. >>> "outfront" tonight, general anthony zinni joining us, he served as commander in chief of u.s. central command had under president bill clinton, and colonel cedric leighton who served as an intelligence officer in the u.s. air force, gentlemen, thanks for being with us. i'd like to call your attention to something -- >> good to be with you. >> -- thank you. secretary kerry said any action by the administration will, quote, bare no resemblance to afghanistan, iraq, or even libya. and president obama said this -- >> in no event are we considering any kind of military action that would involve boots on the ground, that would involve a long-term campaign, but we are looking at the possibility of a limited, narrow, act. >> general zinni, you oversaw bill clinton's attempt to kill osama bin laden in 2008 and you warned against president bush's mistakes in iraq. do you believe that president obama is on the verge of making a mistake in syria? >> i think, you know, he's made the commitment and he's put down the red line, and i think it's inevitable now that he has to follow through. if

, and he probably won't because you're retired, but let's say he were to call you and say, general zinni, i want your best, honest and most candid advice right now. we have the most absolute hard efrd the syrian government killed 1400 people, 400 of which were children with chemical weapons that were banned for a long time. what should we do militarily? what would you say to president obama? >> i think, first of all, he's doing the right thing now. he's focusing this on the chemical weapons convention. this convention was ratified by congress. so he is confining this to enforcing the convention and to applying military action in its enforcement. and i think that's where we have to keep the case. the danger in the debate is, and i think you mentioned this, that we could get carried away on support for the civil war, and this debate can go far afield from that particular narrow focus. the only thing i would like to see from the president is he keeps talking about this not being a long-term commitment or not being a campaign. and, again, that presumes we're not going to see repeats of assad

. >>> coming up later on "new day," we'll speak with retired marine corps general anthony zinny and the options the u.s. has for carrying out a military strike. >>> we're going to stay on the story but we have news of a blockbuster settlement that may close the legal fight over head injuries in the nfl now. the league agreeing to pay $765 million to more than 4,500 former players and their families. let's bring in andie scholes with "the bleacher report." is this a good settlement? how is it being received? what does it mean? >> it's good they got it done now. this case could have dragged out for years. by settling it the dark cloud around the league goes away and the players who have concussion-related injuries will get the help they need. for years the nfl and its retired players have been at odds how to address head injuries on the field. thursday it ends the fighting and puts money toward medical exams, legal compensation, legal fees and medical research. here's thousand breaks down. >> i think it's a good day for thousands of football players who are dealing with different afflicti

marine corps general anthony zinni.uggested that unintentionally, with the best of intentions, the u.s. right now could get sucked into a long-term military crisis inside syria. what's your concern? well, my concern is this is not simply a matter of regime removal. we thought that in iraq and we thought once we popped the top in saddam, it was a liberation, and it wasn't. we went into somalia with purely humanitarian intentions, and got bogged down. this is a mess. there's a religious war underneath this, and you're going to take a side. there's ethnic and tribal differences. wherever you come down, you will make an enemy. there would be some degree of order that would be created, if we attack now, and i think there's good humanitarian reasons for a response, but we have to be prepared to follow up. there may be more unacceptable acts. they may not just be the once we might expect, like use of chemical weapons again. there might be terrorist attacks, attacks on allies like israel, all sorts of things could lead us down

but earlier today, we heard the former commander general anthony zinni talking about how when these decisionsn at the top levels of not only an administration, but oftentimes the military, it's the troops down the line, the sailors, the airmen, soldiers, the marines, that get whipped around by all this, and it -- you end up with a serious morale problem. now, in this case, it's only been a really 10 days or so. and so if those relief -- if the relief can be made, and those ships pulled out and either be sent home or go into maintenance and crew rest as they're supposed to, it shouldn't have much of an impact. but there is a little bit of concern about the kind of confusion that surrounded these -- this most recent buildup and plan to go and strike syria. >> colonel jack, finally, what about the president, going to congress for authorization for a limited -- what we were told limited, targeted, no boots on the ground cruise missiles, standoff kind of military strike? plenty of precedent for not going to congress. does this create a new expectation for the balance of power between the executive

it's to be short and over, and i think as general anthony zinni said, you can't be a little bit pregnant. you can't-- one and done-- that is you, you go in and send in the missiles and you feel better and you put some damage and some hurt upon the other side-- but it is not a long-term solution. >> woodruff: david, what about that? this argument that, yes, the united states can go in, make a point, punish the assad regime, but not really change anything on the ground? >> well, i don't know if-- as awful as that regime is i'm not sure we necessarily want to top tele, given alternatives, which is anarchy. the second thing sthey're decision makers so you're trying to change their calculus. if you raise the cost of doing what they're doing there's a chance they won't do it again. that does happen and has happened may be times in world history. they raise the costs and they tonight do it again. there is a chance they will do it again and we'll have to make another call, do we want to escalate. and that's clearly a danger. i do think the idea if the u.s. says something about weapons of mass de

retired general anthony zinni was central command at that time. good morning. >> good morning. >> you heard the general saying he didn't want to get drawn into a long conflict in syria. can we launch a surgical military strike without getting caught in an open-ended war? >> well i think the problem is the red line. bashar assad, much like saddam hussein, will continue to violate any red lines or do unacceptable acts. we'll find ourselves doing much like we did in the '90s with iraq. we will repeatedly conduct these kinds of actions against these kinds of acts and find ourselves in sort of a slow rolling campaign and unsure where it might lead. unless we have a strategy in place to understand how this is going to play. it just can't be a one and done. you can't assume there isn't anything that's going to provoke another response. >> general do you think at this point we have to do something? what should the end game be? >> well we have to do something because the president laid a red line down. this is an unacceptable act. so i think we're committe