the more doubt is raised about the actions taken by saudi arabia and the u.a.e. at this point we are left with one simple question were the actions really about their concerns regarding cutter's alleged support for terrorism or they about the long simmering grievances between and among the g.c.c. countries thought the time had come to call. on could two are to ended spawning. they have to end that fund. and its extremist. ideology in terms of funding the nation of qatar unfortunately has historically been a funder of terrorism. but even trying him self spain sending mixed messages is he sold twelve billion dollars

some breaking news out of afghanistan three u.s. service members are dead a fourth wounded after a shooting reportedly carried out by a member of the afghan military terrorists seven u.s. army soldiers that have been wounded in northern afghanistan now this comes a week after three u.s. army soldiers were killed in a similar incident to a deadly attack on american soldiers two attacks in the span of a week three soldiers killed seven wounded when a fire sure it's nothing like two thousand and twelve when green on blue violence killed or injured more than one hundred troops but the situation was different then there were fifteen times as many americans in afghanistan and the taliban was losing not so now. i understand it's my responsibility we're not winning in afghanistan right now the taliban is resurgent taking over the last swaths of afghanistan islamic state he's also spreading across the country the afghan me the coalition a base set by challenging time for another troops. some additional forces from the united states will come

from kabul afghanistan. optimistic statements from secretary of state rex tillerson who said today china and the u.s. are both committed to the goal of denuclearizing the korean peninsula tillerson and defense secretary james mattis met their chinese counterparts today to discuss north korea and cooperation in the region. threat in the region today. we call for complete. nuclear is a shadow of the korean. however what did not come out of that meeting is what exactly china will do to put more pressure on the hermit kingdom about ninety percent of north korea's trade is expected to go through china this comes just a day after president donald trump took to twitter frustrated at the lack of progress on north korea saying what chinese president xi has done just hasn't been enough so china's foreign ministry spokesman gang schwanke fired back saying that beijing's role in resolving the issue is indispensable and added that quote the crux and the focal point of contention of the korean peninsula nuclear issue does

from kabul afghanistan. the u.k. government comes under fresh criticism for his handling of london's grenfell tower fire this story and more aftershocks break. people with stories to tell. the tale so deserve to be heard. still and you know you since. you seem to think this is. they're here to speak are you there to hear. the fact that trump to get elected was a series of wise and distortions is a reflection of the fact that the voting public could be convinced by that and what we really need to do when one of the reasons as a scientist i'm interested in this is we really need to get people to apply the same standards of politics that apply to science skeptical inquiry empirical testing the demand evidence for what your politicians tell you. welcome back and m.p. for britain's opposition labor party has raised concern that survivors of the our fire are not being helped and even forced to sleep rough a number of people presumed dead from the incident has risen to seventy nine with police warning that number could rise

from kabul afghanistan. the philippines army has launched a fresh push to dr eisold militants out of the southern city of mirali the military are deploying armored vehicles with warplanes conducting aerial bombing of the terrorists' fortified positions the fighting has now entered a fifth week and claimed at least three hundred it. was. and the country's been deceiving some international help u.s. military advisers are there to assist their philippine colleagues but it turns out presidents are eager to terrify never invited them parties miguel france santiago looks at how the country's chain of command up. so how where is president due to take what's going on in his own country now you may recall that when you told he became president last year he took quite a hostile stance towards the u.s. not an easy task considering you once wore a us colony. ship. the. board the. not so sure that it will admit it but it's going on today that turkey is battling eisel allied groups who invaded the south an island of minda

from kabul afghanistan. the u.k. government comes under fresh criticism for its handling of london scran felt our fire the story and more after a short break. thank you for new to the game this is how it works now the economy is built around corporations corporations run washington washington controls the media the media control over the voters elected the businessman to run this country business equals power you must it's not business as usual it's business like it's never been done before. the fact that trump to get elected was a series of bodies and distortions is a reflection of the fact that the voting public could be convinced by that and what we really need to do when one of the reasons as a scientist i'm interested in this is we really need to get people to apply the same standards of politics that apply to science skeptical inquiry empirical testing and demand evidence for what your politicians tell you. welcome back to the program and m.p. for britain's opposition labor party has raised concern that some of

from kabul afghanistan. the muslims around the world are celebrating the end of the holy fasting month of ramadan russia is home to some twenty million muslims has the largest muslim population in europe around two million today thousands of moscow's main mosque for morning prayers. several thousand people have gathered here at this cathedral mosque behind me it's one of the biggest mosques in europe however it is still not big enough to accommodate everybody who wants to celebrate the feast of picher it's so one of the most important holidays in islam and it marks the end of the holy month of ramadan for war shippers it is a time when the holy book of khurana a was introduced to the mankind by a prophet muhammad and it marks the conclusion off a month long fasting period for all muslims. sin of gratian this is a time of joy the time of being with your family to have big meals to exchange presents and of course this is also a time to help those in need more than one hundred thousand old and all here in mosco

