Thanking our witnesses, secretary esper and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff milley for appearing before us to testify. The purpose of this hearing is to discussour policy in syria , particularly in light of the tevents that happened just a couple months ago in turkey when they invaded and drove the kurds out of portions of that but its our first hearing since congressman brendici has joined the committee. We have a lot of new faces but theyre not new faces anymore but its good to have another freshman added to the committee. I appreciate him serving, welcome. As i said the purpose of this hearing is to look into the events around syria and as a bunch of questions and the other big issue for us is just the ability of members of this committee toask questions directly of the key policymakers in an area that is of enormous importance and give them an opportunity to learn more about policy and also express their views and that is a huge part of our oversight role in congress and i th