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Classified pages of a 9/11 report may implicate key U.S. ally

Nation Prepares To Mark 13th Anniversary Of September 11th Attacks

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JUDY WOODRUFF: In the 13 years since the 9/11 attacks, not every question about that day has been answered. Potentially explosive revelations that may implicate a key U.S. ally in the attacks remain hidden from public view, classified and stored beneath the U.S. Capitol Building.

Jeffrey Brown has our story.

JEFFREY BROWN: Twenty-eight pages of a joint congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks were classified by the George W. Bush administration, which claimed they contained information that would hurt the war on terror.

But some lawmakers argue the pages reveal little about national security and a great deal about the government of Saudi Arabia’s role in the attacks. They say that the pages tell the story of Saudi officials meeting with and even funding two of the 9/11 hijackers when they first arrived in the U.S.

It’s all in a story by Lawrence Wright in this week’s “New Yorker” magazine. Wright is author of “The Looming Tower” about events leading to the 9/11 attack. His new book is “Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David.”

And he joins me now.

And welcome back, Larry Wright. So this is a 9/11 story about what we still don’t know. Put those 28 pages in context first. They’re part of the original investigation into what happened, but only a handful of people have seen them, right?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT, The New Yorker: That’s right.

Right after 9/11, a very unusual congressional inquiry, with both the House and the Senate Intelligence Committee chairmen, convened to find out what had happened. And they did quite a lot of research. This is before the 9/11 Commission took effect.

And they published their report in 2003, and it was heavily redacted, but there was one entire section, 28 pages, that was taken out entirely. And the Bush administration justified it on national security grounds.

But congressmen that I have spoken to who have read those 28 pages say it has nothing at all to do with national security, that the Bush administration and the relationship with the Saudis is implicated. And they also admit that it has something to do with the two Saudi hijackers who came to America in January of 2000.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

Well, so part of this centers on what’s called the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, which is — as you document in your story, is placed inside Saudi embassies around the world. And the question is really, is there an explicit tie that exists between Saudi government or other Saudis and the hijackers?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: That’s exactly right.

And there’s a lawsuit, Jeff, that’s going on right now which takes the theory that these two hijackers who came from a high-level al-Qaida meeting in Malaysia in January of 2000 arrived in Southern California. They didn’t speak English, and their mission was to learn how to fly Boeing jets. Now, imagine how difficult that would be.

And why did they go to Southern California? Were they meeting someone? Well, shortly after they arrived, they found a benefactor in a Saudi man named Omar al-Bayoumi, who lived in San Diego. He drove up to Los Angeles, went to the Saudi Consulate and there met with an official in the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Fahad al-Thumairy.

And after an hour meeting, he drove to a restaurant in Culver City. And he later claimed that he just happened to be in the restaurant, overheard two men, the future hijackers, speaking in a Gulf Arabic, and he invited them to move to San Diego. He helped them with their rent, set them up in an apartment, introduced them to some key people in the Saudi community there.

And, you know, it’s a very interesting relationship that he had. Many people in the Saudi community, because he often videotaped people and so on, thought he might be a Saudi spy. In fact, one of the hijackers concluded that as well.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, it should be said that some key people that you talked to, including involved in the 9/11 Commission, they had a look at this, and they said they didn’t either — either they didn’t see anything explosive there or they didn’t see enough evidence or it looked a little too wild to really point to something explicit.

On the other hand, as you say, some key officials, including bipartisan members of Congress, think there really is something there.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Right.

And I have talked to — I talked to the 9/11 Commissioners, and Governor Tom Kean, for instance, has — he’s seen those 28 pages. He thinks they ought to be released. He thinks it’s not just those 28 pages. He says this is just a small part of a much larger story.

There’s lots of information that that joint inquiry and the 9/11 Commission turned up that still has been kept from the American people, for instance, their interviews with President Bush, with former President Clinton, with Vice President Cheney. Those still haven’t been released. And I think, after 13 years, the American people can afford to know the truth.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, follow up on that. What’s the stated reason for that all these years later, why so much of that is still classified? And how much of an attempt has there been to open it up?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Well, Governor Kean and former Congressman Lee Hamilton, the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission, have been on a campaign to get that material released, so far to no effect.

