we've seen propagated recently but i also think it just one last point i don't even think that what mcchrystalwants i don't think that germany will be able to go along with that in the end i don't think that angle america will be able to go along with that in the end because i think it's very controversial within her own conservative bloc especially in bavaria where the sister party to merkel's party where many people also want to have this europe of the regions as they call it they don't want to shift everything to brussels from kauffman please address the arguments you've just heard but also couldn't argue that austria if it positions itself closer to those central eastern european countries might even play a mediating role that would allow for a reintegration of these different blocs possible but then a lot of these central is new countries will have to change the policy towards europe and to join again the that the way and the policies of of good arguments and and the sheer innocence. necessitate in the bloc i have the feeling that it's a reaction to those elections in austria will be that

. >> stephanie, obviously a lot of people, the comparison is to what happened with stan ley mcchrystal and president obama. bob gates tried to save the job on behalf -- my guess is jim mattis and john kelly for some reason are trying to convince the president to keep tillerson here. but there was a concern. what does the world see if the commander in chief can get disparaged without any problems? what does the world see if the president doesn't fire rex tillerson over this? >> you know, i kind of think that's the least of their problems. and the reason, i mean, first of all, it's news when your secretary of state calls your sitting president a moron. but it's also newsy because we know it's likely true because things like this have been reporting out from this administration since the beginning. >> the despaisparaging of him, regardless of what you think of the president. >> regardless, but remember the reporting on general kelly and general mattis not wanting to be out of the country at the same time because somebody had to make sure nothing damaging happened from this president. so i

mcchrystal decides we can't do that, saddam has shown it's not going to work, so he looks for ways to ramp up their operations and does so very effectively. you can see from here there was only ten operations per month when he comes in in 2004, that goes up to 300 in 2006. and this is made possible by advances in communications technology and also by the fact the iraqis are using cell phones and computers without a lot of thought as to the fact that they're getting intercepted. so quite impressive. and, you know, a lot of people think at this scale we can, in fact, destroy the insurgency. we also have on the white soft side -- this is another term that people sometimes get confused about -- but it's basically the operators who are not part of jsoc. so it's mainly special forces and navy seals at this time. but they also decide that they want to do this surge call strike precision -- surgical strike precision raid, go out and haul down bad guys in the middle of the night. and this is a move away from their more traditional role of working with local forces, local populations and will c

truong in our troops did this or that so that aspect was also that the us didn't accept general mcchrystal. who was a very fine officer who had come in told me that disposed and something has gone wrong and that's why he was quickly to moved did you have to see the brad pitt film no i haven't you. haven't seen the film i believe it's a funny movie but i haven't seen it tragically funny we did all the money go these billions and billions four billion in twenty the team that went to afghanistan general petraeus the disgraced former head of the cia saying we're going to use money like ammunition in afghanistan and that's what they did exactly like ammunition and so i didn't work. it cost more corruption. they were throwing money in. indeed like ammunition through rapid rate. firing money firing guns but. into contracts and subconscious and subcontracts yes they did that very very much and that was the fundamental cause of. corrupting things of ghana's that. they did turn the turn some people into millionaires overnight and then in another part of the country the bombed people into total extin

this goes all the way back to when mike and i were traveling there and back to my time on general mcchrystal's assessment team -- has never been conceived of as the military arm of a combined political military negotiating strategy. what we have had and i think unfortunately continue to have is a campaign plan that looks like let's -- and at some unspecified point in it somewhat unspecified future there will be somewhat an unspecified negotiation that will produce a better partition of the state than without it, and i do not think that is responsible policy for a democracy that is killing people in the name of the state and spending tens of billions of dollars in the project. i think we can reasonably demand of our government some is theation of what strategy for getting to a negotiated settlement and includingfort, staffing out the relevant parts of the government that would be regard actually get a settlement.eed the one element i would add to the agenda of what is hard for seriousness in a negotiation is it is going to a parcel horse trading on capital hill -- capitol hill biden administrat

history on its sixteenth anniversary i mean we've already pretty much gone through paper bruns and mcchrystal yet as an insider joke well thankfully the pentagon has your answer as they gifted afghanistan over the weekend in some very first pair of blackhawk helicopters that's truly the gift that keeps on giving blackhawk helicopters oia. afghanistan president except of the anniversary gift over the weekend at a ceremony in kandahar which was attended by high ranking officials including general john nicholson the top u.s. commander in afghanistan. tragically it's true pit-bull could not perform at the sixteenth anniversary festivities because he was already booked at a mother's sweet sixteen in dubai. upon receiving the two attack helicopters president got he stated if the taliban think that they have defeated the afghan security forces they should take out these raw thoughts from their heads and ladies and gentlemen the world had better take out the raw thoughts of peace from our heads because we know this is. the war never end and i'm not going out today it's too sad hurts me to watch a war

general stanley mcchrystal decides we can do that and he said that would not work. he looks for ways to ramp up operations and does so very effectively, there were 10 operations per month when he comes in 2004 and goes up to 302,000 -- in 2006. this makes possible by advances in communication technology and the fact the iraqis are using cell phones and computers without a lot of thought to the fact they are getting intercepted. quite impressive and a lot of people think at this scale we can destroy the insurgency. we also have on the other side, a term people get confused about. the operators who are not part of j sock, mainly special forces, navy seals at this time but they also decide they want to do this surgical strike precision raid, go out and hold down bad guys in the middle of the night and as we move away from their more traditional role of working with local forces, local populations and come under fire for taking them away from that, and what we of counterinsurgency typically working with local forces to secure the population is done mainly and we will se

general stanley mcchrystal decides we can do that and he said that would not work. he looks for ways to ramp up operations and does so very effectively, there were 10 operations per month when he comes in 2004 and goes up to 302,000 -- in 2006. this makes possible by advances in communication technology and the fact the iraqis are using cell phones and computers without a lot of thought to the fact they are getting intercepted. quite impressive and a lot of people think at this scale we can destroy the insurgency. we also have on the other side, a term people get confused about. the operators who are not part of j sock, mainly special forces, navy seals at this time but they also decide they want to do this surgical strike precision raid, go out and hold down bad guys in the middle of the night and as we move away from their more traditional role of working with local forces, local populations and come under fire for taking them

