cam.org for producing information and video links to footage in the cspan library. teachers will also find resources on the teachers materials page. to help you introduce student cam to your students. >> my advice to anyone that wants to compete this year is to find a topic that you're truly passionate about and pursue it as much as you can. >> this year, we're asking middle and high school students to create a short documentary on the issue that you would like the presidential candidates to address during the 2020 campaign. cspan will award $100,000 in total cash prizes. plus, a $5,000 grand prize. >> go get a camera. go get a microphone and go start filming and produce the best video that you can possibly produce. >> visit student cam.org for more information today. >> now, james jeffrey, the state department special representative on syria testifies before the house foreign affairs committee regarding u.s. troop withdrawal from syria.

mr. jeffrey is accompanied by deputy assistant secretary of state for european and eurasian affairs, matthew palmar. president trump announced the u.s. would lift sanctions on turkey. since they agreed to cease combat operations in northern syria. this is 3 hours 15 minutes. >> committee will come to order. without objection, will have five days to submit statements, extraneous material. we meet today to examine president trump's decision to withdrawal from northern syria.

clearing the way for turkey to attack america's syrian/kurdish partners. it's a decision i view as zab disastrous. to our witnesses, welcome to the foreign affairs committee. welcome to members of the public and press and thank you to our friends from cspan who are broadcasting this important proceeding. i now recognize myself for an opening statement. this committee has a long tradition of bipartisanship. we work on that every day. i think we're the most bipartisan committee in congress. the main reason is that members on both sides tend to share a vision of american foreign policy that's firmly rooted in and guided by our values. particularly, support for human rights and human dignity. we know that american leadership can and should be a force for good in the world. we know that on the world stage, our country thrives on the power of partnerships and alliances.

but as congress, we're limited in what we can do to actually make foreign policy. we can advance legislation and send strong messages and conduct oversight that we hope will push policy in the right direction. but at the end of the day, the tools to make policy largely reside with the president. and what we've seen these past two weeks has been just devastating as far as i'm concerned. it was around two weeks ago today that president trump had a phone call with turkey's president erdogan, who more closely resembles an autocrat than the president of a nato ally. despite the administration's spin, we all know that trump gave erdogan the green light to charge into northern syria. what followed was completely predictable for anyone who's paid attention to the middle east. a brutal campaign of violence against the syrian kurds, our partners who courageously stood alongside us in the fight

against isis. all the worst-case scenarios we imagined played out at stunning speed. to start, the betrayal of our kurdish partners. we handed them over to be slaughtered and ethnically cleansed from a region where they've lived for generations with no warning and for no good reason. how could the united states do something so senseless, so disgraceful, so contrary to our values? what message does it send to our other partners and allies? to our adversaries? to our brave men and women in uniform who served alongside the kurds? we also have to address the humanitarian crisis this has created. already, tens of thousands have been displaced. families, women, and children. these are their stories of gruesome killings, torture, and abuse. all set into motion by the president's horrific decision. and this decision was a body blow to our national security. president trump has handed a

gift to america's enemies, isis, russia, and iran. coalition efforts to fight isis began under the obama administration and it had made a lot of progress. we had reclaimed territory and put thousands of isis fighters in prisons. who ran those prisons? our kurdish partners. now, the kurds are fighting tooth and nail to survive turkey's assault. and so the fate of those thousands of isis fighters is now dangerously up in the air. and more than 100 have already escaped. it's safe to say isis is celebrating president trump's foreign policy right now. he's handed them their biggest victory in over four years. but they're not the only ones rejoicing. assad regime forces in syria backed by iran and russia are now filling the vacuum left by america's withdrawal. to see russian-backed forces try umphantly moving in taking over our american bases is just

disgraceful. it hurts. it's embarrassing. and putin knows it. and for all these disastrous effects of trump's initial decision, president's actions to try to paper over this mistake has only done more damage. last thursday, the administration announced they had negotiated a quote/unquote ceasefire with turkey. this is a pattern of president trump's presidency. he likes to play the part of the fireman when really he is the arsonist who started the fire in the first place. i know mike pence, vice president, worked hard on this. but it was impossible to put out the fire. the reality of this so called pause is that turkey got everything it wanted and that arrangement ended yesterday with no real plan from the administration for what comes next. this is the worst example i've seen of what i call this administration's fly by the seat of your pants foreign policy. one minute, the president's shouting from rooftops that he's

fine with what turkey is doing. the next, he says he'll destroy turkey if they continue. one day, he's bringing our soldiers home. the next, he's moving them to continue their mission but just over the syrian border in iraq. the day after that, he suddenly saying that some will actually stay in syria after all. not to protect the kurdish fighters, which we should do. the kurdish fighters who stood shoulder to shoulder with our personnel. but to protect the oil fields there. it's all a mess. there's only one thing certain here. the president, yet again, has created disaster. this is a troubling moment in our history. stunning defeat for the united states. offered up willingly by a president whom i believe is doing serious damage to american leadership around the world. today, we need to hear how the administration plans to grapple with the consequences. what sort of signal do our friends take from this foreign policy? and our adversaries, what kind of message does it send to the world when the president cannot

be trusted to act in the interest of the united states? how can america be trusted to keep its word when we betray one of our close partners? and how do we handle the threats of isis, iran, and russia now that they've been handed a remarkable victory by the president of the united states? i look forward to hearing our witnesses address these issues. but first, let me recognize our ranking member, mr. mccall of texts from any remarks he might have. >> thank you, mr. chairman. the american-led campaign to destroy the so-called caliphate in iraq and syria was a great military success in our ongoing war on terror. this achievement wouldn't have been possible without the courage and sacrifice of our partners on the ground, including the syrian kurds, arabs, and others. thousands of whom died on the battlefield in our shared quest to defeat isis. our military partnership with the syrian democratic forces is vital to our ongoing

counter-isis operations to fight isis's insurgency. and that is why i've been so concerned about the possibility of withdrawing all u.s. troops from syria. i firmly believe we need a residual force in syria to best continue counter-terrorism operations so that we can protect the homeland. i'm worried that a full withdrawal will create space for isis to regroup, grow, and gain more strength. we learned from president obama's reckless retreat from iraq that power vacuums are exploited by america's worst enemies. we do not want to repeat the same mistake. we must learn from history. i believe our syrian partners deserve better. what kind of signal does it send to the international community that the united states will turn our back on our allies who suffered so much? we cannot achieve our goals on the world stage if we undermine our credibility. and i'm deeply concerned by turkey's decision to begin military operations in syria.

civilians on both sides of the border killed. over 170,000 people have been displaced in the past two weeks in a region already experiencing a refugee crisis. the only people who benefit from more violence and more chaos are america's adversaries, vladimir putin, bashar al-assad, sponsoring dictatorship in iran, and islamic extremists in the area and around the world is shown by the deal that erdogan struck yesterday with putin. today, members will have the opportunity to ask our witnesses questions about the administration's approach to these critical issues, such as what are the implications of the past two weeks for the future of counter-isis operations? and the global coalition to defeat isis. how will we prevent assad from expanding his war against the syrian people to northeast syria?

what are we doing to prevent turkey from forcibly displacing kurds and resettling syrian refugees along the border? how can we prevent iran and russia from exploiting the situation to their benefit? last week, i was pleased to see a strong bipartisan majority of the house pass a resolution that i authored with chairman engal calling on turkey to end this operation. fortunately, i would say the vice president pence and secretary pompeo were successful in brokering a temporary ceasefire. but if turkey continues its destructive campaign, we will quickly pass new bipartisan legislation that will bring hard-hitting sanctions against erdogan's government. but i -- i hope the ceasefire works and i know ambassador jeffrey, i really look forward to your testimony here today. i know you're going to give us some insight within the administration as to what has

taken place the last five days with the ceasefire. i want to thank you, sir, for being here right now. i know there will be a press conference at the white house in probably 35 minutes. and let me just say also, sir, that i believe just say also, s i believe you're the right man for this job at a very challenging time. i personally want to thank you for your public service to this country and this nation. with that, i yield back. >> thank you. now i'll introduce our witnesses. ambassador james jeffrey currently serves as the secretary of state special representative for syria engagement and the special envoy to the global coalition to defeat isis. he has held several senior national security positions, including deputy national security advisor, an ambassador to iraq, turkey and albania.

mr. matthew palmer currently serves as the deputy assistant secretary for the bureau of european and eurasian affairs. he previously was the director of the office of south central europe. he has served in belgrade, the u.s. mission to the united nations and various positions in washington including the secretary's policy planning staff and at the national security council. we also requested that the department of defense provide a witness for today's hearing given their role in syria and this committee's jurisdiction over war powers and u.s. intervention abroad. unfortunately, after initially committing to send a witness, they failed to follow through, which is unacceptable. i don't intend to let it lie. we'll deal with it in the future but we're not going to accept

it. i do want to thank the witnesses who have appeared here today. without objection, the witness's testimony will be made part of the record and i'll now recognize the witnesses for five minutes each to summarize their testimony starting with ambassador jeffrey. >> thank you very much. it's an honor to be here today. let me start with agreeing with the chairman that the turkish incursion into northeast syria is a tragedy. it was a longstanding u.s. government policy in two administrations to keep that from happening and we clearly were not successful. what i would like to do is explain what we did when we were faced with this threat and what we have done since the turks marched in. first, i would like to turn to the larger situation that this is all embedded in in northeast syria, which is the syrian crisis since 2011.

that crisis brings together the three disruptive, destructive forces in the middle east. a local dictator who is a threat to his own people more than a beneficiary to them with half of the population having fled his misrule. an idealogical state on the march, iran that has dug in in syria and threatened its neighbors including israel. and thirdly, various islamic fundamentalist terrorist forces that have also grown up in the midst of this syrian civil war since 2011 including in particular isis, but there are others as well. american policy has been to pursue three objectives. first, the enduring defeat of

isis and second dararily other political forces in syria, secondly working with the u.n. and international community to produce a different kind of government than the one we have right now with president assad. and three, to see the removal of all iranian commanded forces from syria. they have no positive role whatsoever to play there. in pursuing that policy, much of our attention, of course, has been in northeast syria, which is where we carried out as ranking mccall said our campaign against isis. this has been done with considerable friction from 2015 on with the important neighbor and ally to the north, turkey. turkey long was suspicious of the alliance we had with with the local largely kurdish force, first the ypg which is an

offshoot of the pkk, the recognized terrorist group that has been trying to conduct an insurgency against turkey for almost 40 years and various other allies organized into the syrian democratic forces. for turkey, this was a threat to their borders. policy had been to try to find a way forward to balance turkey's legitimate security concerns, our and the people of northeast syria's legitimate security concerns particularly against isis but also to keep turkey from going in, and our own interest in pursuing isis and finding a solution to the syrian conflict that would see the withdrawal of iran.