And that is separate from the 28 pages. There’s a resolution in Congress that has bipartisan support to urge the Obama administration to release that portion of the document. And there’s also the lawsuit. The victims’ families are trying to get access to this material, because they believe it will support their suit against the Saudi government and other Saudi entities.

JEFFREY BROWN: It’s also interesting to note that the Saudis themselves say they would like these 28 pages opened up, right? Because they’re — maybe to stop the accusations against them.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Exactly.

JEFFREY BROWN: What do they say exactly?

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: Well, Prince Bandar, who was the ambassador to the U.S. at the time of 9/11, asked for these 28 pages to be declassified when the Bush administration withheld them, saying that we stand charged with 28 blank pages and we can’t respond to the charge.

Bandar’s wife, as it happens, is one of the people that is mentioned in — maybe not in the — I can’t say about these 28 pages, but in that those two people that helped the hijackers, one of them, Omar Bayoumi, and Osama Basnan — Basnan was receiving money. His wife was receiving money from Bandar’s wife, supposedly for a medical condition.

The suit against the Saudis alleges that some of that money found its way into the hands of the hijackers. The FBI wasn’t able to establish that.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right. Lawrence Wright’s article “The Twenty-Eight Pages” is in “The New Yorker.”

Thanks so much.

LAWRENCE WRIGHT: It’s a pleasure, Jeff. Thank you.

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Analyzing potential challenges of fighting the Islamic State

IRAQ-CONFLICT

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JUDY WOODRUFF: And we get a broader assessment of the president’s plan now from Stephen Hadley. He was national security adviser to President George W. Bush. He now has his own consulting company. Richard Haass was the director of policy planning at the State Department during the George W. Bush administration. He’s currently president of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Michèle Flournoy was undersecretary of defense for policy during the first term of the Obama administration. She’s now chief executive officer at the Center for a New American Security. And retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich is professor emeritus of international relations and history at Boston University. His latest book is “Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country.”

And we welcome all four of you back to the program.

I want to go around and ask all of you to start with whether you think the president has laid out a plan that is headed in the right direction.

Michèle Flournoy, you first.

MICHELE FLOURNOY, Former Defense Department official: I would say absolutely.

I think the president made — laid out a very comprehensive strategy, a very clear strategy, showed a lot of resolve, determination to put together an international coalition to go after the ISIL threat. I think the real challenge here is the devil’s in the details.

And as has been alluded to by many commentators, the — making this work on the Syrian side of the border is going to be a lot harder than making it work on the Iraqi side.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And we’re going to get to that.

Stephen Hadley, overall, is this a plan that sounds like it’s doing the right thing?

STEPHEN HADLEY, Former U.S. National Security Adviser: I think so. I think the president had a very good night last night.

I think, as Michèle said, he laid out a clear assessment of the risk, what he wanted to do. And he reminded the American people that America is uniquely positioned and really the only country that can put this together.

The question will be: Is this a one-time speech, or will he continue to talk to the American people about the importance of this issue? And will they have an implementation and execution plan that works? And I think the appointment of Gen. Allen to coordinate this is a very good sign.

JUDY WOODRUFF: That’s retired General John Allen, who, as we reported a few minutes ago, the president has announced will be heading up the overall effort.

Col. Bacevich, what about you. The overall plan the president’s outlined, what do you make of it?

COL. ANDREW BACEVICH (RET.), Boston University: Well, it’s not a comprehensive strategy.

Let’s understand that ISIS emerged because of certain conditions in this region, disorder, dysfunction, alienation, the residue of European colonialism. And even if we succeed in destroying ISIS — and I certainly hope we do — those conditions will persist.

And, therefore, when ISIS goes away, it will be followed by another equivalent threat to the region. What we are engaged in here is a game of Whac-A-Mole, and that doesn’t qualify as a comprehensive strategy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Richard Haass, how do you see it?

RICHARD HAASS, Former State Department official: Well, I applaud the fact that the president expanded the purposes of what we’re doing. It’s no longer simply to protect American personnel or humanitarian concerns, but essentially it recognizes ISIS for the strategic threat that it is, to both the region and to the United States and the world.

