Deal with this. We dont have anything like that with respect to the middle east. So we are dealing with each of these crises individually rather than backing up and saying, whats our longterm game plan here . And who are going to the our allies austin mark our allies . Where do we contain . Where do we let it burn itself out . We havent addressed those longterm questions. It seems to me we are thinking strictly in the short term of monthtomonth. Got nine points, secretary carter, but i dont sense anyone in the region or in the congress believes that we have a deeply studied and longterm policy for the middle east that can extend for decades. First of all, do you think we need one, and do we have one . Secretary carter we have a strategy toward the middle east. Decadesments of it are long standing. Again, our strategy begins with the pursuit of american interests. That involves protecting our own country and our people, defending longstanding friends and allies who include the gulf states and israel, opposing the introduction of Nuclear Weapons to the region, which gets us to the iran circumstance, and in the current matter of isil, protecting our people and our friends and allies by defeating it where it began, which is in iraq and syria. That thebed today implementation of the strategy in both of those places, to defeat, the grade, and effete isil, we are doing that. It is a complicated region. I called it kaleidoscopic in my statement. American interests are not unclear. They are clear. Our strategy is intended to pursue those interests, and that is what we are doing, strengthening the pursuit of that strategy. The chairman and i have been describing to you today the steps we are taking in iraq and syria, and with respect to unilateral actions. Position ofat the the administration, but frankly our middle eastern allies that we talk to dont feel confident that they know what the longterm goals of the United States are. Were they to defend iraq against isil . Are we going to pull out all troops in afghanistan regardless of the situation on the ground . What about red lines in syria . Are we going to honor those . You can say that, but i think its clear that confidence and understanding of where we stand and what were going to do over the next 10, 20, 30 years, as any leader of a nation has got to think, and we should think, i dont think were there. I really believe more work needs to be done. Im talking to my colleagues in the senate. I believe we can reach a bipartisan policy. I dont think its impossible. One more thing. Departmenthe defense may underestimate the critical nature of the refugee crisis. This is not like iran, iraq, a war that went on for many years. This is impacting europe right now. It is a humanitarian crisis. It is being exploited by everyone else in the middle east that would like to come to europe. Europe is facing what one top diplomat told me was the greatest crisis since world war ii. I think weve got to think about get, these safe sounds, and busy these safe zones, and get busy on it. It may have to have some of our people at risk to try to protect those areas, but it wouldnt take a lot. You and i talked about it. Can we get moving on this . How many more millions have to lineup in areas before we act . Just morally, my judgment is that europe needs to know there is a place for these refugees to go other than to flee the entire region. That will strengthen them. Can we not do that . Quickly. Well, in sorter far as the refugees are coming from syria, they are actually coming to europe from several areas, but to the extent they are coming from syria, this is why it is so important that the Syrian Civil War be put to an end. Our approach to that is political, not military. We have not undertaken to achieve that goal militarily. Our approach is political. We hope that transition occurs and the civil war in syria ends. What if it takes three years . Oft we provide some sort area the actual people who are in danger secretary carter ill just repeat what i said. Im prepared to have shared with you the analysis weve done of safe zones, buffer zones, and nofly zones. We have looked at the advantages and costs of those, and the president has not taken them off the table, but we have not undertaken to create any of those zones at this time. I dont rule that out in the future. Im happy to discuss it with you in a different setting. Recognize senator ayotte. , i want to thank the chair also thank senator donnelly. Appreciate it. , want to ask secretary carter recently, the iranians have actually tested a longrange missile, in violation of existing u. N. Security council resolutions. This is something that ambassador powers has confirmed, and in fact if you look at what the iranians have done postagreement, not only have they tested this missile, but theyve wrongfully convicted a Washington Post reporter in iran. Weve had a lot of discussion about the cooperation between russia and iran undermining stability in syria and our interests there. In brought to my attention recently that the Supreme Leader of iran has said about the recent agreement that any imposition of sanctions at any level under any pretext of terrorism and human rights on the part of any country involved in negotiations will constitute a violation. So heres my question to both of. Ou primarily to you, secretary carter. What are we going to do about their violations of already existing u. N. Resolutions when it comes to testing Ballistic Missiles and longrange missiles . You testified before this committee. The i in icbm is intercontinental. Is violating resolutions with no response from us. Already, the Supreme Leader is basically saying, you impose sanctions on any reason, even terrorism or other human rights violations, we are going to walk away. That theirot agree violation of the missile resolution warrants a response from the United States, and what is that response going to the . At this point, i havent seen any response. Secretary carter i think that it needs to be very clear, certainly clear to us in the department of defense, that the conclusion of the nuclear deal with iran, assuming