turkey acted unwisely and against, as i'll get to in a second, our advice and very strong admonitions. in doing so, it represents another phenomenon we've run into elsewhere in the middle ea east. that is powerful neighboring states that have different interpretations of their own security interests than we do. we felt that we provided enough security that turkey did not have to worry about its southern border and did not have to worry about the sdf. turkey beginning with president erdogan and most of the population thought otherwise, and that was a tension that we dealt with, again, over two administrations. things came to a head in october after we had actually worked an agreement with the turks to do joint patrols and other joint activities in agreement with the

sdf in a band that reached 30 kilometers deep along the whole northeast of syria. at that time, on the 6th of october, president erdogan in a call with president trump announced that he was going forward with an offensive. as president trump indicated ha later that day in a press release we had long known that turkey was preparing for this. turkey had had troops in place for almost a year and had been threatening to do this. our position provided to turkey countless times including by the president on the 6th of october had four basic elements. one and first of all we did not approve of and in any way endorse. secondly, even though requested by the turks, we would not

provide any support of any sort for the operation. thirdly, we would work to counter the operation but through diplomatic and other means such as sanctions mentioned by congress and the sanctions immediately slapped on turkey by the administration. but thirdly, and turkey had long known this, we would not oppose a turkish incursion by military means. i know of no decision at any point in either administration to use military force to deter turkey from going into the northeast. we had done patrols in the area across the euphrates at one point because we were concerned about turkey coming in, but we never communicated to turkey that we would use military force to stop them from moving across their border. rather, we used diplomatic, economic and other tools to persuade them that that would be a very bad decision. and it was a very bad decision. at this point what we're

focusing on is trying to stop this offensive. with the cease fire that we negotiated on the 17th of october, we succeeded in getting turkish forces to freeze in place. they called it a pause. while the ypg forces, which were the core kurdish forces and the sdf, withdrew from the central portion of what we call a safe zone essentially 130 kilometers wide and 30 kilometers deep in the middle of the northeast. turkish forces by and large lived up to that, as did the ypg. last night the turks announced that they would make this pause essentially permanent by halting their forces and ending their whole operation. we saw that as a success. meanwhile, turkey tried to find ways to penetrate other parts of the northeast. president erdogan yesterday went

to sochi, russia, to talk with president putin and putin would not allow the turks to penetrate into the other areas, but rather they agreed on a joint patrolling regime rather similar to what he we had in august with the ypg to pull back supposedly, but we have to see the details of that agreement. again, right now the northeast is quiet other than some minor shooting and some minor movements between the turkish and the ypg forces a. we expect it to stay quiet. what we're doing now is to urgently determine what our future policies are in the enduring defeat of isis and we're considering options for our forces. the president has ordered all american forces in the northeast on the ground to withdraw in a deliberate and orderly withdrawal that will take some time. but we're also looking at what the options are for military and

other support to the sdf to continue the fight against isis toond maintain stability in the northeast. again, no final decisions have been taken. this is under review at this time. so i can't tell you what the decision will be. simply what the basic parameters are, what our goals are and the various ways we're trying to achieve such a success. i'll stop there, mr. chairman. >> thank you. mr. palmer. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i do not have a formal opening statement but i do look forward to answering any questions members of the committee may have specific to the u.s./turkey bilateral relationship. thank you. >> thank you very much. ambassador jeffrey, let me ask you this. according to media reports, including fox news, president trump went off script during the october 6th call in which he was supposed to tell erdogan to stay north of the border.

instead the president ka pitch ha capitulated then announced the united states would withdraw troops from northeast syria ahead of the turkish operation. let me ask you, first of all, were you consulted ahead of the october 6th call with president erdogan. [ inaudible ] >> could you push the button. >> i was consulted almost daily on that and other syria questions by secretary of state pompeo. and i know that secretary pompeo discussed this issue and many other issues on an almost daily basis with president trump. this is something that we have been working on since president trump first raised the issue publicly of withdrawing forces in the spring of 2018 and of course he had taken a decision to do so that we were slowly executing in december of 2018. so in that sense, yes, i was consulted. >> do you agree with the president's decision to abruptly announce the withdrawal of u.s.

forces in syria following the october 6th call? >> it is the duty of a commander in chief to make such decisions with the support or the consultation of the u.s. congress and the american people. it's not my job to decide on whether we should keep troops in a very dangerous situation or not. my job is to explain what will happen if you do pull these troops out. the president was well aware with the troops being withdrawn, we would have less ability to work with the sdf against the remnants of isis. but he also, as the commander in chief, had as his first responsibility force protection for our troops. we had a situation we knew that the sdf would ask for the russians and the syrians to come in and they did so and we told the turks that would be a direct result if they came in. we had turkish troops and

turkish supported very very dangerous and in some cases extremist opposition elements coming in and the president had a responsibility to keep his forces out of the way. that was a major consideration in his decisions including withdrawing forces. >> i'm glad vice president pence was able to negotiate a cease fire temporarily so our turkish allies could get out of their territory with their lives attacked. but aren't we really aiding and abetting ethnic cleansing? >> we haven't seen any widespread ethnic cleansing in that area since the turks came in. many people fled because they're very concerned about these turkish supported opposition forces, as are we. we've seen several incidents

that we consider war crimes. but we have an agreement with turkey on the proper care of civilians and the monitoring responsibility we have to work with the turks to ensure exactly that doesn't happen in that area. >> but it is true that as a result of turkey's actions, over 176,000 syrian kurds have been forcibly displaced, which amounts to a concerted effort to displace kurds from their native lands. sounds like ethnic cleansing to me. >> the numbers are correct, but in the area that the turks came into, mr. chairman, that is mainly an arab area. we didn't do a survey of who these people are, but as i said, most of the people in that area are ethnic arab, not ethnic kurdish. they withdrew on their own. there was no effort that we saw to try to push them out. it could be that the behavior on those incidents that we saw and other incidents that we may

learn about soon provoked some departures of people, but we saw no widespread effort to try to push people out of their homes in that area where the turks moved into. >> two questions. how will the u.s. counter increased russian, iranian and assad regime influence and control which are directly from the u.s. withdrawal? and what is left to prevent the turkish military and affiliated agents to continue ethnic cleansing of northeast syria of kurds? >> again, through diplomatic means. the thing provoked all of this was the very unwise, very tragic turkish insertion into northeast syria. that provoked a whole series of events that we're discussing today. as i said, we have stemmed that turkish movement forward through this agreement and right now

we're going to work with the turks and the russians. we don't work with the syrian regime. and our sdf partners to continue the fight and try to do exactly those things that you said to maintain stability. we have had some successes with the russians in syria and we've had some failures with them in stabilizing areas. we'll see how this one works out. >> let me ask you this. yesterday in testimony to the senate you confirmed the state department is aware of, you said, dozens of detained isis fighters that escaped sdf custody following the turkish incursion. also yesterday secretary esper stated to cnn that a bit more than 100 isis detainees have escaped. we know from previous briefings these isis detainees are among the most dangerous fighters intent on attacking the united states and our allies. how many isis detainees have

escaped? does the u.s. have an idea where these individuals are and is the u.s. able to monitor or effectively operate against isis given the withdrawal of u.s. forces? >> again, as secretary esper said, we would say that the number is now over 100. we do not know where they are. almost all of the prisons that the sdf were guarding8(ñ were sl secured. the sdf still has people there. we are monitoring that as best we can. we still have forces in syria working with the sdf and one of the top priorities is these prisons. >> let me just say in conclusion that i think what we did is so catastrophic, it really affects our ability to operate in that part of the world, it affects our ability to be effective in that part of the world.

i always speak my mind on foreign policy. i don't care what administration it is or what party the administration comes from. i didn't particularly like the iranian agreement and i spoke out and voted against it. i think what happened here with the removal of american troops is catastrophic, absolutely catastrophic and has the worst repercussions for this country for days and weeks and months to come. i'm just sick over it. and i think that's why we got a strong bipartisan resolution in the congress condemning it. i just, i've been here a long time. i hardly remember policy that's been as bad as this in my opinion. thank you. mr. mccall. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ambassador, i just want to give you an opportunity to clarify what i think has been very confusing about what took place

over the last week or so. we were in the white house, the chairman and i, with the president, the secretary of defense and the joint chiefs of staffs chairman. i know the president had a conversation with erdogan. there's been this talk of green lights being given to allow the turks to come and invade syria. but when i talked to general milly, he told me it was his recommendation because the turks were threatening our soldiers and they were in harm's way. can you add some clarity to how this decision was made and how this happened? >> it's a little hard to do this without a map. >> i think we do have a map and we'll turn to that in a minute, but this is more the sequence of events on the turkish invasion.

>> to set the record straight, i know of no american policy or commitment by anyone in a position to give a commitment -- and that's a senior official, military civilian -- to either turkey or to our sdf partners that we would use american military force to stop a turkish incursion into northeast syria. on i think it was the stephanopoulos show on sunday secretary of defense ash carter from the obama administration said that explicitly. our commander at that time in the field tony thomas a little bit later on "face the nation" made similar comments. when pressed he said, well, we talked to the kurds, the sdf, about a possible role that we wanted in a future democratic syria through the u.n. process and such. but i know of no commitment to

protect them by military force, nor did i ever see any indication that the turks thought that we were using military force to protect them. in fact, what you had was, as you look at the map, most of the american forces in syria were along the euphrates south of that reservoir because that's where isis is and that's where most of the sdf forces were too fighting the remnants of isis. you had a small american force across the euphrates to the west and just to the east of the euphrates in kobani you had an american air base essentially and a logistical command and control headquarters. that was where many of the american forces were. there were no american forces in that area that is now kind of blue where the turks came in other than two out posts that have been put out there back in november of 2018 largely because of shelling from the turkish

side into syria and accusations from the turks that they were being fired on and they wanted to return fire. so we said we'll put some observation posts out to see who's firing at who to acertas that. between the three it was about 300 kilometers. nobody on the turkish side ever thought that was a deterrent or a signal that we would stop them militarily. >> my time is going to expire. i had several other questions. i think maybe you could clarify for the record the sequence of events and how this decision was made to withdraw. as we talked before, there was no green light given to the turks. i think they were going to invade one way or the other, it sounds like. now we have to make this cease

fire happen. what i did stress with both general milly, the secretary of defense and the president was i don't want to make the same mistake we made in iraq. 10,000 troops s, isis formation caliphate. i was promised that we were not going to withdraw from syria, that there would be a residual force to protect the homeland. is that still the case today and where would the force be in syria? >> we are working on possible options. the president did decide that we would keep our force in that blue area at the bottom of the syrian map. that decision had been taken. we did not take a decision wane or the other on air and a decision on whether we would keep some forces on basically in the eastern half of the yellow area is still under review.

>> the general said he's going to recommend to secdef where the oil fields are in the northeastern quadrant of syria, correct? >> that is my understanding. >> i hope the president takes that advice. who's going to fill the vacuum? >> that's one reason why we're doing this review, to see how we and our sdf forces, almost all of whom are intact, because the fighting did not -- we think the casualties on the sdf were in the hundreds in the battle with the turks. so they're still a force of many tens of thousands. >> i think the russians and assad and iran are going to fill the vacuum. that's my opinion. refugees. is there any threat that turkey is going to dump their 4 million refugees in that northern buffer zone? >> we never thought that was a

realistic option and we told the turks that many times. >> so there's been some discussion and you can clarify, there's going to be 30 kilometers into syria, this northern buffer zone. it was just the middle part. now it's the entire northern part of syria. what is the final agreement reached between putin and erdogan with respect to how large of a swath are we talking about? >> again, where you see the blue in the middle, that's roughly the area that we have our agreement with the turks. to the west and the east of that automatic way to the euphrates and all the way to the iraqi border and in two areas to the west of euphrates right north of the reservoir and a small area near aleppo. the agreement is that the russian military police and some

assad border police would escort or find some way to negotiate for the ypg/sdf to depart. in the case of the northeast, they would pull back 30 kilometers. for 10 chokilometers south of t turkish border, there would be eventually russian patrol. >> it's gone from 30 to 10 kilometers. >> it's not only smaller but this idea of having done patrols with the turks and seen how difficult it is, the turks have no territory passed to them as part of this agreement with the russians. >> who is securing the prisons with 10,000 of the worst of the worst of isis? >> the sdf. >> we feel confident that they can do that? >> we are confident at this point that they are doing that. >> thank you. i yield back. >> before i call our next member i have to just say, ambassador

jeffrey, you have a very hard job in defending what's not defendable. i again want to just voice my disgust with what the president did and allowed to happen. i think that it will affect us for years and years and decades to come and i think we'll go down as one of the major american blunders in history. i just think what we've done there is shameful. mr. cirrus? >> thank you mr. chairman, thank you ambassador. ambassador, i have a picture here that was yesterday in the "washington post." i know you can't see it. i could get a larger one. it basically is trump, putin, erdogan. and the president has got his arm around putin. to me, i find this picture

disgusting. this is a man who was hell bent on destroying democracies, hell bent on destroying america and we always seem to give into him. this is the man that we have a void that's going to move in there. he's creating problems all over the world. he's now in the western hemisphere creating problems in venezuela. it's all to destroy our democracy. i cannot for the life of me understand why this president is so -- i don't know, it's like his best buddy. this is not someone that's out to help us or work with us. it's out to destroy us.