And, again, I support the expansion geographically, the idea that you can’t allow them a sanctuary in Syria or anywhere else. The real challenge or problem, as I see it, and many have alluded to it, is that if the United States is somewhat successful from the air, the question is whether we can supplement or complement that success on the ground.

In Iraq, we have some potential partners. The big question mark is the Iraqi government and its forces. In Syria, there’s a much bigger challenge. The last thing we want to do is push back ISIS, only to have the Assad government fill the space.

And I am skeptical that the moderate or secular Syrian opposition is going to be ready or organized any time soon. So I would put a much greater emphasis on trying to get ground support from local tribesmen, Sunni or Kurds, and I would also put much more pressure on some of the Arab countries to put together their own pan-Arab force to work with us on the ground.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All right, and I do want to get to Syria, but I also want to come back, Michèle Flournoy, to what Andy Bacevich just said, that this is not a strategy, it’s Whac-A-Mole, that ISIS is there, it’s a persistent force that’s on the ground, it’s — with this kind of strategy, the United States is not going to be able to eliminate it.

MICHELE FLOURNOY: Yes, I do think it’s true there are fundamental conditions in the region that are giving rise to these violent extremist groups.

But I think the president’s strategy is broader. You saw him withhold or hold back on fully engaging with promising airstrikes, aid to the Iraqi forces, et cetera, until we had the formation of a more inclusive Iraqi government, because that is key to taking an alienated Sunni population, which created the sort of opening for ISIL to come in and into Iraq, and trying to move them back into being part of Iraqi society, bought into the government and so forth.

And so that political change has been huge, and now that that’s happened and the formation of a more inclusive government is under way, that opens the door to much more support on the Iraqi side of the border.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Col. Bacevich, what about that? Doesn’t — why doesn’t that make this strategy something that could work in Iraq?

COL. ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I think the whole discussion ignores a set of facts that are staring us in the face.

And the key facts are that efforts on the part of the United States to use military power to bring, what, stability, democracy to this region of the world have not worked. If anything, our efforts have actually fostered greater instability.

So to imagine that now trying once again, albeit this time relying only on American airpower, with proxies on the ground, to imagine that this is going to produce a significantly better outcome strikes me as, frankly, silly.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Stephen Hadley, how do you answer that?

STEPHEN HADLEY: Well, I think that, you know, it is one thing to say there’s no military solution to this problem. And that is true.

There needs to be a comprehensive solution that addresses political, economic, social and other factors. But when you’re dealing with a group like ISIL, you’re not going to have a successful strategy if it doesn’t have a military element. If you don’t have a military element, then basically ISIL is going to hold and expand its territory.

So what we need is a comprehensive approach. Getting an inclusive Iraqi government, helping that government politically and economically alike, is an important element of it. But when you’re dealing with folks like ISIL, you’re going to have to have a military element. We should rely as much as we can on the Iraqi people and the various arms that they have to get the job done, but they can’t succeed without our support in terms of intelligence, training, special forces and airpower.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Richard Haass, as you were just saying a moment ago, you think Syria is an essential piece of this strategy and that the U.S. needs to give serious thought to how it works alongside or in some manner with President Assad. Spell out for us what you have in mind.

RICHARD HAASS: Happy to do this.

Just give me 30 seconds on the other. What was interesting to me about the president’s speech last night is what he didn’t say, and one of the things he didn’t say is he’s going to try to make the Middle East safe for democracy. We’re not talking about that. I think the United States has wisely lowered some of its ambitions there.

In terms of Syria, my own view is that we need a partner on the ground. As I said before, I think there are some possibilities. What I would probably do, though, is two things. One is with the Syrian government. I would say they are the less urgent problem for the United States. They are a local threat. They are not a global threat.

So I would essentially have some kind of a tacit arrangement, temporarily, for the time being, where Mr. Assad should be allowed to remain, if you, will as mayor of the Alawite aspects of the country, but we need to now be able to act with somewhat of a free hand against ISIS in the majority of the country.

And if Mr. Assad tries the take advantage of any of our attacks on the — on ISIS, then he would be putting himself into the line of fire. And I would then diplomatically talk to countries like Iran and Russia to try to get an understanding about how we are going to try to pursue ISIS, bringing in the Sunnis and others, without having it be an advantage for Mr. Assad.

