. >>> joining me now, retired four-star germany army general barry mccaffery and anthony roman. anthony, i want to go to you as a pilot. what do you make of the evidence we're picking up so far in the debris pattern we've seen? >> it's clear that a catastrophic midair event occurred, and in this case the intelligence officials are pointing to the probability of a surface-to-air missile. that particular missile was in range of this aircraft based on the information we have, has a range of about 19 miles and can travel about mach 3 to 46,000 feet. so it appears this airliner was shot down. >> what about the fact that so much of the debris is close together, and it's not as scattered, as wildly scattered as you might expect, because it seems like this was not necessarily the total disintegration of the aircraft in the air. >> well, when you have a catastrophic event like this, the aircraft manipulates itself in a particular way that the aerodynamics at the high speed it's traveling will rip the airplane apart. so it's not uncommon to find a debris field that's compacted like this a

. >>> joining me now, retired four star army general barry mccaffery and anthony roman. anthony, i want to go to you as a pilot. what do you make of the evidence we're picking up so far in the debris pattern we've seen? >> it's clear that a catastrophic midair event occurred, and in this case the intelligence officials are pointing to the probability of a surface-to-air missile. that particular missile was in range of this aircraft based on the information we have, has a range of about 19 miles and can travel about mach 3 to 46,000 feet. so it appears this airliner was shot down. >> what about the fact that so much of the debris is close together, and it's not as scattered, as wildly scattered as you might expect, because it seems like this was not necessarily the total disintegration of the aircraft in the air. >> well, when you have a catastrophic event like this, the aircraft manipulates itself in a particular way that the aerodynamics at the high speed it's traveling will rip the airplane apart. so it's not uncommon to find a debris field that's compacted like this a

barry mccaffery is an msnbc military analyst.ichael weiss is a foreign policy columnist and editor of the interpreter. we are going to have a clip for you in a moment here. by the way, here is a clip that nbc's tom costello mentioned earlier. it's audio are released -- we don't have it yet. general, we have a tape now we'll be playing here that basically has russians basically in cahoots with separatists saying i think we screwed up here, using the f-word, because we shot down a passenger plane instead of a military plane. we are close to the reality of the horror here. >> no question. look, chris, what we should have known in u.s. intelligence within an hour or two, i have been on the radio and listened to the launch of scud missiles. our satellite systems get the hot point. they know the location of the missile when fired. it will compute a that projectry of what where it is going. we should have known where it was fired from almost immediately. secondly, it was a target acquisition radar that got the aircraft. we can see radar

joining me now is nbc news military analyst general barry mccaffery.ation here? >> they don't have many options. their back is against the wall. they have lost support out of egypt. the brotherhood is out of office. that's been their easy supply. most of this is iranian material coming through egypt or through the sea. i think hamas thinks they have nothing to lose. the israelis, i think, have no option. the tragedy the of this is when you're fighting with tanks, mechanized infantry, artillery, air strikes, armed drones in the middle of a hugely, densely populated area it results in hundreds of tragic civilian casualties. again it's hard to imagine why the israelis could possibly continue with hourly air raid scrambles to shelter in telaviv are and elsewhere. >> so how long would you expect a ground offensive like this to last? >> i'm sure the israeli defense forces will try to get in and out of there as quickly as they can to punish hamas. i'm surprised they are talking about only tunnels. i would think they would go after missile stock piles. there w

. >> general barry mccaffery and anthony roman, thank you both for joining me tonight. >>> coming up, more details about the rebels who at first today took credit for downing that plane and then went quiet. [male vo] inside this bag is 150 years of swedish experience in perfecting the rich, never bitter taste of gevalia. we do it all for this very experience. [woman] that's good. i know right? >>> it's 5:16 in gaza. up next, mark ginsberg will join me in the situation there with israel raising the stakes with ground troops. and later, more about the rebels where the malaysian airliner was shot down. >>> you can't get people to give up nyaan >>> just hours after news broke of the plane shot down in ukraine, israel invaded the gaza strip following hamas' rejection of a cease fire plan earlier this week. nbc's richard engle is in gaza city with the latest. richard? >> reporter: lawrence, this ground official is under way. over the last several hours we've seen israeli strikes from the sea, we've seen traceer fire over gaza city, we've heard frequent loud explosions, seen illumination rou