general mark dempsey supports that strategy but he also says "if we reach a point i believe our advisors should accompany iraq you troops on attacks against specific isil targets, i will recommend that to be president." the house voting to authorize money to train and equipped syrian rebels. palmer's will move on the military authorization ac aftere november election when democrats are less likely to object. the president coming under fire from republicans is the u.s. should commit to defeat this terrorist group whatever it takes and has come under fire from some democrats who are skeptical about the 1600 troops that mr. obama has already sent to iraq to bolster security at the u.s. diplomatic installations and train iraqi forces be at general dempsey says he has already turned down one request for u.s. spo spotten the battle to take multiple dams. he's a found a way to do that without putting u.s. troops on the ground. the new prime minister says they are neither wanted nor necessary in the fight against isis. martha: we have heard from nancy pelosi who said she would not vote to put co

. >>> mark dempsey says arab countries need to take a more direct role in the fight against isis. his comments come as the president tries to build an international coalition to fight the islamic state. this week congress backed the plez's plan to back syrian rebels. will that strategy work? mark kirk from illinois voted to approve the president's request. senator, good to see you. will this strategy work in your opinion? >> i hope it will work. i think if we use the kurdish army and the iraqi army as the board air controllers for u.s. air power, we have a chance of really succeeding here. increasing a very rapid cycle of destruction of having them identify between friend and foe and having us pick our targets pretty quickly. >> you have said in the past that an effective strategy would use our intelligence community to identify the moderate syrian rebels that we can work with. but oftentimes the flow of fighters in that region -- and history has told us that -- is that moderates tend to migrate to the extreel. extreme. in fact, i recall interviewing dennis kucinich on this progra

the chairman of the joint chiefs mark dempsey told us today that only half of the armies are capable.he other half contain so much sectarian division and when you do that math you end up with zero. and we are joined from erbiel iraq, amy joins us. >> we've been dealing with the kurd forces up here in iraq. but i can tell you the iraqi forces deserted many of the towns and cities when isis made their advance back in june. general dempsey is saying half of the brigades were incapable of partnering with the united states to push back isis is extremely alarming. but not surprising. you know, this was a force that was a sectarian military with a sectarian leadership governed by the former prime minister nuri al-maliki. he excluded the sunni officers from the military and created the sectarian military. so that is why general dempsey is saying that half of the military is too heavily weighted, shiite, rebderring -- rendering them to be intersected to be a unifying force. that is a concern here. and also partially rebuilding the other half of the military. the united states has invested so m

on capitol hill, joint chiefs of staff army general mark dempsey and defense secretary chuck hagel face tough questions about the president's plan to degrade isis, including a request to train and equip moderate rebels inside syria. house lawmakers begin debating the measure today. >> the u.s. is expanding its efforts against the ebola outbreak. 3,000 military personnel heading to west africa order to combat and contain this especial dependic. the obama administration -- epidemic. the obama administration is looking for additional dollars to help the fight. >>> for a second time the democrats failed to get the fairness paycheck through the senate. it would make it easier for women to find out how much their male counterparts earn. >> the nationals are one win away. an atlanta braves lost will clinch their second division in three years. they're playing the braves tonight. >>> one year ago today, a gunman entered the navy yard in southeast washington and went on a shooting rampage which ended the lives of 12 innocent sevilleion workers. >> the secretary of -- sca villain workers. >> the

but mark dempsey says it could take a year for the rebels to be trained by u.s.ops before they return to the battled field to fight isis. joining me now, jackie spear of california. thank you for being with me. >> thank you for the invitation. >> you voted against funding to train and equip these -- why? >> because it wasn't a plan to actually train and arm 3 to 5,000 syrians in the free syrian army is not a plan. there are many within the establishment, former generals who said it was lame actually. if you were going to do it, you need to do at least 15,000. isil is making $3 million a day. we need to disrupt their line of income. and that means blowing up oil wells and the roads that they use to get those oil wells -- get those oil tankers to shipment. so i actually think that isil is something that we have to address. i think it is dangerous. but if we're going to address it, it's not with 3 to 5,000 trained fsas. >> but this could be a first step. i mean something needs to be done and done quick. if it's going to take up to a year to trien these people, shoul