What’s in it for Mr. Assad, though, is, temporarily, he can survive in the part of Syria he controls.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Michèle Flournoy, Richard Haass is going further than the president did last night in talking about what alliances need to exist. Why wouldn’t the president go that far at this point, or shouldn’t?

MICHELE FLOURNOY: I think the principal reason not to work directly with Assad, beyond the lack — his lack of legitimacy to lead his own country, is the fact that, if we did that, you would basically lose the very Arab coalition we’re trying to build.

You’re not going to have the full support of key countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others if you’re collaborating with Assad. And so I think that — I think it’s a nonstarter politically. There will be situations where we have to make a choice whether to strike a target in Syria, given the second- and third-order effects. Will it actually empower the Syrian opposition or will it ultimately empower the Assad government?

And those choices will be — will be tough as this unfolds.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Col. Andy Bacevich, what about Syria? You hear Richard Haass saying that’s an essential piece of this, that it won’t work unless Syria’s involved. Where do you come down on that?

COL. ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I hear all this discussion about arming and training moderate Syrians. I’m not exactly sure how we identify who is a moderate.

But I think we should temper our expectations about what that sort of effort is likely to produce in the near term. I mean, the comparison there, I think, is Iraq, where we spent about eight years trying to train and equip a competent force, and that effort failed.

So any expectation that we’re going to be able to pull an effective Syrian opposition fighting force out of a hat, I just think we should be wary of that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Let me — and I was going to say I want to turn to Stephen Hadley, because, of course, you were working with President Bush when he was doing some of what Col. Bacevich describes.

STEPHEN HADLEY: Well, you know, it is true that we — the reason Iraq fell apart from the relative stability that we had with al-Qaida really largely defeated in Iraq in 2008, ’09 and ’10 was because of what happened in Syria, and not getting on top of that situation early.

So we do have to solve the Syria problem, but this has been a long time building. We’re not going to get it done overnight. We need to start and focus on Iraq, and then develop the capabilities over time to deal with Syria. And the point about our principles, the president did talk about standing up for our principles.

Democracy and freedom is one of them, and it does have a role, because if there is not democracy in Iraq in which Sunni, Shia and Kurds can work together in a democratic framework, if there is not an inclusive democratic government in Iraq, it won’t hold together and we will fail.

So our principles have a role in this in ultimately stabilizing this situation.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Col. Bacevich, you want to respond quickly to that?

COL. ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, it’s just hard for me to take seriously any expectation that the United States has an ability at this point to form that cohesive, unified Iraq. Guess what? We tried. It failed.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Richard Haass, I want to come back very quickly here, as our time draws to a close, on this question of boots on the ground. We heard Susan Rice tell Gwen that boots on the ground have proved counterproductive. And then we heard Committee Chairman Congressman Buck McKeon say they are going to be essential, that it’s inevitable.

Who is right on that?

RICHARD HAASS: Well, the only American boots on the ground for the most part are going to be Special Forces in places like Syria.

And then you will have some trainers and advisers, but you are going to need boots on the ground. I think they’re going to have to come from some of the Arab countries or from local tribesmen or Kurds. It has got to be local. It has to be Sunni. You can’t do this from the air alone.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Michèle Flournoy, what about that?

MICHELE FLOURNOY: I think the principal boots to be ground have to be from Iraq and from Syria, but those should be enabled by our intelligence assets, by our special operations forces, by people who can help to advise and assist them in being more effective on the battlefield, who can help train them, equip them and so forth.

I do think that those — that — that part of our force commitment may grow somewhat over time, but I think the president’s very determined to keep combat — U.S. combat units out of the ground part of this campaign.

JUDY WOODRUFF: We’re going to leave it there.

We thank you all, Michèle Flournoy, Colonel Andy Bacevich, Richard Haass, Stephen Hadley. Thank you.

STEPHEN HADLEY: Thank you.

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House Armed Services chair ‘hopeful’ Congress will fund president’s Islamic State plan

McKeon

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GWEN IFILL: For a Republican response from Capitol Hill, I also spoke with House Armed Services Committee Chairmen Buck McKeon of California.