i grew up in a communist country before coming here. this is the guy that was the b kgb, he's the one that was going to put nuclear weapons 90 miles from this country. when is this president going to wake up to the fact that this guy is not our friend? i think he's playing him like a fiddle. and this decision to abandon the kurds plays right up to him. and iran and erdogan. maybe there's no cleansing going on now, but there's a history in turkey of doing cleansing, especially with the armenians. so i am concerned that maybe not

now because there were eyes all over him, but sooner or later he's going to start his cleansing and taking, taking more territory. what are we going to do about it? we have no real way of stopping him. you know what's more disgusting? i saw pictures yesterday in the news, people throwing potatoes at our armed forces. someone who relishes this country, i cannot -- it just turned my stomach yesterday that our armed forces who have defended this country forever, defended democracy, and we have people throwing potatoes. i don't know about this president, but i have to tell you the military cannot be happy with this guy.

so i have a ton of questions to ask you about who's going to fill it, what are we going to do. you know what's wrong with you saying that we're going to sit down and figure out the policy from now on? doesn't make any sense, because with this president one phone call and he changes. he doesn't take advice from the people who know. this guy can't even run a casino in new jersey, let alone a foreign policy that is so important to this country. so when you say to me we're now evaluating what are we going to do, look, i get it. you are a professional. you're a smart man. you're a credit to this country. and you have a very hard job to do. but i just don't believe that anything or any policies that people put together is going to make any difference to this

president. i'm very concerned about america, very, very concerned. because people look up to us. everywhere around the world, nobody's trusting us because of the decisions that are being made by the white house, not necessarily by the people who know. so ambassador, i feel that you have a very difficult job and i know you'll do the best you can for this country, but again, this picture just turned my stomach when i saw it. i apologize if i gave you a tirade and i have no questions. >> i understand, congressman. one comment. my instructions from secretary pompeo from day one and i have every reason to believe they were to him from president trump was to act to counter russia's effort in the syrian conflict to

obtain a military victory for assad and his iranian henchmen. that's what i was doing every day and that's what my orders remain to do at least on the syrian account. for others, you have to ask other people up here for their problems because i'm pretty occupied with this one. that's a big part of my mission is to contain russia. >> i thank you for your hard work. >> welcome. thank you for your service to our two distinguished witnesses. you know, back in 1991 tens of thousands of kurds fleeing sad am hussein fled to the turkish border. they were denied entry. it provided massive amounts of clot food, clothing and shelter. i travel with a group of members

to the border back then. biggest take-away, the turks refused to help men, women and innocent children. and secondly, they were seething with animosity towards the kurds. i'm telling you something you already know. i was struck by that animosity. it reminded me of the hatred they had for armenians that head to the genocide. one man took an mre from a pallet left by our military and he shot him in cold blood. fast forward to now, given the opportunity, they will seize it. frankly, i'd like to ask about the use of white phosphorous. a terrible chemical agent. when it's used for camouflage, it's one thing. when it's used to kill innocent people and there's some

indications it's been used against six people who inhaled it. if so, this is a war crime. on sanctions, the bill introduced by liz cheney makes cheer th clear that we want sanctions. one goes further and says even erdogan should be sanctioned. executive order 13894, if you could speak to that, how well that's being implemented after which the defense minister and the interior minister ought to go right to the top, i would respectfully submit. i've been to erbil. they've been very much concerned about an incursion there. your thoughts on what happens there. and again if you could speak to this use of weapons. and finally in both bills, the chairman's bill and mar. mccall

is the lead republican sponsor, also talks about denying military assistance to turkey. both bills do it. do you think that's a prudent act? we all remember back in '74 when the turks went into cyprus. they used our material, what we provided to suppress cyprus and to kill many. we ought to hold them to account. i do hope section four of both bills has that sanctions on providing any kind of military assistance to turkey. your thoughts on that? >> on the white phosphorous we have seen one report of the use of white phosphorous. it has military uses and you have to almost determine not what happened but what the intent was, but as i said, we're looking into that. there was only one incident of that, i believe. in terms of the sanctions that

we imposed on three ministers and two ministries on the 14th of october on the basis of the executive order that was published that day for syria sanctions because of the incursion, we started implementing it immediately. on the 17th we agreed not to impose any new sanctions under that executive order. and based upon the fact that the turks have declared in accordance with our agreement that their offensive is over, what they call peace spring as of last night. we're about to lift those sanctions. i want to underline the sanction executive order remains in place. we can just as quick as we did last time impose new sanctions under that executive order if we're not happy with the behavior of the turks or anybody else covered in that very, very

broad and very, very powerful sanctions instrument. in terms of congressional sanctions, again, there are a number of them out there. i saw how helpful they were in getting the turks to a cease fire, but we would want to look at these very carefully for two reasons. first of all, we are concerned about very important military relations and very positive ones that we do have with turkey. secondly, as a general rule, we see sanctions as incentives to change behavior which means there has to be waivers or other presidential decision making involved in such sanctions. even when the behaviors change, offensive zone often very hard to get these things lifted. >> thank you. mr. deutsche. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thanks for being here.

thanks for your service. ambassador jeffrey, were you on the october 6th call with president erdogan? >> i was not. >> mr. palmer, were you? >> no, sir. >> ambassador jeffrey, do you have a list of who was on that call? >> i do not. >> is it possible for you to get that list? >> as a general rule, we do not publish who is on the list of people who listen to the president's -- >> i understand. is it possible to get a transcript of that call, ambassador jeffrey? >> that you would have to ask of the white house. >> we've asked. there's a request in. but is there any reason not to provide that? >> as a general reason executive privilege covers that. >> i understand as a general rule in light of this conversation, i hope you can understand why we think it's so important. ambassador jeffrey, in testimony before this committee in may you stated that the administration is supporting three strategic objectives, the enduring defeat of isis, the removal of all iranian led forces from syria.

i just have some questions. does the rapid removal of u.s. troops in northeastern syria make a revival of isis more or less likely? >> congressman, those troops were sent -- >> ambassador jeffrey, i'm just asking your opinion. does it make it more or less likely that isis will be reconstituted? >> not in my opinion. it was u.s. government policy. >> i understand the policy. do you think it's more or less likely that isis will reconstitute because of that decision? >> if those troops are withdrawn fully, a very important tool we had to keep isis under control will be gone. that is correct. >> that would make it more likely. does the withdrawal of u.s. troops make reducing and expelling iranian influence on syria more or less likely? >> that's a tough one to give you a yes or no on, because that was not the mission of the troops. >> i understand it's tougher.

you're in charge of syria policy. iran and the threat iran poses in syria is of vital interest to me and this committee. so i'm just asking your conclusion there. >> the troops were there to participate in removing them is a challenge to that mission. >> is it a challenge also to preventing iran from establishing greater influence? >> it is a challenge to maintaining stability in the northeast, which in turn pushes syria in a good direction. >> i'll take that as a yes. does the removal of u.s. troops diminish or strengthen our ability to shape an ultimate political shuolution to the conflict? >> the troops were not the primary tool -- >> i understand. i have great appreciation for all you do. i'm just asking about this decision and whether this decision to remove the troops without consultation with our allies and to do it as rapidly

as we did and to turn our back on the kurds, does it diminish or strengthen our ability to have a political solution to the conflict? >> the troops is mainly focused on the deisis issues. >> so our diplomatic ability is just as strong today as it was before we removed our troops? >> we will have to make certain adjustments to our policies on the basis of that, ambassador jeffrey, yesterday you told the senate foreign relations committee that the president did not consult you, his point person on syria, before this decision. when's the last time you briefed the president on your efforts? >> i've never briefed the president. i work for mike pompeo. >> when was the last time you briefed secretary pompeo? >> almost daily for the last 14

months. >> including october 5th? was there a briefi ining octobeh or 6th? >> i'm almost certain between the 4th and the 6th i had at least one conversation with him. >> was secretary pompeo consulted before the president made this decision? >> you'd have to ask secretary pompeo. secretary pompeo has been consulted very, very frequently, almost daily by the president on syria issues and the question of u.s. forces there has been a very important part of that discussion. >> i appreciate that. before we wrap up i just want to flag a few things that you said today. i note the contrast between seeing it as a success that putin, you said, would not allow them to go into other areas, wouldn't allow them. in our case, you said that turkey acted unwisely and they acted against our advice.

it was our advice that they not do what they did. and if it was our policy, as you said, that throughout the entire presence in syria, throughout the entire presence all we were doing was advising. is it your testimony that because we never intended to use our troops to defend the kurds, that the moment erdogan made a phone call to president trump and said i'm going in, this was always the inevitable result? >> yeah. i knew i was going to get in trouble when i said putin wouldn't allow. by that sense, putin has certain diplomatic and economic -- >> leave putin out. was it inevitable since all we were doing was offering advice and as you testified today we were never going to defend the kurds militarily. was it simply inevitable that eventually there was going to be the result of our policy?

>> not at all. quite the contrary. first of all, the president had very powerful tools to be used both as incentives and sticks with turkey, including the sanctions, including $100 billion trade package, including a visit to the united states. these were all raised in the october 6th call. >> ultimately if we had all these tools, then the president either failed to utilize them or he simply rolled over for erdogan. isn't that right? >> no. i would say a third alternative. that is that the turkish government made a terribly bad and very, very dangerous decision. >> that's resulted in not widespread ethnic cleansing but at least apparently some ethnic cleansing. and there is a reference to war crimes. is there consideration of taking turkey to the hague if war

crimes have been committed? >> on the war crimes, we're looking into those allegations and we actually have a set of packages we've sent demanding an explanation. we'll look at the various options. but you're absolutely right, one reason we tried so hart to stop the turks from coming in is pau because we knew it could lead to all of the things you mentioned and more. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have the utmost respect for you and my colleagues on the other side but i find the level of hypocrisy is nowhere close to bipartisanship here. what i see is you don't like president trump, you don't like his policies. i hear that coming out through the last member that testified. president trump you said through his actions created a humanitarian crisis. that's terrible. i agree there is a humanitarian crisis, but there's been a civil

war going on there for over eight years. 800,000 people have died. >> will the gentleman yield? >> i will yield if i reclaim my time. >> i would be more than willing to engage in a discussion about whether this action to withdraw our troops at this moment turning our back on the kurds has created a humanitarian crisis for the kurds. if the gentleman is suggesting it hasn't, perhaps that's worthy of a longer conversation. >> i reclaim my time and i'm happy to do that and i think we should do a special order on this. but to say that president trump has caused this, i think, is erroneous. mr. sires, you were saying the picture of putin and trump and erdogan was terrible. did you feel that way about this picture with president obama and raoul castro? >> may i answer? you know that i did.

okay. >> but i don't hear -- it's like -- >> you were on the committee with me. >> i am on the committee. i'm reclaiming my time. >> good. >> so ambassador jeffrey, you stated that turkey had been staged in the northeast area for approximately a year, is that true? >> turkey had what in the northeast? >> they'd been staged there with troops. >> right. along the border they had threatened to go in if they couldn't get certain concessions that we would not make to deal with what they saw was an existential problem of 100,000 people under what they thought was pkk control. >> mr. palmer, since you said you were the number guy, how many troops did they have there in the northeast portion of syria? >> i can't give you a hard number on that. >> ambassador jeffrey? >> it was 25,000.

at this point, but the numbers fluctuated between the fall of 2018 and at present. >> how many troops did the u.s. have in that area where turkey was going in to do what they did here? >> again, i'll get to the answer. >> was it thousands? >> it was less than 30. >> less than 30 troops? >> this is not even apples and oranges. it's kind of apples and, i don't know, rocks. >> so the troops we're talking about withdrawing are approximately 30 in that area. >> right. one of the problems, to be honest, is when we talk about withdrawals, we're talking about two withdrawals. a very specific withdrawal on the 6th of october of those two tiny out posts. >> of approximately 30 troops.