far as americans are concerned in iraq and possibly syria and then hearing from his generals, ie mark dempseyrday saying something differently. are they on the same page? are they not? what do we expect today? >> we reported in the daily beast that there's a difference in opinion of the president and top generals he's tasked to fight this crisis. all believe in pursuing a quicker, stronger, more complete strategy to combat isis in iraq and syria than the president is currently willing to allow. it's not clear how that will play out in terms of tension between the military and the white house. what john kerry will do today according to his prepared remarks, which we have obtained and this is first on cnn, he will say very clearly isil must be defeated. period. end of story. he'll attempt to dispel the notion put out by himself and others in the administration that there's a containment strategy in place and that this will be a strategy to marginalize or manage the isis problem and then he will call on the international community to build a coalition to help the united states achieve this goal.

general mark dempsey supports that strategy but he also says "if we reach a point i believe our advisorsaq you troops on attacks against specific isil targets, i will recommend that to be president." the house voting to authorize money to train and equipped syrian rebels. palmer's will move on the military authorization ac aftere

seem to be making it very, very clear although general dempsey's comments muddied the waters a bit there. >> it did. so let's go to general spider marksyou heard general dempsey. you know, just give it to us straight. what exactly did he say and what does it mean? >> carol, polemics in politics are an invitation to struggle and we parse words, but words are very important in combat. what marty dempsey said is in the fight against isis in iraq, we have u.s. soldiers on the ground right now providing support. those lines and those battle engagements shift as a matter of routine. somebody who's in a support role today could be in a combat role two minutes from now. and that's what marty dempsey is describing and he very precisely laid out that there may be an ends and a means mismatch. if there's a gap between what we want to try to achieve and what's available he'll go back to the president and say, look, we need more. we need to alter how we describe this thing right now. so that's what marty was laying. >> rehan, why doesn't the president just say that? was he twrong lay out this clear line and say no troops on the grou ground? none?

the senators expect to press hagel and dempsey to say, really all just on our shoulders, or are the allies coming to our way in a substantial way. >> general marks, americans want to hear a clear mission from general dempsey this morning and will he deliver? >> i think he will. absolutely. the president laid out the strategy, and the end state of the strategy is to defeat isis. what you will hear today is going to be a desire on the part of our department of defense, our military and the coalition to minimally degrade isis. you won't have a statement of defeating isis until you can agree that there have to be soldiers and there have to be forces that are on the ground to go after targets within syria where isis gets all of the support and the motivation and all of the recruiting and, et cetera. so degrading, yes, defeat, i don't think that you will hear that. if you hear it today, then you have to ask the next question, how is that going to be happening exclusively with air power. >> and ryan, the house will vote tomorrow to possibly arm the syrian rebels, 5,000 over the next year, and that is really not so many. what gives with with that? >> we

mark. we heard it from general dempsey.he precipitous withdrawal from iraq created an environment where isis was able to gain control and expand their terror in that area. we are seeing it in the entire middle east. we are seeing egypt, we are seeing somalia, we are seeing iraq. we are seeing afghanistan. the entire region has fallen apart. why? because of america's famed leadership. barack obama reacts to crisis but doesn't prevent it. bill: america's withdrawal from iraq is going to be debated for a long time. alan, do you think it' america's fault? >> getting into the middle east, invading iraq in the first place. and again the issue and brad and i debated this before. we could not get a security agreement under george w. bush to stay in iraq. when were not wanted there. we got out of iraq on bush's time line and as us of forces agreement could not be obtained. bill: others would argue we did not fight for it under the current administration. >> we did and we couldn't get it. >> the president did not engage like he shoul