it gets addressted, does not all of our security concerns. Yes or no, should we respond to their testing of this missile that violates existing u. N. Resolutions . Secretary carter ill describe one response. , that is our continuing commitment to does the development of missile defenses. I understand that we are developing missile defenses, but what is our response when they behave badly already . Shouldnt there be a response from the United States of america . We had a panel of experts here and i asked each of them if we should respond. They all agreed, yes. Secretary carter in our area of responsibility, i would say let, senator ill ambassador power and secretary kerry address the diplomatic side of it, but in our area of , that does not end all of our security concerns with respect to iran. Notsecretary, ending ending, it seems like it is just the beginning, really. As we think about the unholy alliance between russia and iran undermining our interest in syria, as we think about the testing in our faces of longrange missiles, as we think about what the Supreme Leader has said, i would say that its really just beginning. I need to ask a question of you, general dunford. I had the privilege of recently, on friday, going to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and meeting with our men and women who serve there. They are doing an excellent job under difficult circumstances, as you know. One of the issues that was brought to my attention, and i know that you, one of your jobs having been a commander and serving in the highest position in our military, taking care of our men and women in uniform is so critical. Yet we have a situation down there where we met with women guards who are being prevented from fully performing their mission because the five 9 11 attackers who are charged with killing 3000 americans will not allow them to perform their duties because they are women. Can you tell me what you think about that . Do you think that is right . Senator, i feel the same way as the commander, commander kelly, who describes it as outrageous. I read his weekly report and have read it for about seven or eight weeks. Its outrageous. Hes identified it. As you probably know, that is being worked by lawyers. Im not using that as an excuse. Im just sharing with you, that is where its at right now. The commander has identified it. It is outrageous. It ought to be fixed. Id like to see the Administration Speak out against this. We talk about giving women more opportunity in combat, but this is an area where these women that we met with, that are serving there, they are not being able to perform the full responsibilities of their positions, simply because they are women, because 9 11 terrorists are manipulating the system to say that our women cannot guard them. Secretary carter, i hope you would agree with me that this is outrageous. I hope the administration would do everything in its power. Secretary carter i do. I associate myself with what the chairman said. This is pursuant to the action of a federal judge. I understand that. But i think it is counter to the way we Treat Service members, including Women Service members, and outrageous is a very good word for it. I appreciate both of you being here. Thank you. Secretary, general dunford, ive known both of you for many years. Ive appreciated very much your outstanding work. Im a great admirer of both of you. I appreciate your service. Isnt helpful it a our relations when theres widely spread story stating the name of the ship, where it went, and you come and tell us that you cant confirm or deny something that is out there in the media. Somebody has leaked all that information to the media, but you cant tell members of this committee who have the responsibility to exercise oversight. The second issue i want to mention is guantanamo. I understand the president has said on numerous occasions that one of his objections is guantanamo. Aidend the president s top came to my office and said you were going to give me a plan. Ive always favored closing guantanamo for a variety of reasons. Yet we still havent got a plan from you. Not only not a plan, until i asked you about it specifically, there was no communication. After coming to my office and saying you are going to give me that plan, and i said we needed it, we got nothing. Not an update, not a briefing on what was going on. So we put in language in president , and the voices his strong objection to guantanamo. Finally, this issue of whether we are protecting those people who we are asking to fight isis,t bashar assad and isnt it true that weve dropped munitions, general dunford, to a group of people who we are supporting in syria . General dunford it is true, senator. Theme we going to protect from russian air attack . General dunford senator, we have the authority. We have the capability and we have options. Is it true that the russians are already attacking them . The ones we dropped munitions to. General dunford the russians have not attacked the ones weve dropped munitions to. They have not . General dunford no, chairman. To make sure that you and i are speaking of the same group, the group im referring to is known as the syrian arab coalition. They operate in the northeast part of the country. We recently provided resupply to those individuals. And if they are attacked by the russians, you will defend them . General dunford we have the that. Lity to do i cant answer that question. They would be interested in knowing, i think. If we are going to give them equipment and ask them to fight, and we cant answer to them whether we are going to protect them or not, i think it is a degree of immorality. Secretary carter chairman, may i take a moment . First of all, i dont mean to be coy about the ships sailing and i know things are in the newspaper. It has nothing to do with this particular operation. There are all kinds of things in the newspaper that should not be in the newspaper. I dont like to talk about military operations publicly. You are entitled to be briefed on everything, but talking about things in a public setting what is classified about it . What is it that