Congressman McKeon, thank you for joining us.

You said in a speech today at the American Enterprise Institute that, after last night’s speech, the president is — quote — “finally waking up to what must be done to stop this evil.” Is it enough?

REP. BUCK McKEON, R-Calif.: Enough.

I think it’s just barely a start. But it does make a change. You know, it was just a few weeks ago when the president was calling ISIL junior varsity. I think now he’s come to the point to realize what the rest of the world realizes, that they are a grave threat.

I just came back from the Middle East. I met with the leadership over there. They’re all very concerned. They want to go after — King Abdullah told me he’s ready to go right away. He says, we’re ready to fix bayonets and go right now.

They understand how serious this threat is. I’m glad to see that the president is starting to get that message. But what we’re going to have to do is make sure that we go in with an adequate force, that we’re very serious about finishing something that we start.

GWEN IFILL: House Speaker John Boehner said today that we have one commander in chief, and he supports, as far as it goes, the president’s initiative so far. Do you agree with him?

REP. BUCK McKEON: I said in my speech today that as long as the president’s engaged and moving on this, I want to support him.

He is the commander in chief. But he does have military leaders, and he should listen to their advice. And I know that there’s been a story reported that the commander of the area asked for more ground troops to give us a more robust position in Iraq. And he was denied that.

(CROSSTALK)

GWEN IFILL: Well, let’s talk — I’m sorry.

I want to talk about the ground troops, because you also said in your talk today that you believe very strongly that there should be ground troops on the ground if we’re going to take this on at all.

REP. BUCK McKEON: Yes, we have tried it without ground troops in Libya. We did air attacks. And now there’s chaos there. That didn’t work out very well.

I think most people understand. I met with the commander of — the chief of our Air Force yesterday. And he said, as powerful and as strong as our Air Force is, there’s nothing like it in the world, but it does not take and hold ground. They can drive ISIL back. They can make life miserable for them, but at the end of the day, you have to be able to hold and take the ground.

Now, Iraq has forces that can do this, but they can’t do it alone. They can’t do it without us. (AUDIO GAP) support. We provide the logistics (AUDIO GAP) things that they will need to successfully carry out missions to take and hold the ground.

And that’s what we need to do. And until the president is fully engaged — and I hope he will be — I hope this doesn’t just become a speech last night like we have seen in the past, and then he kind of fades and goes off into something else. This is something he needs to be engaged in. It’s the most important thing confronting him as commander in chief. And we need to win on this.

GWEN IFILL: Do you believe that ISIL represents an immediate threat to — to domestic security?

REP. BUCK McKEON: Sure, they do.

We have probably 100 fighters from America over there right now. Two of them were killed a week or two ago in a firefight over there. One of them was a 10-year veteran working in air traffic control. He could have used his — he could have done something here.

We know that a lot of those people have — and a lot of people that come from Europe have passports that can come — they can come into this country without visas. That’s an immediate threat. They could be here right now.

GWEN IFILL: Do you believe that Congress will provide the kind of financial support that the president has asked for, especially for arming the Syrian moderates?

REP. BUCK McKEON: You know, we’re talking about that now.
We were ready to vote on a continuing resolution today to fund the government for the rest of the year. That was the plan. Just before the bill was introduced, the president called Chairman Rogers and threw in this additional request that he wanted us to grant authority to do training in Saudi Arabia.

And that has made leadership pull the bill and give people time to digest that. And now we will probably have that vote next week. And I’m hopeful that we will give the president what he needs. I think it’s incumbent upon us to at least give him what he asks and then do the oversight and make sure that he is holding — you know, that we hold his feet to the fire and get this done, because you can’t send these troops out there without the support they need.

GWEN IFILL: How — how long do you believe that Americans should be expecting us to stay involved in this latest conflict?

REP. BUCK McKEON: Until we win.

GWEN IFILL: Congressman Buck McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, thank you so much.

REP. BUCK McKEON: Thank you.

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Susan Rice on arming Syrian rebels, keeping U.S. combat forces out of the fight against Islamic State

susanrice

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GWEN IFILL: The president’s plan to go to war against Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria dominated much of the debate in Washington and in that region today.

We begin ours with National Security Advisor Susan Rice. I talked to her from the White House a short time ago.