>> right. >> i just want to get things in perspective. so this was not a massive troop withdrawal in that area. now, there are troops that are going to be removed later on, correct? >> it was under a thousand troops. >> i agree the kurds have to be protected in some form. how long have we talked about creating a safe zone in the northeast corridor of syria and turkey? >> we've had conversations on doing something like that since the obama administration. >> right. i've been here for seven years and we've talked about a safe zone, a free safe zone between that area so we can put refugees in that area is they're protected. is that what's happening between russia and erdogan now? >> i have to be pretty cynical about this agreement. >> i'm going to be real cynical about it. but if they can accomplish that, isn't that what they've been trying to do? >> they're not going to

accomplish anything good with that. >> there is not a good solution to the syrian outcome. assad is trying to fight the isis rebels and he's doing genocide over there. then you have turkey trying to get assad out for their reasons. you've got russia propping up assad for their reasons. then you have iran in there for their reason working against us. so i think anyway that we can get out of there with protection to the kurds and give them as much support. but god help them and the other people because we have to look at the the genesis of how we got into syria and why. it was the rapid withdrawal of massive amount of troops coming out of afghanistan and iraq that created the void that isis filled. and then the no fly zones in libya that took out gaddafi's defense that allowed them to get

to where they're at. we're dealing with the aftermath of poor foreign policy. we need to get out of there and let russia own it. they did such a great job in afghanistan. let them do it again. the americans need to come back and focus on the western hemisphere and other things. i rest my time. >> thank you. mr. barra. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i like my colleague from florida and i think he did articulate a little bit of how i think president trump is looking at this foreign policy and looking at u.s. engagement in the middle east. we don't have to guess that the president's wanted to get out of syria for a while. he campaigned on it. last december i happened to be in the region, met with our commanders in the field, met with our special envoy at that time, returned back home and the

following week the president issued his famous tweet now that said we're getting out of syria. nobody seemed to know that was coming, nobody in the field. the special envoy certainly didn't because he wrote it in an op-ed. there were some moderating forces that were able to slow the president down and walk that back and try to think about this strategically. while i was shocked by the decision a few weeks ago, i wasn't surprised by that decision. if we're going to change our foreign policy approach to the middle east and the region, we ought to have a concrete discussion that involves this body. the fact that we took a big vote last week and the ma jorjority republicans expressed their displeasure with the decision suggests that this body, both the house and senate, are not in

favor. i don't disagree that the president has the ability to set out and change foreign policy, but there's a real danger if we do it rapidly. and then if i a new administration comes in, we try to reverse it. we ought to have a real honest conversation about how we approach this region. the reality is what's happened in the last couple weeks has strengthened assad. if our policy is we're not going to do business with awe saud, we're not going to support a syrian solution that includes assad, well, we just went in the wrong direction. if we do think of russia as an adversary and we don't want to see influence and control in the middle east to russia, well, we just went in the opposite direction. our foreign policy in this region is changing. when the president says, well, it's not our issue, that's 9,000

miles away, the reality is isis the biggest threat to us here. yeah, they're fighting and committing atrocities over there, but they're also very effective in the use of propaganda, very effective in the use of identifying individuals in europe and the united states. we just went backwards on our ability there. so we have to have an honest conversation about what our long-term strategy is, not what the democratic president or republican president but long-term, because the middle east is not going to get resolved in the next four years or the next eight years. this is a long-term issue. i think every syrian expert -- ambassador jeffrey i think you'd probably agree to this. there's not an easy solution to

syria with the amount of refugees and the political instability there. would you agree with me if we're rethinking foreign policy, the administration ought to have this conversation with congress and we all ought to get on the same page? >> absolutely. decisions taken in the middle east even on contact from our own security with world energy supplies to the threat of terrorism and the threat of weapons of mass destruction and radical forces on the march affect the american people not just us in the administration. we cannot do our job without the resources, the legal basis and other authorities that we can only get through congress. that's one reason why in a little over six months i have been up here before this committee three times and have talked with many of you on the side. we do believe in this. obviously we did not want this

to happen. this has been a significant setback and that is obvious and clear. it is good that we look into how this event came about, what we did right, what we did wrong. that's what i'm trying to do today. what i want to underline, though, is two things. whatever else we may have done or not done, we did not give a green light to this operation. secondly, u.s. policy in syria and u.s. forces and whether they should be in syria or not, there was almost obsessive reviews, consultations and discussions at every level of the u.s. government. >> was congress part of those discussions? >> certainly it was part of my discussions up here three times. >> well, i would make the case that the administration ought to spend more time with the

relevant committees in congress in consultation so that congress and the administration can be on the same page so that when we're projecting to the rest of the world what our foreign policy objectives in that region are, we're all speaking from the same page. >> understand, sir. >> let me express my frustration again that congress was not a part of that discussion. mr. kensinger. >> i appreciate your great service. i don't envy you having to sit in that chair right now, but i appreciate you being willing to do it. i think this was absolutely a green light. maybe the phone call didn't say, yeah, go do it. it was a proverbial green light if we want to parse words. i talked to the leader of a foreign nato country who told me turkey may have attacked 100 of my troops there, but he said they never would have attacked

24 or 25 american troops backed by american air power and american security. we all know that's true. i don't think anyone really would think had the president put a hard line down, that they would have attacked. this is a question to me. but i wanted to ask you a couple of things about the thing that is told over and over to us, and it is like when your grand ma continues to tell you that you need a nap and you you need a nap and then you need a nap. so this country is war fatigued. if they left it to people thousands of miles away, and yet, we made a commitment after entire towns were lost in world war ii, we decided to stand, and stay. and the military's job is not to be protection only, and as we want to protect the military as a chief geel, and the military's

job is to do what 99.9% of americans should not want to or be asked to do. these are the young men and women who sign up to make sure that americans are not hurt. and so using the military personnel as the excuse to reinvigorate isis and the president did not intentionally reinvigorate isis, and i want to be clear, but that is not the end goal. we have the ux wiluxury in this country of not being attacked on our soil in 19 years and it is not because the terrorist's intentions have changed, but it is because we have destroyed their ability to do so. and we have heard the war caucus say things like forever war, and this is the same model they advocated for so we didn't have to put 150,000 troops in syria, and this is it. but the forever war caucus

forgets it is not their choice. the terrorists have decided to commit a forever war against us, and we can do it in spurts every time and 20 years later, get hit and pull back again or stay on the offense with is my preference. i think it is a huge mistake and i respect your job, mr. ambassador of doing this, but i have a couple of quick questions on this. and specifically the visibility of isis after the pullout and did we lose or gain visibility of the location of isis and the objectives after this? >> again, the pullout has just began, and the troops that were pulled out, and you saw the convoys and such were not the folks in the field advising and assisting and -- >> they can get intelligence. >> yes, when you pull out command and control and communications, you lose certain thing, but i wanted to underline that today, we have the people out there with the sdf pursuing

isis. >> and secondly, is this a moral victory to isis? so if you are a recruiter for isis and you say that the caliphate was defeat and yet reinrat reinvigorated and so do you believe that the pullout is a victory for us or them? >> isis is pitching it as victory for them. >> and did turkey threaten to attack even if we didn't withdraw the troops, maybe you don't know? >> i do. and some of it can can't say here, but everything that i know and including the things i cannot say here is consistent with what i am telling you here and clear from the open sources. there was never a consideration of u.s. forces that they were being blocked by the u.s. forces. >> i appreciate that.

so i would take that as a threat, and if they are going to move anyway, i would take that as a threat, and so that is a nato discussion, and sanctions here, and nato basically threatened to overrun the u.s. position, and that didn't change with the cease-fire, and so i am looking at that, and that is interesting to me. you know, it is interesting that we would look at what a nato ally did while we say that they have a cease-fire with russia and not with us, and maybe we could have negotiated something, and maybe this is bad enough that we would never be a party to it. it is an interesting thing to keep in mind as we deal with what to do. and we are in a tough position, and lot of tough decisions and i could not give you an answer as to what is right in going forward. but as the body is looking at future behavior, i would think

that the united states would not be pushed over. deep respect for both of you and i know that you have put more time into this than i can even conceive. so thank you for your service, and i yield back. >> thank you. mr. ambassador jeffries, you shed light and more details on how toxic is the historical relationship of turkey and the kurds? >> i could, but technically my colleague mr. palmer is responsible for turkish things and he is dying to answer this question. >> thank you, congressman. there has been a longstanding confrontation between turkey and the pkk over the last four decades, and there have been as many as 40,000 casualties in

turkey of the turkish civilian, and turkish police and turkish military as a function of the military that turkey considers an existential threat. it is the pkk is not the same as the kurds. there is a group that is integrated and considers themselves as turkish fully. >> but the turkish military has a great advantage over the kurds? >> congressman, i am not entirely certain what you mean by the kurds in this contex, the spg in northern syria. >> yes. >> and absolutely true, turkey has a significant military and military capabilities. >> so given the his or the cap context of the kurds and the

turkish military, it is true to say that the kurds up there at the border are in clear and imminent danger if they stay there and face a turkish incursion militarily? >> congressman, there is a sensible reasons as to why the sdf has chosen to withdraw from those positions. >> in our presence there, obviously contributed to providing level of safety and security for those groups at a clear military disadvantage, correct? >> congressman, i think that ambassador jeffrey's testimony was clear on this point, that there was never any commitment made on the part of the u.s. military or the u.s. civilian leadership to have u.s. military in place in northeast syria to defend the sdfypg from turkey. >> but our presence there sends

a message to the turkish government that we are concerned about that region, and the troubled region of the world, and in fact, we want some level of peace and coherence there, correct? >> we have an ongoing conversation with turkey and the turkish authorities about at the northeast syria, and the concerns about the turkish aspirations. >> what are, and to any of -- you are not off of the hook yet, ambassador. what is your opinion of either one of you about the potential of what many have described as either ethnic cleansing or maybe even genocide in the area. >> in syria, and in the region, and in the conflict re. >> un -- in that region in particular? >> yes, in that region in particular. >> you are approaching something of ethnic cleansing to get

borders that only your people are in those borders and something that we have faced in many, many conflicts. >> so the u.s. pullout has created a vacuum of the leadership has allowed for both the russians and the syrians to have and upperhand in that region. is that your assessment, mr. ambassador? >> they were not in that region three weeks ago and they are now, because the turks came n and b, the sdf, our partner, seeing the turks coming in decided that they would form essentially an alliance with the russians and the syrians too see what kind of deal they could get from them. >> so my final question, do you think that the sdf is still at peril? still in danger? still have not defined nor have we projected what is going to happen to them in the future?

