Page 103 - Intelligence Failure News Today

>> kelly odonnell from the white house, thank you. anton gunn is a gold star family member, and bill kristol is with us, founder and editor of "the weekly standard." lets start with breaking news, the idea a, quote, massive intelligence failure may have been behind what happened in niger back in early part of this month. surprising? >> the phrase intelligence failure always komg comes up in something like this. i take the side of mattis to say, look, everyone is investigating, as you heard han...

Intelligence failure, a lack of overhead understanding. so, this idea there isnt enough surveillance there is something youve heard within the africom community and they are building drone bases. they are building a new one in niger. they have one theyre also building down in cameroon. all across africa you see dots, networks of drone bases so they can have a better idea of whats happening on the ground. theyre doing surveillance. yes, theyre doing training and operation with their partners but ...

Still being critic of him, he sees his challenge as a test of whether this trump fueled part of the party will prevail. the president making the speech. jeff will test that point at the ballot box. quick break. the its a busy day. the governor of puerto rico is at the white house. we may hear from the president on that subject moments away. also, tough questions for the white house about how the four americans were called in niger. what was the intelligence failure and how the president relate...

With special ops command figure out what was the purpose of that operation? what were they doing there? why were there so many resources that were shorted and not available to better assess the situation and to put those young men into a situation where they had a fighting chance, but we didnt do that. it was in fact i think the short story on this is we were going to figure out there was an intelligence failure. there truly is, jake, and i dont mean to walk away. there is an incredible personal...

One. thats what i was struck by. these were deeply personal terms. also notable, however, is that this has become a politicized conversation and in large part because it was the president on monday during that impromptu news conference who himself invoked the names of other presidents, president obama and said other past presidents didnt make those calls, he said. in fact, many presidents, in fact, i believe all presidents, have made those calls. they dont make them all the time. president trump...

When youre talking about these remote areas along these borders, ive been along bureau key in a fas so he, everyone knows whats happening in the other ones, right? the americans may not know, but people do know. was this an intelligence failure? >> let me describe what i think is going on here. from the department of defense level and above there is some great explanation that needs to take place. you need to question what were these special ops soldiers doing in niger in this particular mission...

To get from this administration is, what exactly is the strategy for this war on terror? what is our objective that were trying to accomplish? >> as somebody who has served, they were attacked by about 50 isis affiliated fighters. do you suspect that this may have been an intelligence failure in some way? >> yeah, again, i dont want to make any guesses or estimates about specifically what happened on the ground there. i think we owe it to our service members to get the facts on the situation, bu...

Lot of people didnt know they have military forces in africa and niger. the key question is why would they go into a village where there is isis, 50 terrorists ready to start killing the americans. they didnt have the security and the back up and the intelligence that notified them dont go there. >> at the least this is an intelligence failure and operational one as well. without that information, you really cannot put your forces at risk. whatever happened and obviously the african command is g...

Threat and to make sure we can deliver that. >> you say were closer. are we talking months or years. >> its difficult to put a timeline. each time they test another missile, or if they conduct of nuclear weapons test they develop expertise and expand the envelope so it is probably fair to say they are moving toward that at an alarming rate. chris: i want to pick up on that. there has been criticism that the intelligence community including the central intelligence agency has been surprised over ...

Its also possible north korea may have placed in their line of sight, imagery which would or, you know, a device which could look like that, and they are accelerating in their assessment or it could be, you know, a miscalculation. either way if this is true, theres already been an intelligence failure. >> general mccaffrey, when you are on, we talk about the generals surrounding this president. names like mattis, kelly and mcmaster. do you think they glanced at, or had any knowledge of the rheto...