mark teesen right after this. >> i'm just saying if you look at what general dempsey said today, that's not surprising. that does not in any way mean that when it gets down to it that he asks for more troops and you know he said advisers, that the president will agree to that. he's indisposed to do that. he thinks american troops are likely to make things worse. that's a core belief of his. >> thank you. >> you bet. >> president obama's top military adviser was also grilled today in a column by mark teesen asking whether this president is listening to his military commanders. the general's answer and mark teesen here next. the doj just indicting an upstate new york man tore plotting to kill u.s. troops inside america. >>> and coming up, a woman already facing a death threat for speaking up issues a bold challenge on the threat of radical islam. she has a critical message just ahead. >> muslim students association of yemen, you live in a time when muslims are at a crossroad s sensitive bladder? never miss a chance to dance... ... just because you happen to sprinkle a little tinkle. introducing a revolut

mark? >>, you know. so it was a fine line that martin dempsey, chairman of joint chief of staff was making.ecommendation from the military to actually send in advisers. there's a fine line between combat troops and advisers. to be able to send advisers if the strategy doesn't work. president obama hasn't said he's ruled out using combat troops at all. that's worth watching whether there is a mission creep later on. all of a sudden we have ruled out combat troops and three years later we see troops in syria. ly say polls show americans are supportive of the president here, but polls have also showed there's no appetite for u.s. combat troops. we have seen a lot of republicans make the call for u.s. combat troops. the politics have changed a little bit on national security since the beheadings of the american journalists and the british aid worker. not enough where everyone sees it as 2002 or 2003 where you're sending hundreds of thousands of troops into iraq. >> based on what we're used to seeing in d.c., based on this morning. i was listening to mccain not necessarily as contentious his que

dempsey. in new york, families of those killed at the world trade center will be reading the names of the victims, and they're going to be observing moments of silence to mark the two towers being hit and later falling. and in shanksville, pennsylvania, of course, you'll remember what happened there. former house speaker denny hastert will be speaking at a service honoring the victims of flight 93. actually, that flight 93, the passengers received congressional gold medal wednesday, the top honor that can be awarded by congress. that, of course, is the flight where the passengers took over. and actually, if you want to know, the first counterterror measures that were taken, they were taken by passengers who said that they weren't going to let the terrorists win. and take that plane into the capitol or the white house. they said, "let's roll." and they took their own lives. and a lot of people are alive today because of that. >>> the nfl is asking the former director of the fbi to lead an independent investigation on how it handled the ray rice case. you know, there's so many questions that are growing up out of the league's response that robert mueller has

white house officials are stressing that general dempsey today was just laying out options that are not needed right now, but the runup to this war is marked by mixed messages to the white house and raise a new question about whether there's a divide here between the pentagon and the white house. >> despite president obama repeatedly vowing he would not send u.s. ground troops to syria, general dempsey left the door at least ajar stating that if the president's strategy to defeat isis does not go as planned or the coalition of allies does not come together, things could change. >> this coalition i believe is the way forward, but if it fails to be true, of course i would go back to the president and make a recommendation that would include the u.s. of military ground forces. >> carl levin quickly downplayed it by noting military leaders always say if circumstances change so might their recommendations, yet dempsey cited a specific example. he'd recommend the president send in combat forces. dempsey suggested the president could agree. >> has the president ruled it out? >> well, at this point, his stated policy is that we will not have u.s.

