. -- two iraqi -- to iraq or s yria. his speech comes one day before the united states commemorates the 9/11 attacks of 2001, which have led to the war on iraq and afghanistan. >> the leader of a powerful islamist group has been killed in an explosion. the leader died in a blast in northwest syria. he was alongside 12 other members killed during a meeting. he is a hard-line islamist -- he is part of a hard-line islamist group and part of a group that has the fighting against the islamic state group in northern syria. a huge flood in pakistan. it has killed more than 440 people. pakistan authorities have deployed rescue teams in helicopters and boats to help thousands of people who have been stranded. some 700,000 people in pakistan have been told to evacuate their homes as the floods are spreading to other areas. >> knee-deep in flood water, trying to make the escape, the death toll continues to rise. armies are scrambling to help victims. rescue operations -- and communications networks. >> our women are in trouble. we

voted to support a key element of our strategy, our plan to train and equip the opposition iní9"l]yriaso they help push back these&&nuÑ terro. as i said last week, i believe that we're strongest as a nation when the president and the congress work together. and i want to thank leaders in congress for the speed and seriousness with which they approach this urgent issue, in keepinganv that is the hallmark of american foreign policy at its best. these syrian opposition forces are fighting both the brutality of isil terrorists and the tyranny of the assad regime. we'd already ramped up our assistance to the syrian opposition, about this new effort, we'll provide training and equipment to help them grow stronger and help them take on isil terrorists inside syria. this will be hosted outside of syria in partnership with countries and be massedçq@ñ increasing forces with the kurdish forces. the american forces deployed to iraq do not and will not have a combat mission. their mission is to assist and advise our partners on the ground. we can join with partners and allies to destroy isil withou

more needs to be done specifically inside share yria. >> certainly more needs to be done.believe the president should not be stampeded by the beheading today is horrific and brutal as it was and to make a decision in the next 24 hours. he's meeting this week with nato allies. very important meeting. to go to mccain's point, he needs to go into these meetings with a sense of what his goal is and the options that he wants to consider and then talk with the allies to see if they can reach a consensus what nato will do. he has two crisis, one with isis and one with putin and the russians in ukraine and he needs to come out of the meetings with a much clear sense he can take to the world what nato and what this concert or alliance is willing to do in both ukraine and very importantly with isis. >> how do you see the president and what he's done? senator mccain says his comments about being a messy place and we know more because social media and senator mccain says he's maybe simply overwhelmed. >> i think there is a tendency on the president to say look, if we step back and we

syria is concerned with this issue, and we do not control .yria we do not decide anything for the syrian people. should be of syria making that decision for their future. from human rights watch. i wanted to know what the iraq government's plans are to disarm the shia militias that have been responsible for atrocities on par with isis. i also wanted to know what we can expect from the vice president, who we understand show has -- still has a number of shia militias reporting directly to him. >> malicious should end -- militias should end. , a group ofperiod militias emerged. some of these militias are fighting isis, but when we get militia shouldno stay -- when we get rid of isis. for as long as they exist, that security apparatuses will not be able to conduct their duties. neither will the armies or other people. they will be in instability. >> are you saying malicious should go when isis is eliminated and that as long as isis is a threat, malicious -- militias should play a role? period,nd a previous when isis started to attack, there was a call for people to be recruited and to volunt

yria agreed unconditionally to attention to and participated in the deliberations with an open mind though we are convinced of the solution, the crisis should be with the ones taking place in turkey. as a good will gesture and to stop bloodshed of syrian blood went and found negotiations that had no influence at all on the ground in syria and has neither popularity nor legitimacy among the syrian people. the delegation negotiating with the sitting government was following -- a delegation that does not believe in combating terrorism or confronting it. furthermore it was litigation that does not respect sovereignty and verbally refuses to ask the groups to end their activity. and w this op position delegation will not stop anyone nor any syrian faction on the ground. we went to geneva with the priority based on combat batting terrorism because we believed and continue to believe that you cannot start any political solution while terrorism is still rampant in syria. there were some who opposed us in geneva as a priority though it is a paramount thought of the geneva declaration provision. but