>> one of the complications that i have had to deal with since taking this job, and having to deal with it as a foreign policy writer, when i was outside of government was that we never did have a long-term answer to that other than a political process that they and everybody else in syria would become a part of. and this is that we did not have an agenda and that we would protect you nor would we endorse your particular vision, and that was an autonomous region on the map, and that was yellow up there earlier. we did not take a positions a government on either of, and we took a position not to provide military force to support them, and we, against the turks or, and we did not take a position on the long term solution to their political issues within syria or syria as a whole other than it has to be a democratic

process run by the syrian people that is relevant here. >> thank you. ms. wagner. >> thank you, and thank the witnesses for being here again today. and i am also outraged about the turkish behavior and the long-term effect that turkey's actions will have on the national security and the kurdish allies who made immense sacrifices to defeat the islamic state. our top priorities must be to contain isis, and so terrorists can not regroup to prevent a genocide of the kurds and conduct a safe repositioning of the stability in the region. i do not want the troops to be in syria indefinitely, but we must act wisely and consult with the diplomats and defense

officials to make sure that we are not creating a bigger mess for ourselves and others in the region in the future. ambassador jeffries, ypg fighters are to be cleared from a swath of land supposedly 20 miles deep, and 270 miles long, and the ypg is leading the prodemocracy syrian forces the sdf which are the heart of the fight against syria's brutal dictator bashar al assad, and ambassador jeffrey, how is the evacuation of the kurdish fosts from -- forces from the so-called safe zone going to coop rate with the sdf forces and in what capacity? >> the sdf first was not fighting the assad regime, but focused on fighting daesh which is more than a handful. at times engagements and

firefights between the two, but it is not their primary responsibility. in terms of the withdraw from the zone, there has been for a good number of years no real strong isis presence in that area. and the area which is according to the russian and turkish agreement the ypg is to withdraw and i have questions if it is going to happen, and if so, i would be concerned because there are isis elements there. where most of the isis elements are south of the reservoir as you are looking at the euphrates to the iraqi border, that is where the sdf has most of the forces, and where we still have our own people. as i said, we are executing a deliberate and strong withdrawal, but we are doing this in a way that allows us to consider should we keep some troops on -- >> and so cooperation is still ongoing? >> the cooperation is still ongoing as we work through of

what the longer term situation will be. >> i know that you have touched on this a bit, but hours before the u.s. brokered cease-fire expired, we know that erdogan held talks with vladimir putin. and ambassador jeffrey, what do we know ant the content and the outcome of the talks? how are we engaging with turkey to prevent russia from increase and improving the long term operating ability in syria? >> the agreement calls for russian military police and syrian, and that is assad's border police to move into the areas along the strip that you described to the east and the west where we worked the cease-fire deal with the turks and the 130 central kilometers to supposedly negotiate a withdrawal of the ypg and not a

military action, but a withdrawal of the ypg and then to allow the joint turkish russian patrols and 10 kilometers deep. this is so much similar to what we negotiated with the turks in august and so our deal was a better deal for the turks than the russian one and so i am skeptical about what the turks will get out of the deal. >> so we do believe that this agreement, so to speak, has done more to inkrecrease russia's long-term ability to operate, is that a fair assessment? >> anything that allows russian forces or assad to move into other areas is a problem for us

in flyitli trying to find a dec democratic solution to the overall syrian crisis. >> thank you. we thank you both for your service and i yield back. >> thank you. ms. wild. >> thank you, mr. chairman. gentlemen, i am so deeply distressed about this situation. first and foremost for our allies, the kurds and for the syrian people. but equally so for our troops who have essentially had to endure the humiliation of abandoning the friends and their comrades and then being pelted with rocks and bottles as they left. it literally makes me cry to imagine. i come from a long family of career service, and my father served in vietnam, and others and the thoughts of those troops who have served this country

being put in that position of what as i said is literally humiliation is just so wrong. i do put this squarely at the feet of the administrations in terms of its actions. i wanted to ask you this, ambassador jeffrey. you noted that the president said that erdogan or supportive forces would not be involved in a operation in northern syria and that the u.s. does not endorse such actions and that we would not put u.s. forces in harm's way and any reason to think that if the united states had maintained the presence in syria, and not abruptly withdrawn from the region, that turkey would have been feeling emboldened to begin operations there? >> that is a good question, because it allows me to comment

from a different direction. the turkish troops crossed over the border before the president went public with the withdrawal of all of the forces in northwest syria, and that is the process of thinking through it, and he had been through the process of thinking through it since the spring of 2018, and that is what precipitated the withdrawal. the turks did not base going across either the withdrawal of the two outposts in the area or the decision to withdraw the forces from all of northeast syria, and almost all of whom were where the turk were, and what we did in response to the question is that we gave the turks the coordinates of where the turks were and they carefully avoided -- >> i want to reclaim my time here, because then that leads me to this question, if it was an ongoing process that the administration was so aware of, why then did our closest allies

not get alarmed about this, and president macron of france said he found out about it on twitter and the italian president did not have a consult either. so if we don't get consulted about their decisions, how do we get them to trust us in the future? >> well, it is a good point, and good diplomatic hygiene to consult with the allies. we did not do that in this case, because it is not the only case, and this is not with this administration, but every administration that i have been with, it is something that the allies criticize us for frequently, and that is not a good thing. >> any foreign leaders consulted as part of president trump's process to make the decision to withdraw the u.s. forces and any foreign leaders at all other than erdogan? oh, absolutely. i think that congresswoman, you

put your finger on it when you used the word process. it is not only okay, but necessary for something like this to look at the decision and why it was made and a good thing, but i will assure you that it is not one that the president never thought of, and he said, oh, october, troops, syria, get them out. this is a major debate within the administration, and the president had talked about it in various levels and talked to various foreign leaders including others with him, and replacing the american troops with coalition forces in france and -- >> well, talking about it is a future thing and actually doing it without consulting with the foreign leaders and advising them in advance so they don't learn about it on twitter is really bad for the relationships with the allies, can we agree? >> yes, i conceded that point

two minutes ago, and what i am trying to say is that the president had the views of macron and the various prime ministers from the u.k. and other countries in the back and forth for the 18 months before we pulled out. >> all the more reason if they had been involved in and ongoi discussion that they should have been told and not told about this on twitter? >> i am agreeing with you for the third time. >> okay. i yield back. >> thank you mr. mast. >> thank you, mr. chairman. let's just start with the title of this hearing, and i don't know what snide staffer put the title on it but it says "betrayal of the syrian kurdish partners" and that is going to require everybody who has a lane, the foreign affairs have their lane, and the foreign committee has their lane, and so let's talk about the word

betrayal. and the betrayal is to the service people, army, air force, marines and coast guard and they volunteer terrorheroically, and fend off any threat as my colleague adam spoke about earlier, but in my opinion, the betrayal is that they are not told the totality of the mission. when is the last time that the service members were given the totality of the mission. and the betrayal is to send our troops off with marching orders but with no final destination for the marching orders or to give them a mission that never reaches mission accomplished. so i will ask this question rhetorically, but more specific in a little bit, when is the last time that the body authored an amuf? that is the lane, and one of the lanes of this committee, and

when is the last time that we did this? not talking about the ndaa and going out to talk about the different things that we might do through the do.o.d., and whe has this body speaking about the kurds expressed the sense of support for an independent kurdish state, and something that i whole hearthedly support. and when is the last time that your staff went through to write a umaf and when is the last time that occurred and when did this body offer the right and left limits of what our engagement should be in syria, and when did that occur? when did we go out there to do that and so the withdrawal or the prior to the announcement, and who here has gone tout propose an amuf against any action of turkey should our troops come into conflict, and

should one of the shoutoof the d be in conflict with turkey and that is outside of the lane and not to provide counter assistance, and so when did that occur? so if you want to support continued action in syria, absolutely go out there to make your case for what it is that you want to see, but tasks the staffs and use your efforts to create the left and right orders and give them the marching orders and accomplish those things that are absolutely in the lane as members of the foreign affairs committee, so if you don't want to betray the service members who we should have no greater commitment to, then have the stones to specifically outline mission accomplished. if you are worried about the signal, then send a clear signal

from congress about exactly what it is that we authorize against turkey or erdogan or assad and not just through the state, but the specifically militarily. and so my one question that i have is this, and it is not to any of you, mr. chairman, but will this body as some people have expressed support for doing, and this knife is cutting both ways, but will this body work towards an aumf? >> sir, i think that congress has been negligent for several years under both administrations democratic and republican. it is, i think that it is the aumf which is used as a catch all to give any administration any power they want to do

whatever they want militarily is something to wayside and i would hope that the congress was not when the republicans were in the majority or done when the democrats were in the majority, because quite frankly, you know as well as i do, that it is tough to get the consensus. >> mr. chairman, i am going to reclaim and i do want to give you time to answer, and i respect you, but will we in this committee work towards authorizing an aumf, and it is cutting both ways for democrats and republicans. >> if you would like to work with us on an delighted to work with you. >> yes. >> okay. great. thank you. i will work with you. >> and obviously, the patriotism is demonstrated to us everyday. we authorized an aumf to go

after al qaeda and isis is an off shoot of that, and i have heard that my aumf does not apply, but i say it does. but i would not vote for an aumf saying that america should go to war with turkey over the control of a 30-kilometer strip across syria. the president said that we are withdrawing, because that is his philosophical belief, and what may have happened is that the turks threatened us with war and we blinked and rather than tell the american people the truth that as powerful as we are, we are not going to go to war with turkey for this strip of land, and as loyals as we are to the kurds, we are not that loyal,

and instead, he is packaging this as some great machismo exercise in withdrawal. on october 13th, turkey launched many rounds to bracketing the base. ambassador jeffrey, if we had left the troops there, would turkey have been willing to kill them to achieve the goals? >> absolutely not. and turkey never thought of, again, the troops that we are talking about in the area that the turks were even contemplating moving into were three rough ly 12 soldier outposts on the border. the turks were never considered to be a threat. they never thought that they had to get the america to withdraw them. it was not a calculation. all they wanted to do is to know that the grid coordinates for those and any other -- >> so you are saying that if we

had left our troops there, turkey would have displaced the kurds from the strip s and bypassed our forces? >> absolutely. and in fact, they did. >> so our forces would not have helped the kurds in that scenario, and turkey would have secured the objecties and we would not have with drawn? >> absolutely. >> in i idea why the turks are withdrawing 30 kilometers south of the strip? >> the president was faced with a fluid situation. as with every president i have worked with, the force protection is the overall important, and so it is just to the east or the west of the euphrates and the kobani area, and that is going to be cut off by the turkish forces and the road leading to iraq, and turkish forces and

turkish-supported and ill disciplined militias, and isis possibly -- >> i have to go in another question. we did not break syria, and we did massively reduce the chemical weapons that would be used and we did not break it, and some day we will be to fix america be insisting on the removal of the uranium proxy? >> that is one, but it is not all of what we need for stabilization assistance. >> i came here 23 years ago and i thought that first thing to do was to recognize the armenian genocide, and we were told that turkey is a great ally of the united states, and don't put it

at risk. how is that working out for us? >> if i may. >> yes. mr. ambassador, does the undercutting of our reputation for speaking the truth, was that worth it? did we get some great help, alliance, love and loyalty from erdoga erdogan? >> councilmember, that is not the calculus. >> and right, we chose not to recognize them, because we believed that turkey would believe well if we didn't. how is that working out? >> let me begin by underscoring that the massacre of the armenians is one of the great

crimes of the 21st century and not in dispute. when we are looking at the dispute with turkey, i am reluctant to attach great, but it is consequential, and what you have heard from administration after administration. >> and the relationship with hong kong is consequential, and we don't fear to pass three measures that beijing really hated, because -- >> will the gentleman yield? >> yes. >> i am curious how the change of the relationship with turkey has been with the european union since the -- >> and it is fraught. >> and so is ours. >> yes. okay. >> and immediately after recognizing the genocide the french exports to turkey tripled

and despite that ankara said that france would face would be diminution in such exports. and so we have coward, and we have dishonored ourselves, and in front of a paper tiger that the french were having the courage to confront, and we have achieve achieved nothing in an effort to call turkey a great ally. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. watkins. thank you for being here. i attempt to approach the dealings emotionlessly, but it is tough, because i was embedded with the turkish peshmerga for many years in iraq, and i have such respect for the challenges they meet, and peshmerga means for those who face death and they do.