general dempsey did not come back and re-mark his steps. >> he said enough. >> yeah.ot going on yesterday that the president could not have been happy with. >> he said he is indeed worried about the southern border. many other questions came forward and he was honest. but americans are wondering why the divided house on this. why doesn't the president of the united states admit there could be a chance for boots on the ground? charles krauthammer gave us some analysis. three reasons why the generals may be saying boots on the ground, but the president won't admit it. here they are. >> either the president wants not to do it, which appears to be the impression. he was definitive in his speeches, this is not going to happen, no ground troops. and the military wants to go ahead and do it because it knows it's going to need to at some point. or obama is very cleverly being the one who gives the good news and he's having the generals go out and talk about the inevitable bad news, ground troops. or the third possibility is these guys have no idea what they're saying or doing

moments from the president with chuck hagel of the joint chief staff, general dempsey attending the an emony marking verse oi the 2011 terrorists, 13 years ago when they struck first new york, the pentagon, and the went down in shanksville, pennsylvania as well. over on c-span 3. the memorial service in new york is under way. :30 this morning at the world trade center memorial plaza there in new york. we're going to bring you to the pentagon ceremony in a minute. callers. a couple more to peter -- excuse me, rick, athens, texas, independent hi, rick, go ahead. caller: the deal is, this is there has to be a reaction to the action. saudi arabia. by turkey, two of the allies there. he whole point is there has to be an enemy so you can attack the enemy. the deal is it's about the oil as the ing the dollar oil reserve currency. that's what it's about. so you can do what you want do with that. all right, thank you. host: rep pub caller. go ahead, dena. caller: hello. you're on the air. caller: good morning, i don't president obama is a good wartime president. he's stated several times he like wars. he's t

events marking that day of 13 years ago when there were attacks on the pentagon, president obama will be there today at the pentagon along with defense secretary chuck hagel and the chairman dempsey. in new york, there will be a ceremony, as well as the world trade center national memorial plaza. that taking place at 8:30 a.m. eastern time today, tune in to c-span three for our coverage. back to all of your thoughts. reaction from capitol hill. it's a terrible mistake to avoid congress. that is what senator cornyn, part of the republican leadership in the senate had to say to the hill newspaper. and then younalso have senator shoe mere, democrat of new york saying president obama's speech hit the nail on the head, showing strength and resolve that will convince the world our allies and isis we mean business. also on twitter, you have jason chafis saying but the president highlights syria, ukraine, as successes where this type of campaign has been successful. by the way no mention of our best friend in the region, israel. that coming from jason chafits. you also have senator sanders, independent from vermont who has been a very strong critic of wars, saying this. brutal terrorist

dempsey, it was a losing strategy. >> can they be defeated without addressing that part of their organization which resides in syria? the answer is no. >> reporter: overnight bombings inside syria now mark a major escalation in the usair war against isis. isis leadership targets were not on last night's hit list primarily because intelligence has not been good enough to pinpoint their location at any given time. some officials here say that could eventually take boots on the ground, an option that president obama has taken off the table. matt? >> jim miklaszewski at the pentagon. thank you very much. >>> national security analyst michael litner served as director of the counterterrorism center. michael, good morning to you. >> good morning, matt. >> this first wave of missile attacks, clearly was meant to send a message to the isis military. how strong was it? >> it was pretty strong. this was not just hitting isis, but another group called the corzon group. they were the impetus for much of this. >> at the moment, we do not have enormous intelligence on the ground inside syria. how much more difficult is that going to make this mission? >> it's much harder for a period. we had surveill

dempsey, it was a losing strategy. >> can they be defeated without addressing that part of their organization which resides in syria? the answer is no. >> reporter: the overnight bombings inside syria now mark a m major escalation in the u.s. air war against isis. we're told that isis leadership targets were not on last night's hit list primarily because the intelligence is just not good enough to pinpoint their location at any given time. officials here say that would require boots on the ground, an option that president obama has taken off the table, matt. >> jim miklaszewski at the pentagon. as always, thanks very much. again, the president is about to speak from the white house. before he heads here to new york and the united nations meeting, chris jansing, is already at the u.n. chris, good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning, matt. i think you're going to hear the president not just thanking the men and women involved in the air strikes who put their lives on the line but also the five countries, the unprecedented coalition of five nations i think you'll hear him call partner nations. it was very important to him and it was signaled over the weekend they did not want to go into