some breaking news out of afghanistan three u.s. service members are dead a fourth wounded after a shooting reportedly carried out by a member of the afghan military seven u.s. army soldiers that have been wounded in northern afghanistan now this comes a week after three u.s. army soldiers were killed in a similar incident to a deadly attack on american soldiers two attacks in the span of a week three soldiers killed seven wounded sure it's nothing like two thousand and twelve when green on blue violence killed or injured more than one hundred troops but the situation was different then there were fifteen times as many americans in afghanistan and the taliban was losing not so now i understand it's my responsibility we're not winning in afghanistan right now the taliban is resurgent taking over vast swaths of afghanistan islamic state is also spreading across the country the afghan army the coalition a beset by challenges time for another troop surge. some additional forces from the united states who come to afghanistan to take part

we begin in afghanistan.of the joint chiefs arrived earlier working on plans that may add several thousand more u.s. troops. national security correspondent jennifer griffin reports from the pentagon. >> u.s. and its nato allies invaded afghanistan, the war was supposed to be fast led by u.s. special forces and marine units. 16 years later with no end in sight, the pentagon and now a third u.s. president is planning to send more troops to afghanistan after obama failed to end what is has now surpassed vietnam as america's longest wa war. jennifer or joe dunford in kabul to assess whether to add more troops. the head of the marine corps visited and made his assessment. u.s. marines pulled out from there in 2014. 8400 troops are serving in afghanistan, a far cry from 100,000 at its height in 2009 when president obama was convinced by his military commanders to surge 30,000 more forces. resources and attention had been diverted to iraq. jim mattis offered this assessment. >> are not not winning in afghanistan ri

particularly to set troop levels in afghanistan. are there perils for the military long-term that now seems to be having to own this policy, whatever happens? again, different from mr. obama who, rightly or wrongly, owned the policy? it seems that the pentagon will own it, and i wonder what you think about the perils there. rep. thornberry: if someone is the decision maker, that person will be held accountable with a for the result of his or her decisions, but i have to say, i recently reread general mcmaster's book "dereliction of duty" about what went wrong in vietnam. you had the white house, in that case under lyndon johnson, making the military decisions which were based more on politics than on military strategy and tactics. that was a disaster. i think you have seen shades of that in the obama administration. too many decisions were made in the white house among staffers and so forth. the military ought to be given the goal. the president say, "this is what i want you to do," and then it is up to the leadership and pentagon t

from kabul afghanistan. tourism a place five million pounds to help the victims of the london fire however the spending priorities are still under scrutiny this and other stories just after the break. local blogs sell you on the idea that dropping bombs brings police to the chicken hawks forcing you to fight the battle. to stop spreading tell you that every gossip and tabloid. advertising telling. to buy their products. that we all. want. to make this manufacture consent to the public well. when the ruling class isn't protect themselves. in the final. week in the middle of the room sick. deluded. really. welcome back to the program over a dozen people are still being treated in london hospitals for burns smoke inhalation and injuries after grunfeld tower fire in the west of the city a number of people presumed dead has risen to seventy nine and police say that the number could still rise this is the latest video from inside the burned out building and shows the remains of charred apartments police say everyo

we have been afghanistan-- afghanistan has been at the longest war, more than world war i, world war ii. guess what, the reason we have been there is because under three different administrations the politicians haven't been able to strike a deal in afghanistan, so what we do is the things that washington wants to do best, they break in and kick down the door we will deal with it later and then they say can you stay there, can you do this again? do what again? there like what, seven, 8000 miles away from home trying to secure a tribal society that never knew the meaning of central government? having the same strategy that was used for 10 years and did not work that well for them either. at doing what? where the diplomats? how are we going to have a deal in afghanistan? we just can't put red line around everything and say they will do a great job. they kick out of van and-- the taliban and secure the country and then politicians fail to deliver. when they fail to deliver we say we will stay in afghanistan some more. it's not fair. just because they do a phenomenal job we should not co

no one has ever concurred afghanistan, and many have -- conquered afghanistan and many have tried. we will join the list of nations that have tried and failed. afghanistan is the originalin of whack-a-mole. whether it's al qaeda, isis or taliban, you can't beat them in a geographic area. they will just pop up somewhere else. mr. speaker, that is why many of us in this congress in both parties feel we have an obligation to our young men and women in uniform. i have beside me a flag-draped coffin being taken off a plane at dover. my question is this, how many more flag-draped coffins are we going to see when we increase the number of troops in afghanistan? without one word from congress, not one word. mr. speaker, we do owe it to the american people who pay their taxes. we owe it to the parents of young men and women who will go die for america. we do it to have a debate on the floor of the house, spend 16 -- it's been 16 years since we had a debate. god help america and please god bless america. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back.