helping to train them and working with them is something that i consider ri wiarry with regards to the peshmerga, do you have any comments on that? >> i have also worked with the political leadership since the 1990s extensively and including the -- >> the talibanis? >> yes. and we have the utmost respect for them, and they have found a first of all, they are at peace. their economy is in pretty good shape. they took in hundreds of thousands of refugees, and

treated them well. they have a body politic and a good news story in part because they were able to defend themselves effectively with our help, congressman. >> thanks, the president just held a press conference and he announced permanent cease-fire, and release of the sanctions, and permanent is a strong word and so i would like to know your confidence in ending the sanctions and the confidence that he might have in a permanent cease-fire. >> i am chuckling about the world permanent, because we looked at the statement and i actually said it is okay, because it was not in agreement with the turks, but it does describe the way that the turks presented the decision to stop operation peace spring last night to us.

so it is okay. it is as permanent as anything else, and we differentiate that between the five-day pause that we had before with the cease-fire. i mean, we are using the semantic word, because that is what you have to do in the diplomacy, but in the language of normal people, it is a relatively permanent cease-fire and in terms of the executive order, we have lifted the executive order on the 17th, and that executive order is aimed at anybody who is challenging the peace, stability, security or the territorial integrity of syria or the political process to try to find an outcome of the civil war. that is a powerful administration tool, and this administration is ready to use it again, be it against turkey or be it against others if they

violate the provisions of the executive order. and that is what i would say. >> and so to me, i hold that in high regard as a veteran and prior defense contractor working in kurdistan and i lived in irbil for stretches of time. in my time, and so we are supportive of the kurdish people, so thank you for being here and your insight. i yield back. >> and now i recognize the gentleman from california mr. liu. >> thank you for being here for your public service, and none of my questions are meant to impugn you and you are trying to do the best given the donald trump's disastrous decision in syria.

doibt oppo i don't disagree with coming out of syria, but i disagree with the way it is done, and the em bolding iran and russia and set isis prisoners free. and one of the reasons that he tweeted is to primarily quote to bring quote our great soldiers and military home unquote. our troops didn't go home, but they went to iraq, isn't that correct? >> that is still under consideration, congressman. that is in terms of the withdrawal, the ones who came out by road obviously went to western iraq. there is no place else to go, and what the status is going to be and whether they will be some of them will stay in iraq, and some of them will go home and some of them used in other areas, and right now, secretary esper is working it out with the

iraqi authorities. >> and some might stay in syria, is that correct? >> first of all, we will have some great soldiers remaining in altom to the south which is fortunate for the overall political progress, and people are reviewing as i mentioned earlier at the highest levels of the government of how to do the withdrawal and if there is going to be any residual force. you remember the last time that the president announced a withdrawal of the forces in febway of 2018 and in 2019 he said that he would keep a residual force and so that is back and forth and i don't know what he is going to decide, but it is an actively debated issue right now. >> okay. so we were given the images of the russian forces taking over at least one u.s. military facility, is that true? >> that is true. >> and also a report that the

wep bapons depot and bomb that to be destroyed from goating in enemy's hands? >> yes. >> and i would like to say that both of those are embarrassment to the united states, and i served in active military and i never thought that would happen. so i would like to talk a little bit now about the president's conflicts of interest in turkey and i have a record from the daily beast and this is dated april 13, 2017, and it is titled "donald trump's huge conflict in turkey" and talks about the trump towers in turkey, and receiving $2.5 million since 2013, and if we could put that in the record, mr. chairman. >> without objection. >> do you know if donald trump's business interests in turkey was a factor in this decision? to withdraw the troops from

syria? >> i am sure that was not part of the decision. >> how do you know it was not part of his decision-making? >> because i am basically sure as far as i can say. >> on what basis do you have? >> on the basis of having been involved not with the president himself but with the top advisers and all of the pros and the cons of this question of keeping troops on for the last since i had the job 14 months. >> you were not on the phone call with the president of turkey, do you know? >> no, i was not. >> you know what was said in the phone call? sdwli have >> i have a good idea. >> do you know if there is any business interests discussed? >> no. >> you don't have any idea of whether business interests were involved at all? >> no, but as a person involved in the process -- >> do you think that the business interests had anything to do with the president's decision to have the g7 at

doral? >> in syria, i cannot say anything about any business decision ever coming up. i have never heard of one and even the slightest rumor of one. >> but you don't know. were you informed of this decision to withdraw from syria before the president did it impulsively after the phone call, and in i prior coordination? you were surprised weren't you what happened? >> we were informed and consu consulted on the presideresiden weighing of the options of withdrawing the forces before this decision was taken. >> so let me just say that it should never happen that members of congress should have to ask that question, and you have no way of knowing, sir. respectfully, i yield back. >> and the gentleman yields back and i now recognize mr. burchette, the gentleman from tennessee for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

thank y'all for being here. sir, how do we ensure that the situation of the northeast border of turkey is not abused by iran to expand the presence in the country and solidify a land bridge between teheran and beirut? >> well, that is one of the concerns, congressman, and one of the reasons that the president decided to keep the u.s. for u.s. forces on the ground at a stride in part because that is the reason they are there to continue the operations against isis, but it also sits astride the main east/west road of beirut and teheran. and so that is first thing. and secondly, working close with the turks on the cease-fire that has just been announced by the white house in that we negotiated now six days ago.

and while we don't deal with the regime, we do deal with the russians as i have said earlier, and sometimes successfully, and sometimes unsuccessfully in syria, and we have a extensive both military and the military deconfliction, and that is the only word they can use in political exchange on the syrian issues, and finally, we have every intention if things are working out to continue to relationship with the sdf which is controlling the terrain in the middle east. >> all right. looking at everything that turkey is up to recently, and like the s-400 purchases from russia, how might helping iran evade the sanctions and firing on the troops to name a few, and can we trust or rely on turkey as an ally now? >> the relationship of the united states and turkey is multi dimensional, congressman, and we are going through a difficult patch right now, and we have identified the key

challenges in that relationship, and the goal is to work through the problem set and come out the other side in a position that is stronger, and more stable, that is more productive and positive than it is currently, and we are committed to working through all of those issues and biddied b b over time to build and strengthen the turkey/u.s. alliance. >> with that, the u.s. troops in northeast syria, does anyone have the capacity to make sure that isis does not resurface? >> again, as i tried to say earlier, i can't convince this body or any other body that we had troops there for no reason. we obviously had the troops there for the mission, and the mission was to defeating eye circumstances and -- isis, and you remove the troops before the mission is complete, then you have a problem. and so we have a problem and we

are looking at the various ways to maintain a relationship with the sdf and what kind of coalition of one of 80 nations and coalitions will be in the northeast and how we can do this with other means, but of course, it would be nonsensical for me to tell you all that it makes no difference to risk their lives before the mission is completely and decisively done and taking the troops the out means that we have to deal with the consequences of that, and we are doing that right now. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back the remainder of the time. >> and the gentleman is going to yield back and i recognize the distinguished gentleman from minnesota for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i'm going to have to start by saying that i share my colleague's grave concerns and dismay and disgust and even heart break over our country's

recent actions. the world notices how we treat our allies, and i believe that we have compromised our ability to effect our foreign policy over the years to come because of it. we have heard from a lot of people in my district, and a lot of warriors and one of them wrote quote at the core of issue is the american values, trust, commitment, sanctity of human life and dignity and when we make commitment, and with the vulnerable, with the promise that we will prevent harm we should keep those commitments, end quote. i am afraid that this is an example to be used at west point and war colleges across the country of how not to conduct ethical and strategic decision-making, and with that, ambassador jeffrey, you have with the opening remarks shared the strategy and the foreign policy towards syria.

do you believe that what you shared in the testimony is congruent with the actions of president trump in recent weeks? >> considering the fact that president trump a few minutes ago announced that we would be keeping some troops in northern syria, it is more congrew yent now. >> -- congruent now. >> and so it is now -- >> no, even more congruent now. >> mr. palmer, how do you feel, congruent or incongruent? >> i am going with congruent, congressman. >> interesting. the question back to both of you, do you believe that the country, the united states of america, is better off now than we were three weeks ago? >> again, di do not want to leae the impression here that the

administration nor did we think that turkey's coming across the border on the 8th and 9th of october was anything more than the tragic disaster for the situation in northeast syria, and that is why this administration, and immediately wrote a letter to president erdogan passing on the leader of the sdf general mazloum's request for a cease-fire and political talks. that is why the president then had a conversation with him or passed on the message to president erdogan that i delivered a couple of day later and dispatched the vice president and the secretary of state to impose and not impose, but demand a cease-fire along with the strong sanctions that we rolled out immediately after the incursion began. so, yeah, it was a bad thing, and we took energetic efforts to

try to contain it and to the extent that we can roll it back. >> sir, with all due respect, it is, i concur a disaster, but it is unan sticipated disaster, wouldn't you say? >> it is a long unplanned turkish incursion. they had that option, but we did not have a military option, and we took the decision not to have a military option and i absolutely believe that is the correct decision. but we did have a policy decision to use everything short of the military to deter the turks and convince the turks not to come in, and we say that we thought that we had succeeded and done a deal with them, and doing the joint patrols and the joint aviation missions over the northeast and we know that was concerned and they took it on their own. >> so you are saying that we

have used all of the tools in the tool box to prevent what has happened. >> every one but military, and we did not succeed. >> and the last one is relative to turkey's end game in relation to erdogan and i would like to have both of your perspective there of what the long term strategy is in the region absent our participation. >> in syria, it is ensure and it is relatively congruent to use that word with the north and northeast to put pressure on the assad regime, because turkey sees the assad regime as a threat to them, and to prevent iran from running southeast turkey, and that is congruent to our goals. >> and that goal to play a leadership role and to ensure turkish security through the comprehensive defeat of the pkk. >> thank you.

