Page 3 - Mission Itself News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

You served in the pentagon for a long time. >> yeah. >> the timing of this, the number of troops, the constant raising of it. it was 5,000 troops, then it was 7,000, as you noted, then the president with little basis, apparently, triples, almost triples the number with 15,000. are you concerned here that the pentagon is being used as a political tool? i mean, the pentagon has the listen to what the president says. he's the commander in chief, and i'm sure mattis ran it through the processes, but let's look at hi this looks in light of the timing, the president's overall message. aren't you con...

And forth today? >> well, it's embarrassing, in light of what i think has been widely regarded as a successful mission in syria. and to have this apparent contradiction. i don't know whether it's a contradiction in terms of the policy itself. or whether it's simply a matter of timing. i guess we will soon see. as for the mission itself, we keep hearing, bret, from critics of it that what we really need here is a broader syria policy. and that -- and that the bombing runs are no substitute for that i would be inclined to disagree with them in this sense, bret. i think the president's ambitions ...

Why they died, under what circumstances. from what you're able to piece together, what do you think happened in niger, and is the white house hiding something? why all the politics surrounding this, even drawing in the death of john kelly's son? >> on the mission itself, i don't want to jump to conchooses. obviously they were on what we would call in pentagon speak, foreign internal defense mission. this is sort of training, advising local forces so that they can better defend their own citizens. in this case, there was a counterterrorism element to it. but i don't know much more about the mis...

What they put out publicly. that makes perfect sense to me. but not to put out a condolence statement is and that is why we got to this bickering between the congresswoman and the president. as to the mission itself, they are investigating this, as they always doment when you have deaths like this as a result of an operation, they will get down to every little detail. clearly it looks like the guys were surprised in some way and they were not prepared for the eventualities that happened in this mission. i can assure you they will look at every little detail. when they're doing the investigatio...

Moment. >> it would take someone awfully hard-hearted to concede that. but in the 12 hours before this speech tonight, the president got a little sideways on the mission itself, seeming to indicate in his interview with "fox & friends," seeming to blame, quote, the generals for losing ryan in this mission and not seeming to grasp that the title commander in chief means just that. it's all on you. that's part of the job. >> well, i'm not going to concede that, brian, because i understand it. i always try to listen to donald trump dirnl than i listen to other people. i think what he was trying t...