afghanistan,to through the afghan national trust fund. a strong indication of australia's preparedness to ongoinged in what is an international fight against againstextremists and terrorists. i agree completely with jim. so they't win a ballot use weapons to try to fight their way out. that's not something we are ever to see take hold in afghanistan again. as secretary tillerson also said can never allow it to be a platform for terrorism as it was in the past. we will continue to make that contribution. that's why we made the announcement we made last week. as the united states and nato support mission developed their approach, we will engage in those discussions as we always will make our own view s known, play our part, and ay further decisions are matter for consideration at that time. >> [question inaudible] secretary tillerson: i reserve my answer until the policy re view is completed. it needs to be thought of in that context. >> thank you, ladies and gentlemen. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning pe

afghanistan relies on foreign aid. they don't have a very good system in place to develop their gdp and take care of their people. so we really do have a problem in afghanistan with the leadership there. it's still a very corrupt, very poor country, and until we can get the afghans to step up and improve their country, improve the vetting process here, they're not going to be able to have the help because other countries are going to think that they can't trust the vetting process and therefore don't want to put their troops next to afghan troops that have not been properly vetted. rick: clearly, it's very difficult to properly vet these afghan recruits. >> well, i think that we have to have a zero tolerance policy. we need to be able to look at the afghans and say you must assure us that everyone there is fighting for afghanistan, and if you can't be assured that this person is committed to helping your country and acting in the military nobly, then i think they're going to have to have less troops. they're going to h

being warned of drug addicts this is where they come to feed their addiction party looks at how afghanistan's opium production is destroying lives both at home and on the other side of the world. hello and good morning to you from the russian capital i'm nickey aaron and you're watching r.t. international good to have you with us well it's been exactly one year since the u.k. voted to leave the european union though the actual divorce talks have only just got underway the referendum result created a political earthquake is aftershocks are still being felt today. we want our borders but we want our country by. negotiation will need to begin under a new prime minister. pass on my thanks to his mom for the result i suppose. that is the full woman yes rex it means the global british and he's got a plan. doesn't have a clue how to really lead a. community left behind. thanks. prime minister to reason may gambled and lost her parliamentary majority over the break said issue but boyko takes us through the twists and turns now of britain's rocky road to break up. it was a very it changed the course o

afghanistan our nation's longest war. afghanistan our nation's longest war.afghanistan our nation's longest war. afghanistan our nation's longest war. >> well, brian it's important for us to remind ourselves, the actions in control of the u.s. armed forces are governed by law, gold water nichols. there are nine joint commands on the face of the earth. the only person that can give orders to the joint commanders and afghanistan jern john mickless the secretary of defense and the president of the of the united states. most of this is a reversion to a of having a white house and the secretary of defense focus on conceptual approaches to warfare and allowing tactical decisions be made by people directly on the ground. i think it's a very sensible move. >> and what do you think ought to happen at this point in the nation's longest war? nation's longest war? >> oh, there is no good solution in afghanistan or syria. afghanistan in a larger sense is just an endless ethnic civil war with marginal u.s. strategic interests at stake. the regional partners are extremely i

troops to afghanistan is a good idea. do you share that belief?well, i think a few more-- a few thousand or even 10,000 more u.s. troops-- >> 10,000 more. >> i'm saying that i think that hypothetically, an increase on that scale. let's say, for example, a doubling of u.s. troops. there are some 8500 there now-- can help sustain the current security stalemate. but i don't believe that troops alone will actually be decisive in the end. troops alone can't win this war. troops alone will not remove the stalemate. the stalemate fundamentally rests on the political side of the equation. so alongside any military surge, the addition of any number of u.s. troops, i'll be very interested to hear the administration's ambitions in terms of how they're going to deal with the politics. >> well, explain what the challenges are there for the politics in afghanistan. >> well, i look at this as a three-part equation on the political side. so first of all, inside the afghan government itself, here you have zero-sum politics among the different national players. you