the two alternatives now in yria are either assad or isis. the moderates have been weakened. so you've got two alternatives. the goal of the president is to have a third alternative that is offered in iraq. and to make it complicated to have both of these efforts going on in the same country combu for the most part they will be focused in different parts of the country. >> most of the reporting has suggested that people are cautious about this whole approach and find it hard to imagine it working or at least the recommendations that there had to be some kind of larger american military on the ground presence. not a lot of troops but certainly a larger or some force of special forces or something like that in order to give this a greater chance of success, this overall strategy. is that something you would agree with? >> not combat forces on the ground, no. >> all right. >> i think, number one, it is not necessary. number two, it works against us politically. it doesn't lay the responsibility where it must fall, which is on the people in iraq and syria to achieve these goals b

>> this again is why we need the people, why we need the people themselves in iraq in sear and yria to support a unified unit collusive representative government in iraq to. the sunni tribes are critical to this. what's allowed so much of this to happen, senator, as you know, as you've visited there many times is the last government in iraq for the last five years have actually exacerbated the fort and intentionally destroyed the capability of a unit government to bring in the sunni, shiite kurdish populations to a government that they would trust, that they could have confidence in, that they knew would work in everyone's interest. so your question cuts directly to the overall effort here of what the president talked about in a include inclusive unit government which we have some confidence in, but we believe so far -- will do we've seen evidence of that inclusiveness. >> thank you very much, senator nelson. >> thank you gentleman. thank you for your testimony today. here's how i view it. ordered by iraq w. bush worked. president obama rejected the advice of many of his top military l

. >> and with the number of foreign fighters coming into yria and iraq, i have asked, mr.cretary, we really expedite the number of visa waiving countries who are participating in interpols in stolen and lost passports. back in the spring the malaysian airlines, two passengers had boarded that flight with lost or stolen passports. i think now more than ever we need to make sure we know and have these other countries to report to interpol. if you could update us briefly. >> we've been having that dialog with our allies and i think they understand the nature of that issue. >> great. and thank you again to each of you for what you're doing to keep us safe and i yield back. >> when you say this committee is considering legislation to require visa waiving countries to provide more data in exchange for that privilege. >> thank you, mr. chair. i don't know if we're making the argument here whether or not we should secure our southern border or not. that's the feeling i'm getting. there's been a lot of talk that if any terrorist, whether or not any terrorists have crossed the borde

deprive isil of having a safe haven so as they're pushed out of iraq, they won't be able to go into yria. we need to envelop them and their mission right there, don't let them get into lebanon and jordan and these other countries around, don't let them squeeze out into those countries. we need to stop them now. the leaders in that area told me how big this threat was. they said, don't think the oceans are going to protect you now. they will not. and we all know that one of the big threats over there is foreign fighters entering into those -- into this fight and a lot of them have passports and will be able to enter back into europe or come to this country and do a lot of serious things we don't want to see happen. we would rather fight them there than here. and that's the purpose of this amendment and the thing that we're talking about right now. so isil is a dangerous threat right now and we need to address them right now. they're growing very rapidly. very well funded. well led. they're fighting as an army, not a little terrorist, ragtag group. we need to address them that way. with th

syria that there is a very disgruntled sunni arab community, potent minority in iraq, a majority in .yria not saying that the solution is one broad solution, but the islamic state problem comes out 's communitiesarab -- community's dissatisfaction. we have to be sensitive to that. i was very struck today. the report out of reuters that when the shia militia went in, they killed a bunch of sunnis in retaliation. that's exactly the kind of thing that will set us back. -- andhe report is true i do not know if it is or not -- but if it is true, i certainly hope the iraqi government moves to discipline those shia militias because otherwise, they will subvert the progress we are trying to make. then on the syrian side, again, we're going to have a lot of .essy tactical alliances >> i think that's great, but again, how our government -- if you have any thoughts on this, i think the moderate opposition is probably one component. the so-called moderate opposition, but what do you see a he biggest implementation challenges in this package? >> i think the largest implementation challenges will be le