>> i yield back, and now i recognize the gentleman from texas, mr. al read. >> i would like to thank the ranking member for the hear, and i would like to thank you for your distinguished service in democratic and republican services and the same for you mr. palmer. i don't envy you though today having to be here today to defending what is the indefensible. this admin stras has brought the committee and the house together in a bipartisan way in a fashion that few issues have. last week we have of course voted overwhelming to disapprove of the actions, and my colleagues have been ably laying out how disastrous this decision has been and i wanted to talk about the u.s. strategic objectives and the national security objectives that you talked about in the statement. in the written testimony you

noted that the u.s. strategic objectives in syria remain, one, the enduring defeat of isis and al qaeda and their affiliates in syria, and two, reduction and expulsion of the maligning influence, and the three, the resolution of the situation favorable to the u.s. and allies. so in the enduring defeat of isis and al qaeda, has this continued that strategy for us? >> well, congressman, first of all, it is not a difficult task. it is an honor to be here, and it is an honor to serve my country, and this administration who is working hard to secure america for the world and we are talking about situation that has not turned out well in the past few weeks, and how we working through it, but i am pleased to be here to getting your views of

the administration and getting your views back. and so in terms of the ones that have been hit the hard zest tese defeat of isis, but again, the president's decision to keep the forces on and he talked to general mazloum this morning and he has just tweeted that he thanks the president for his tireless efforts that stopped a turkish attack and expressed willingness to work with us. so we have a complex situation and easy before we had us, the sdf and isis on the run in the northeast, and now we have all three of those and about six more actives. how we sort through this, i will get to work as soon as i leave here. >> well, i wanted to comment on that. i saw the statement from the general, and i thisnk that when somebody relies on us, and we help them to prevent being

attacked and then leave them when they are being attacked, and i think that we saw it with the objects thrown at the troops when they were pulling out from the kurds about how they feel about it. and let me ask another follow-up on that, because according to multiple defense and other defense officials, the efforts against isis have stopped, because forces have reoriented to stop the turkish intervention, and so do they reengage, and what is the approach there, and what are the aspects of that? >> most of the sdf forces remain on the euphrates where most of the isis threat is along with the frornt line advisory teams. that is still continuing. in u new operations and such, and when you get a dramatic shift in the area of operation, and believe me, nobody has the time

to doo new new operation, but has a standing order to continue doing what they are doing, and that is what happened. the fighting with the ushg ttur over so quickly, and it was over six days ago that the forces are not pulled to the north. so now we are seeing what is going to happen to fosts in the northeast. in the northeast, very little action against isis, because there was no isis to speak of there. >> and so is that your assessment -- >> in that strip? >> yes, in that strip and towards the south. >> what does that say about your opinion of isis's ability to reconstitute? >> right now, 90% of the detainees are being detained and so we are watching the ones that were escaped closely. and based on how we work with the sdf and i gave you the statement that is encouraging

from general mazloum, and i have reiterated the president's commitment to keep some forces on and if we do that and maintain the air, i believe that strongly, we can continue an effective de-isis campaign, and we can continue to pursue the two goals that you asked whether they were impacted as well. >> thank you. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> thank you for yielding back, and i recognize the gentleman from michigan mr. levins. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you both for coming in. ambassador jeffrey, i wanted to ask you some questions. i wanted to know if it is correct in your estimation that turkey's president erdogan wants to expand turkish control over a section of northern syria? >> absolutely not. as i said in the senate, i differentiate between turkey and

iran. turkey is not an expansionist country. >> they are not trying the go into s -- trying to go into the section that is delineated and control and move people out of it? >> turkey is trying to ensure that it doesn't face a long-term threat from the pkk and northeast syria analogous to what it faces -- >> northeastern syria, and that is another country than turkey? >> yes, just like the threat of northern iraq, and israel faces from the hezbollah and so it is not to take territory. >> is the goal of the turkey invasion into syria is to remove kurdish people, and not just the fighters, but the kurdish civilians from that section of syria that he is invading and he is using violence to force them out of the geographic area, and

force and violence? >> we have written commitment from the turks they would not do that and given that there is 15% to 20% of the turkish population is kurdish and many of them serve and fight in the turkish army, i would not assume automatically that they are out to do ethnic cleansing, but out to get elements linked to the pkk in that area. >> reclaiming my time. i wanted to talk about the meaning of this. and i know that you wanted to have a maximalist definition of the ethnic cleansing as if it is a sort of the genocide on a national scale, but in the '90s we started to use this term to talk about the conflict in yugoslavia, and what was then yugoslavia and the united states explained ethnic cleansing as a purposeful policy to remove one ethnic group by violence or terrorist means to discourage another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas. and this description is what

reporters and human rights organizations are telling us has happened to the kurdish since the invasion. and just last week amnesty international says that the turkish invasion into the syria been forced to flee their homes and living in fear of bombardment, abductions and summary killings. based on what's been reported and you said it seems like it would be accurate to call the turkish assault on people in that area an act of ethnic cleansing. as far as i'm concerned. here's how president trump described the turkish invasion on thursday. you have a 22-mile strip and for many, many years turkey, in all fairness, they've had a legitimate problem with it. they had terrorists. they had a lot of people in there they couldn't have. they've suffered a lot of loss

of lives also and they had to have it cleaned out. does the president support the ethnic cleansing of kurdish people from that part of syria? >> absolutely not. he sent us out to negotiate a document i have in my hands which has three of the 13 paragraphs deal directly with this. >> if the president literally used the words "cleaned out" to describe what turkey is doing to the kurds, mr. ambassador, and suggested it was justifiable, and said in all fairness, quote/unquote, turkey had a legitimate problem with this area of syria and he called their gripe legitimate, has he not approved of turkey's actions deta de facto, sir? >> he's trying to explain to the american people why a nato ally took that action, not green lighting that action, but explaining the reasons why.

it was not to clear out the area of the population, most of which the turks are arab not kurd, but to clear out the people who were associated with the pkk. we thought that was not a wise decision and there were other ways to do it, but he did have -- turkey has legitimate security concerns and we've said that publiclily a thousand times. >> i have to say that last week the president of the united states gave a thumb's up to an act of ethnic cleansing. and he can try to tell us otherwise and his representatives can, but his words are clear and history will be clear, about the reality of what's happening there. thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> thank you. the chair recognizes the gentle lady from virginia miss span burger for five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr. chair. thank you for being here to the witnesss. mr. ambassador, i would like to begin with you three weeks ago i went on a bipartisan congressional delegation trip to

turkey, afghanistan, and the syrian/jordanian border during which time i met with representatives of foreign governments, u.s. military intelligence and diplomatic leadership. and over the course of those conversations, i was repeatedly told of the danger posed to the united states and our allies if turkish forces moved into northeast syria, an area protected by our kurdish partners, the sdf. when we arrived home we realized through news alerts, we had, the united states, through the president's tweet, green lighted turkish entry into that same area. for years now the sdf has been our staunch allies in the fight against isis, losing by system heard you quote the number as well, more than 10,000 of their own soldiers in this process and they have been the first line of defense in maintaining the gains that we've made. at the beginning of your testimony, i heard you say that we had three goals in syria. first enduring the defeat of isis, second political solution

in syria and third, the removal of iranian forces. did the effort, our green lighting or in any way however we want to term it, the united states' stance to green light turkish forces to go into syria, does that, in fact, impact in a positive way the enduring defeat of isis? >> one, the turkish incursion into northeast syrias has not been positive for the fight against isis. obviously in a dozen different ways. however, we never green lighted this and i have to keep coming back to this point because it keeps on coming up. nobody told, a, the turks weren't waiting to get permission from us. >> let me ask this, the removal on the announcement that we would remove u.s. forces from this area of syria, does that help towards the goal of

enduring defeat of isis? >> if we're talking about the removal of all forces from northeast syria, it was the considered opinion most people in the administration that that's not going to contribute to a defeat of isis and that's one reason why the president this morning essentially made an adjustment, i'm using my words carefully here, adjustment to his decision to withdraw our forces. he's going to leave some forces on. >> so then the second goal, which would be the political solution in syria, we've now created a circumstance in which our allies in the fight against isis, the sdf has turned its attention towards assad entered into an agreement with assad, thereby de facto entering into positive relations with russia. has this been helpful towards the american goals of what would be a political outcome in syria? >> it's a good question. we're looking into that. the sdf has long had relations

with russia and the assad government. we also did not tell them they couldn't because we don't control the political future of that group or any other group inside syria, other than what we're allowed to do under the relevant u.n. resolutions. they were talking for a long time with them and we have to see what the agreement between the russians and turks will turn out on the ground. >> departing and leaving our previous allies to their own defenses and as my colleague from michigan said potentially as the potential vigtsz of genocide in northeast syria, does that lay the groundwork for a political solution in syria that would be in keeping with americans national security interest? >> again, we gave political guarantees to the kurds that we would use all necessary means, all political means other than military force to try to keep the turks out and their situation stable against turkey. and we -- the turks decided not

to heed us and accept our sticks and go in. >> have our efforts in any way been helpful towards the removal of iranian forces from syria? >> i think our overall effort in syria has been placing pressure on iran in many ways, some of which i can't discuss here, but they're fairly significant. how this will have an impact on it, i don't know, but we're keeping our forces on in the south. >> and my concern, i'm a former case officer with the cia, so my perspective is one of human intelligence. i think it's notable that as a consumer of intelligence that might be driving some of our policy, i think it should be deeply concerning to you and your colleagues we have now lost access to human intelligence through the relationships that we did have with the kurds. my final question is, we've now -- we were withdrawing all of our troops and some of our troops, the president has said we're going to leave some of the

troops in syria in order to keep the peace. the frenetic nature of this foreign policy objectives or strategy, i suppose, one would call it, is it in any way going to serve the goals, the one, two, three goals that we stated, to remove troops and then not remove troops and go back and forth, betray our allies in the process? >> the time has expired but would the witness please answer the question. >> i wouldn't use the word frenetic, but a rapidly changing set of circumstances, obviously poses challenges to us. we'll be able to handle them. >> certainly rapidly changing i understand, but when we buoy back and forth, that seems a little more frenetic than rapidly changing. thank you. i yield back. >> the gentle lady yields back and the gentle lady is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you for coming. i'm going to kind of follow and

piggyback on some of miss spanberger's questions because i was on the trip that went over to jordan, to afghanistan, as well as to turkey, to a person when we met with people, either state or military or the allies that we had when we did ask that question of what keeps you up at night, what scenario most concerns you, many people responded with the incursion of turkey into syria, and we literally landed on the ground at about 6:00 a.m. on monday to the news that we had made that decision that our president had made that decision. i guess my question has to do with the decision processes because, sir, in your testimony you talked a little bit about the fact that you have daily conversations with mr. pompeo, you said that in, quote, i'm trying to make sure i get this right, you have obsessive reviews and discussions about this situation. do those reviews and obsessive

discussions include some of the state department people whom we might have met with in the region? do they also include some of the military people whom we might have met with in the region who had as many as four stars on them and could not have possibly been that good of actored they would not have lied that this was coming. >> i personally review up to 300 e-mails and telegrams and telephone conversations a day with those people, and what they say goes into everything i pass on to both secretary pompeo and my white house counterparts. >> so are you saying that those folks, when we left the ground on sunday, i believe would be the 7th, did know that this was happening? >> no. what i'm saying is that their concerns about the potentially disastrous effects of a turkish incursion were passed on to the top and that's one reason why this administration and this congress acted in the extremely vigorous way it did.

first of all unsuccessfully to stop the incursion, and then secondly, with sanctions, with diplomacy and ultimately a cease-fire negotiation did stop. >> so i would like to go back and get some clarification. when you say there was no green light, i really do want to emphasize that it feels as though it was certainly an implicit green light since you did mention in your testimony today that had we kept those couple dozen, few dozens troops there, this would not necessarily have happened. >> oh, i'm sorry. i either misspoke or i was misunderstood. no. those forces had no bearing on any turkish decision to the best of my knowledge from any source of information that i have access to and that's a lot. the turks would have simply driven around them. >> my next question has to do with what you mentioned in terms of some of the prisons and camps still being manned and managed by sdf. what role do we feel those folks

have the real focus to be able to continue to man those when they've been betrayed by us. >> they're not doing that as a favor to us, congresswoman. they're doing that to secure their own population and safety. they consider these people terrorists and criminals and they, as i said, they've done a really good job under fairly chaotic circumstances keeping 99% under guard. >> do you believe they will be able to continue to stay there? >> i'm more confident today than i was six hours ago. >> my last question has to do with your conversation about war crimes. it just really struck me that when syria was conducting what amounted to war crimes using chemical weapons there was a u.n. outcry from our country and administration about that, i haven't heard anything about that other than here and i'm just wondering what do we need to know other than what we already know for the american people to understand that the turks are possibly committing war crimes as well?