afghanistan has gone through a lot over the years. in the past year or two, it has seen a lot of spectacular attacks by terrorist groups, sometimes daesh or isis claims responsibility, and there are times when the taliban, or some taliban offshoots, claim responsibility. laura: in this case, afghan intelligence is suggesting is the work of a group linked to pakistan. what do you think of that? >> i think this is a credible assessment. if you look at the manner under which this was carried out, the signs of their footprint is not there. i believe they, who are affiliated closely to the linked to pakistani security establishment, they wanted to send a message. this message comes at a time that is very critical. thehe one hand you have u.s.-nato politicians who are going to decide on the fate of the afghan mission. laura: can we know that u.s. generals have said they want 3000 to 5000 troops. would that make a difference, especially if this is a work of that network? does that change the equation? >> from the afghan perspective, yes. the

soldiers murdered this weekend in afghanistan. nhe debate intensifies in washington over how to end this 16 year war. >> mr. chairman, i believe we're in a stalemate. >> quijano: also tonight, president trump's wedding surprise and sunday morning tweet storm. >> gay pride events turn into resist trump marches. >> we are not invisible. >> quijano: and a puerto rico votes whether to become the 51st state, we check in with puerto ricans on the island of manhattan. >> we deserve all the rights of citizens. this is the "cbs weekend news." >> quijano: good evening, i'm elaine quijano. this is our western edition. the pentagon is investigating the apparent murders of three u.s. soldier this weekend in eastern afghanistan. they have not been identified. the afghan army says one of its soldiers turned his gun on the americans before he was shot dead. the taliban claimed this was the gunman and that he was one of their own, an army infiltrator. the attack comes as america's longest war is at another cross roads. the pentagon wants to add th

, so you had this very strange situation where you had some helicopter pilots go over to afghanistan, but they were not allowed to take the maintainers to keep the helicopters operating, so they had to hire private contractors to do the maintenance on the helicopters, which was more sensitive, and meanwhile, you had a bunch of maintainers back here at home without helicopters to work on. that is the sort of thing that has happened over the past years because of, i believe, politically inspired troop limits. i believe the approach going forward is to look at these strategic goals and honestly assess how many people it takes to do that, not politics, not placing arbitrary limits, but not having more than you need. have what you need to do that job, and i think that is what secretary mattis is looking at. that is the right thing to do, and i don't know what that number is, but it ought to be the right number for the mission, not some sort of political number that actually makes it harder for our folks to accomplish their mission and may well increase the danger to their lives. quick foll

it happened on a base on northern afghanistan.has more the attack from the middle east bureau. >> both afghan and u.s. officials are investigating the latest attack on u.s. troops in afghanistan. the second in a week with u.s. soldiers being targeted and coming under hostile fire. pentagon officials say and afghan soldiers shot and wounded seven u.s. shoulder soldiers ine northern afghan city. an afghan soldier was killed and another wounded. the shooter was killed. the ministry of defense said it is investigating the latest incident as appalls another green on blue attack last week when an afghan soldier opened fired on u.s. troops during a joint operation in eastern afghanistan, killing three army rangers. the taliban claimed responsibility for last week's attack. while the taliban praise this week the tax it did not take responsibility for it. the green and blue attacks, dream b and afghan forces, blue are u.s. or nato forces have increased in recent decreased in recent years. some of these attacks are from cultural understandi

still to come on the newshour: my conversation with david petraeus on the fight in afghanistan. travel and business restrictions between the u.s. and cuba. and, much more. >> woodruff: wars in afghanistan, syria, and iraq. tensions within the gulf states. and, a new administration trying to manage an exploding region. all topics for retired general david petraeus. he commanded american and coalition forces in the wars in iraq and afghanistan, and served as overall commander of u.s. military operations in the middle east. he later served as director of the c.i.a. in 2011 and 2012. he's now with a global investment firm. we spoke a short time ago. and i started by asking him about reports that the trump administration will soon send 4,000 additional u.s. troops to afghanistan, and whether he thinks that is a smart move. >> i think it is, and it's heartening. i think what we need to get to in afghanistan is a sustainable, measuring the expenditure of blood and treasure, a sustainable, sustained commitment. we need to recognize we went and stayed for a reason, to ensure that afghani

soldiers murdered this weekend in afghanistan. color="#ffff00">the debate intensifies in washington over how to end this 16 year war. >> mr. chairman, i believe we're in a stalemate. >> quijano: also tontd, prestiden trump's wedding surprise and sunday morning tweet storm. >> gay pried events turn into resist trump marchs. >> we are not invisible. >> quijano: and a puerto rico votes whether to become the 51st state, we check in with puerto ricans on the island of manhattan. >> we deserve all the rights of