. >> when general mcchrystal, his staff disparaged the vice president and in some ways the president at the time, president obama, former vice president biden and on. you couldn't have somebody doing that to the commander in chief essentially. he had to be fired. do you think what rex tillerson did is a fireable offense? >> i kind of hope not. it probably is something done out of frustration if it happened at all. there's supposed to be tension between the president and leaders of his advising team. they're not supposed to think monolithically and not supposed to necessarily all agree what the decision should be but once the decision is made they should agree to implement it and implement it with enthusiasm and confidence. i like having a little bit of friction among the senior staff and cabinet just don't want it to spill outside that little circle. i think john kelly understands that and has witnessed that in a positive way in the military where you do debate these strategic issues and try not to have them impact the tactical execution to get to the strategic outcome the president

general mcchrystal, retired now, we changed the way we fought to adapt to the enemy, changed the strategyshoe dropped for us, pulling back from the region, that was a mistake, was a catastrophe and had to fight background that we already took. we want to give credit to the iraqi soldiers that did this. americans, the kurds, our peshmerga fighters, all of them heaved and hoed together. won back mosul and raqaa. just like senator graham put out, we're going to fight on other fronts now. >> the kurds are having issues with the iraqi federal government. we have what happened in niger, for example, going off in africa. the senator saying he believes africa could be the new front? >> he's right. first of all, my heart goes out to the special forces and special force support soldiers who we lost this last week. great soldiers. whenever special operations are in harm's way, we have acceptable risk, what i want to call to the attention is, those senators, congressmen who went to the camera, having sat 25 years on the armed services committee, senator mccain may not have been up to date on his brie

and co-founder of the mcchrystal group. we have 800 u.s. military personnel in niger at this point. how dangerous is the environment there? can you give us an idea of what the conditions would likely be on the ground? >> hi, alex. thanks for having me on. i think it's important to remember what's going on with these forces, they're what the military refer to as a semi-permissive environment, which can be the most complex environment that military units can enter. it's safe, you walk down the street. nonpermissive is a full scale war in a place like iraq. semi permissive is every day is a calculated risk versus gain equation that forces on the ground have to think through on their own, which is why the u.s. puts its best and brightest highly trained operators in this environment, why we have special forces in this domain. >> what exactly is the u.s. mission in africa? is it at all possible these soldiers were involved in a direct action operation? >> well, africom has been clear about what the role of special operations has been for several years now. africom goes back ten years but

require a social movement and it's going to require the face of people like david pa trayias, stanley mcchrystals who have come out limiting these sort of weapons, that it is patriotic, a fully red-blooded thing to limit and control. >> i think that's a crucial point. too often, the people who have been the spokesperson for gun control have been michael bloomberg and frankly jimmy kimmel. i like michael bloomberg and jimmy kimmel's schau but they shouldn't be the face, everybody's cultural awareness get up when it's a new york mayor and a hollywood star. it has to come from people who own guns in this country. >> woodruff: the president, mark was out, went to las vegas but also went to puerto rico, where we continue to watch very slow progress, only one out of every ten households has power. >> right. >> woodruff: only half the island has water. he got into another verbal back and forth with the myor of san juan. separately, we now know he's very unhappy with his secretary of state rex tillerson. there is conflict here and conflict there. what do we make of all this at this point? >> well, puert

stan mcchrystal said, we ought not to be selling these weapons to the person civilian populations.hey're designed for one thing. they're to kill people. no other western nation has the number of gun deaths that we have in america. and we need to talk about it. >> wait until we hear what was in that room. law enforcement has said what else he had. there were other weapons there. no idea how many magazines filled with rounds in that room. you get a beautiful bduffel bag ka case, a golf bag. >> it's amazing what you can buy, at a gun show or illegally from other people. we can't have that conversation because it immediately becomes so emotional between the gun owners of the america, who are protected by the nra, and other people saying there ought to be a more reasonable ground. i'm a gun owner. i don't have one of the ar-15s. i don't need them. but almost all my friends out there have that kind of weapon. >> and, shawn, you made a point. it bears repeating about the caliber. appears to be the kind of bullet that cannot just pass through one person, but multiple people. >> if we have

stan mcchrystal said, we ought not to be selling these weapons to the person civilian populations.re designed for one thing. they're to kill people. no other western nation has the number of gun deaths that we have in america. and we need to talk about it. >> wait until we hear what was in that room. law enforcement has said what else he had. there were other weapons there. no idea how many magazines filled with rounds in that room. you get a beautiful bduffel bag ka case, a golf bag. >> it's amazing what you can buy, at a gun show or illegally from other people. we can't have that conversation because it immediately becomes so emotional between the gun owners of the america, who are protected by the nra, and other people saying there ought to be a more reasonable ground. i'm a gun owner. i don't have one of the ar-15s. i don't need them. but almost all my friends out there have that kind of weapon. >> and, shawn, you made a point. it bears repeating about the caliber. appears to be the kind of bullet that cannot just pass through one person, but multiple people. >> if we have mili