you wouldnt think in fact, i literally every member of this Committee Applauds it, so im not sure what the reason is why you wouldnt want to just state what has already been from somebody who works for you, the name of the ship, when it went out, but yet you wont tell us. That causes frustration, mr. Secretary. Secretary carter i dont mean to cause you frustration. I hope you understand our frustration. Butetary carter i do, maybe my hesitation is excessive, but i dont like to talk about military operations in public. Perhaps this one should be an exception. Let me go on to the other thing you said about gitmo. I too favor, like you, closing gitmo if at all possible. The detainees in gitmo are not, cannot be safely transferred to another location. In order to close gitmo, as you know, we would need to find a location in the United States in which they could continue to be detained. What has taken the time, chairman, is that we had to survey a number of sites. Weve done that at a number of sites around the country. Weve completed that. Some of those are department of defense sites. We needed to have them nominated by the Justice Department. And then to do the site surveys, all of that took some time. I expect you will get your proposal shortly. I would have appreciated an update. At theicism on this side capital is, to my view, somewhat justified. The law was broken when mr. Swapped for five people. The law required that the president of the United States notify congress, and he didnt do it. Frankly, theres a credibility got that is huge when the directnt act ins violation of the law and uses the excuse that there could be a leak. To me, that is not an excuse to violate the law. The cynicism here is immense. The president complains about the nda. To expect that the committee would act after the president violated the law and there is no not is something that is reasonable nor in keeping with our responsibilities. Could i say again, my respect, i appreciate the great work that both of you do. As i said, weve known each other a long time. You, thereso tell a certain amount of frustration here because of the lack of communication. Guantanamo is one. Another one is this policy or lack of policy about what people we train and equip and whether we defend them or not. The lack of strategy to say that we can take out syrian air defenses in order to establish a nofly zone is simply not true. Ill ask any military expert. Thats not true. You dont have to take out syrian air defenses. Syrians cant fly into our places. Weve had military members like general petraeus and general keane and others who have a very different view of the whole ,ssue of what were going to do which by doing nothing, has triggered a flood of millions of refugees, which is a problem we are going to be grappling with for many years to come. It didnt have to happen. I look forward to more conversations with you. I appreciate you coming to the community ittee. I appreciate your service. This meeting, im sure youll be happy to know, is adjourned. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] tomorrow the annual defense one summit, featuring james crawford, the army cheese rhodes, staff, and ben will discuss how Security Leaders are preparing for all types of missions at home and abroad. Our live coverage begins at 8 30 a. M. Eastern on cspan2. Access to the best congress with live coverage of the house and senate. Here are viewer comments and tweets about thursdays House Speaker election. Excellent photographic makes cspan looks more like espn. For mitt romney, i got the first speaker selfie. As a matter of fact, i am watching john boehner on cspan. Watching from australia, very inspiring speech. Politics in our country is very broken and combative lately. We could use a ryan. How can a member of the Minority Party run for House Speaker . Got my cspan on, keeping an eye out for those colorado representatives. What morning would it be without a collectible houseboat . The speaker vote, im watching cspan on a plane. This really is the future. The best access to congress is on cspan,s be span cspan radio, and cspan. Org. Republican president ial candidate ben carson spoke thursday at a town hall gathering and colorado. He also took questions from the students during the event. This is about 45 minutes. Ben carson thank you. Thank you ray much. Very much. We are absolutely delighted to be here at colorado christian university. A bastion of morality. In todays society. Sometimes it takes courage, quite frankly, today, to be someone who stands up for principle. Its very problematic in our societies right now, and one of the reasons that i decided to , against mys intense desire to retire and to operations 15,000 and 36 years of 12 to 16 hour days with lots of stress, but it does prepare you well for this. It was because i was afraid that we were starting to lose a part of who we were as americans. Freedom of that was our , our freedom to live as we wish , to live by our faith, to live by our believes, to speak about what we want to speak about. Peoplet has happened, have been beaten down. Americansajority of are logical people with common sense. Discover have come to that if you say certain things, that youre going to be pulverized. Youre going to be called names, youre going to get in irs audit, somebody is going to mess with your job, youre going to be ostracized. Well, heres the problem. Exactly what the secular progressives want you to do. Care what you think as long as you sit down and shut. Time for people to stand up. That is what will save america. [applause] we must also recognize that we are so fortunate to live in this country. I have visited the six other countries, and i enjoy seeing the sights, but im always delighted to be back here again to put my feet on the ground here. There is no other place like america. It is a land of dreams. [applause] dont you find it kind of comment that you have so many people who like to criticize us and say how horrible we are, and how we created all these problems, and yet all these people are trying to get in here and nobody is trying to get out. [laughter] how does t