Susan Rice, thank you for joining us.

I want to start by asking you whether the mission the president described last night has any geographic limits.

SUSAN RICE, National Security Advisor: Well, you heard the president say, Gwen, that anybody who seeks to attack the United States anywhere in the world will find no safe haven.

Now, this is a fight against ISIL, a terrorist organization that’s most active in Syria and Iraq. And the president made clear that we have a comprehensive strategy to take the fight to ISIL and to roll them back through degrading them and ultimately destroying them in Iraq and to the extent necessary in Syria.

The president made clear that he wouldn’t hesitate to act in Syria if necessary to roll back ISIL. And given the safe haven there, it is in all likelihood necessary.

GWEN IFILL: As part of the president’s four-part strategy that he outlined last night, he talked about arming the Free Syrian Army, the moderates who we had declined to support or arm before. What’s different now?

SUSAN RICE: Well, in fact, Gwen, the United States has been providing a degree of military support to the moderate opposition for almost two years now.

Back in June, the president asked Congress for $500 million as part of a broader regional counterterrorism partnership fund to provide direct lethal support and training to the moderate Syrian opposition. Now that we are also in the context of having to deal with ISIL and degrade and destroy them, it’s critically important that, to do that in Syria, we have a partner on the ground.

In Iraq, we do have a partner on the ground. And, in fact, the president was very deliberate about waiting until a new Iraqi government was formed that was inclusive and can represent the interests of all of Iraq. Now we have the capacity and the ability to work with the Iraqi security forces and the Kurds in Iraq as our partner on the ground.

The analog in Syria requires that there be a ground force that we can work with. The Free Syrian Army is the best option that we have, in that it is moderate. It is fighting ISIL. It is also facing the fight from Assad. It’s been a partner to the United States. We have experience working with them, and we want to continue that.

GWEN IFILL: You mentioned Assad. Is there any concern at the White House that in — by basically allying yourself with him and with Iran and with Hezbollah against ISIL, that you are aiding your own enemy?

SUSAN RICE: Gwen, we’re not aiding the enemy, nor are we allying ourselves with Syria, the Assad regime, Iran, or any other partner.

We may have a common enemy in the fight against ISIL. And I think we should be candid about recognizing that ISIL has no state support, threatens all the states in the region, and threatens people, including Americans in the region, and threatens Europeans and has issued threats against the United States of America. So we have a common enemy, but that doesn’t mean we are allied or coordinating or working together in any deliberate way. In fact, we’re not.

GWEN IFILL: If this is worth doing, why isn’t it worth putting boots on the ground, combat forces on the ground in Syria or Iraq?

SUSAN RICE: Because, Gwen, I think we have learned that that can be counterproductive. And at the end of the day, even after 10 years of combat in Iraq, where our men and women served with great bravery and suffered enormous losses and sacrifices, if you don’t have a government that is prepared to sustain those gains through the right policies that are inclusive and representative of all the people, but also through maintaining a military capacity, those gains can be quickly diminished.

So, in this instance, rather than replicate that experience, which was very costly, the preferred method is to build up the Iraqi capacity, both the political capacity, as well as the military capacity, to take this fight to ISIL and sustain it. It is the Iraqis themselves, and, indeed, it will ultimately be the Syrians themselves that have to control their own territory and have the push out this threat, this cancer that is threatening them most proximately.

GWEN IFILL: What if Congress will not approve the funding that the president has requested, in spite of some positive-sounding signs from Capitol Hill today?

SUSAN RICE: Well, certainly, we’re hopeful that Congress will recognize the necessity.

It’s part of a comprehensive strategy of enabling the United States to provide training and support to a moderate opposition in Syria. Without that, the United States doesn’t have a partner on the ground. And I think most members of Congress agree that it’s not preferable to put American boots on the ground in this region again in a combat role, and, therefore, we need to have a viable partner that over time can join in this fight against ISIL.

So I think when members of Congress weigh the alternatives and understand that to accomplish the mission, we need a partner on the ground, I think they will see that the best alternative in that regard is, in fact, the moderate opposition.

GWEN IFILL: White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice, thank you.

SUSAN RICE: Thank you, Gwen.

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