>> well, there was considerable both administration public commentary and a great deal of media focus on the two incidents, the killing of a civilian kurdish organization woman, along the main east/west road and then in either the same or similar incident by the same opposition group supported by the turks, the killing of several people who were defenseless with their hands tied. we're looking into that now and we reached out to ankara and asked for the highest level explanation of this and we're not going to give up on that. but that's the incident we're focussing on them. in idlib with the syrian government and its allies go in we see dozens of these as a day as a deliberate policy not as a possible offshoot of an ill disciplin disciplined element. we see it as deliberate policy approved from the top. >> i have run out of time but i would like to have as follow-up

if we could get more details on the crimes you believe has been committed and what we're doing to respond to them. thank you. >> the gentle lady leads back and recognize the gentleman from new jersey for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. ambassador, you've heard a lot from a number of my colleagues about our decision to, as many of us have argued, to betray our kurdish allies and i fully agree with those concerns. i'm not really going to add much because i think they have covered it. i want to stress something that i think is perhaps even more important. and that is that this decision by the president not only cleared the way for turkey to attack the kurds, it has effectively cleared the way for the assad regime and the russians to move back into an even larger area of northeastern syria because, of course, the kurds feel as if they could no longer depend on us for

protection, turned immediately understandably to the devil and made a deal to assure their long-term protection with the russians and assad. there are about 3 million people living in this part of northeastern syria. about 70% are syrian arab. only about 25% are kurdish. and, you know, let's be fair here, turkey does have some skruples. the assad regime and russians do not. my question to you, and this has not gotten enough attention, what is happening to civilians in areas that are being reoccupied by the regime, what is likely to happen in the large population centers of raqqah and azor which are full of people who oppose the assad regime and who will be pursued and killed if the russians following -- and the regime following this deal are able to go back in there. >> yeah. i seldom am compli plenty

interest the russians but the russians involved throughout syria tend to treat the population fairly well. you're right, the assad forces have a terrible reputation and we'll watch that as closely as possible. again, they're doing this in coordination with the sdf, the sdf have a vested interest and sincere one in making sure their people are not harmed by the regime. we have to see how this works out. >> the sdf is largely a kurdish militia. their people are not necessarily the 70% who are not kurdish. let me ask you, this is real world stuff. if the y pg is now dependent on the russians and the regime, for protection, and if the russians and the regime say to the ypg we will only keep you secure from the turks if you allow the regime to reconstitute itself as the dominant power what is the ypg going to say?

they're not going to fight the regime under those circumstances? >> we're looking into what these circumstances are and what the relationship will be between the russians, the regime and the sdf after this agreement that was made. you're correct that could be a danger. >> i'm glad to hear you're looking into it, but i saw the statement the president made or read the points. there was absolutely no reference to any of this. the only thing he is saying in an effort somehow to reassure us, is we've secured the oil. we secure the oil. we secure the oil. i've not heard him say a darn thing about securing the people who live in these cities that we help to liberate, who struggled against the assad regime. the rest, and here again i'm quoting him, is sand. sand. sand. can you assure me that we're going to use whatever tiny bit of influence we have left in this part of the middle east that we have ceded to russia to

protect almost 3 million people who may now be subject to the assad regime? >> again, we will do everything we can, both to achieve our objectives in syria and to maintain the well-being to the extent we can of these people. there are limits to what we will do with military force. >> of course. i mean with 200 people or however many people we can't do very much. we were able to do something because we were aligned with the sdf, which until now had no reason to be cutting deals with the devil. now they have cut a deal with the devil and it's hard for me to see how 200 or 100 or 300 troops can even secure these oil fields, as if that were a primary national interest, much less secure a population that is -- they're not only human beings but this is the population from which isis recruits, isn't that correct? >> to some degree, yes, but whether it's 200 or 20,000,

congressman, the key thing is what is the legal mission they have been given. if they've been given a legal mission to secure an area from everybody, that's one thing. if they've been given a legal mission as they have been given ultimately from this body to pursue an al qaeda offshoot in northeast syria, that's a different set of authorities and they cannot use that authority to go after anybody and everybody. >> my time is up. with permission of the chair i just want to ask you about the stabilization funding. i asked you about this the last time you were here. hundreds of millions of dollars have not been obligated and it speaks -- >> the gentleman's time is expired. if you want to give a response. >> right. the president approved 50 million for stabilization from that, most of it from that bucket of money and 4.5 million of additional stabilization funding for the white helmets.

>> thank you. the gentleman yields back. i recognize mr. trone for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your service. assistant secretary palmer and ambassador jeffrey for being here today and all you've done for a long, long successful career. thank you. my complaint really is with today is with the administration, not you, mr. jeffrey. but it's clear that today's talking point that came out is there's no commitment to protect the kurds. i heard that a number of times today. i would like to point out that i believe that we have a moral commitment, we had a moral commitment, we still do, we fought together with the kurds, congressman watkins himself was over there, they helped fight our war. 11,000 of the kurds died for us. we're clearly on the same team. and the fact that there was

quote/unquote no written commitment to protect the kurds, i don't think anybody should care. the other talking point that both bothered me today, there's no green light. i thought my republican colleague, mr. kinzinger pointed out quite correctly there was a green light by the administration. i would call it a very bright green light that came from the president. he gave the green light and now today's announcement the dictator in turkey has been given everything he ever wanted. it's all his. so i'm very disappointed. the rest of the world is disappointed. god bless you in an impossible job you've been given to justify that. move to the second subject. 6.2 million people have been displaced, the largest internally displaced population in the world.

160 some thousand the last two weeks. turkey, a nato ally, once welcomed syrian refugees, now is invading a neighboring country. turkey, nato ally, purchased russian defensive equipment, struck a deal with the russians on the buffer zone. turkey, nato ally, cooperating with russia as "the washington post" pointed out this morning, russia succeeding in accomplishing their end game. aside regime is regaining control of more territory. he's propping up their authority legitimacy. russia's taking our military bases. hundreds of isis detainees have escaped. ambassador, how is it possible any of these developments serve the interest of the united states? >> the turkish incursion in all

of the things that have flown from it and you summed them up pretty well, are really a disaster. they're tragic and we've said this. we've said this in our executive order that we immediately rolled out. you have said it here in the congress. just for the record, once again, and i won't even use green light, i will say, this administration did not encourage or in any way indicate to the turks it was okay for them to come in. we told them this is a bad idea. secondly, we -- >> i don't think we told them we're not going to stand for it. mr. putin told the turks that he's not going to be comfortable with them coming into northeastern syria, but we weren't clear we didn't man up, we didn't stand up and say, no, you can't come in there. our advisers are there. congressman watkins was once there and you can't come in. he didn't say that and that's why they came over. that was weakness. >> we didn't say we would use

military force to stop them. that is true. we said we would use every other tool in our quiver to do so or at least try to do so from sanctions to things like our visit to the united states. >> and they didn't care and now they have their territory, the sanctions are gone, and i'm sure he'll be over to hold hands with mr. trump at some point. deputy assistant secretary palmer, we've not imposed sanctions for the purchase of the s-400 missiles, defense system, now they're pushing the boundaries more. is this really acceptable for a nato ally? >> absolutely not, congressman, and i would underscore at the very beginning of this that turkey paid a significant price for the decision to acquire the s-400 system. they've been removed from the f-35 program. we're talking both in terms of the delivery of physical aircraft and the unwinding of turkish participation in the industrial part of f-35 production. that is a significant price that turkey paid immediately upon

acquiring the s-400 system. we opposed turkey's acquisitions of this system. we made that very clear to the turkish authorities hat the highest levels up to and including president erdogan. turkey moved forward anyway against our advice, against our admonitions and there were costs and consequences that were imposed immediately on turkey and on the u.s./turkey relationship. looking ahead to the issue, that is under review. there is a deliberative process in place. it's a complex question, particularly with respect to the implementation of sanctions against a nato ally. secretary pompeo has made clear that we will follow the law. we will implement it as necessary and appropriate. i can't give you a timeline on that but i can tell you that issue is under deliberative review. >> thank you both for your service. >> i recognize the gentle lady for five minutes. >> thank you, madam chairman. mr. ambassador, your valid

attempt to describe what this administration has done through very deliberative diplomatic efforts, is in total contradiction to what the president himself said after this occurred. he said even while pence was on his way over there to do something, giveaway the store i think, there's just a lot of sand over there. sometimes you have to let them fight like little kids before you step in and separate them. the kurds were no angels. they didn't help us in world war ii. now isn't this very contradictory to the image you're trying to present today. i think you're here because you're such a respected, knowledgeable, experienced ambassador, to clean up their mess. try to do damage control for what the president said did with this atrocious situation. >> first of all, the president's

public comments are his attempts to explain mihis decisions to t american people. i don't have any real comment on how he goes about doing that. that's something that's in the political realm every president and political leader and everyone who runs for office has to decide how you reach out. i will say having been around other presidents, the comments that they make privately are often pretty blunt and very, very sharp to certain issues. i'm not too surprised by the president's making these comments. >> if anybody heard those comments would they think protecting the kurds would be a priority for this person? >> again, it's what we do. as you said the president made those comments. he also sent his vice president, secretary of state and national security adviser.

i think that's unique in our diplomatic history. out not to giveaway the store but to tell turkey by the end of the day, we were there in ankara and we needed a cease-fire or we would take further action. that was not giving away anything. that was taking a strong diplomatic position. and that set the stage for the cease-fire that we got then and for the additional russian ability to persuade the turks not to go in the other areas. the result is we have quiet along that entire front today and we're proud of that. >> you've said that turkey reneged on previous deals and you don't think turkey is a real trusted ally and it's not a good deal that they've gotten with the russians. what makes you think they're going to live up to this deal? it's not permanent. you made that point. >> it's pretty permanent. it's semi permanent. it's as permanent as anything else in this diplomatic world. i would say that, and this

gheetsz turkish thought processes and decision making and mr. palmer follows this more closely than i, turkey now knows in a way that it didn't know when it went in, even though we told them a thousand times, it would suffer very strong non-military consequences if it took that action because if we did take those strong non-military actions including actions that are under way in this body. that's a different situation and turkey is well aware if it violates the agreement with us or other grooemtagreements we h will lower the boom on the sanctions, the sanctions executive order still in effect that we passed and issued on the 14th of october, and we're ready to do this again if necessary. i think that that is a process of us learning what turks are

capable of going ahead despite our warnings and them learning what we're capable of doing, living up to our warnings to hit them hard if they take that action. >> i think we should have known what the turkeys were capable of, ask ar mania, greece, cypress, they're drilling in their territory, i'm surprise wed didn't know what turkeys were capable of. one brief thing, erdogan has said that if europe describes his current military operation as occupation he's going to release refugees into europe. that doesn't sound like he's going to be providing good space to live. is the u.s. ready to help with the refugee problem they partially created? we're lowering our cap on the number of refugees to some ridiculous number. even from last year. i think from 30 to 18,000. where is our responsibility there? anybody?

>> congresswoman, we've seen the statements from president erdogan and others regarding the threat to open the flood gate for refugees either encourage or somehow push people in the direction of europe. we haven't seen any follow-up to that of any kind at this point. i would describe that position as rhetorical rather than an expression of turkish policy. >> we've provided $10 billion for syrian refugees in turkey and elsewhere and that's the single largest contribution of any country and we have every intention of continuing. we took a decision for another 100 plus million dollars. >> the time has expired. the chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from the commonwealth of massachusetts mr. keating for five minutes. >> thank you, ambassador, and mr. palmer. ambassador, you said earlier that we didn't consult with our closest allies when the president made that phone call to president erdogan. that's correct?

>> i said we didn't tell them in advance of the decision. we consulted with our allies. >> i'm just saying they didn't know that phone call was going to happen. >> that is correct. >> now, fair to say that was a mistake? >> we often do not let our allies -- >> fair to say it was a mistake, ambassador? >> no. >> it wasn't a mistake? >> it was a mistake not to tell them before they learned about it from the media. that's always -- >> european -- were there allies that had troops on the ground at that time? >> that's exactly the point. they should not learn about that from the media, but from us. >> no. i couldn't agree more. you think that was a mistake? >> i'm trying to get around -- >> why? why are you trying to get around that it's a mistake when it is? why? we've heard this from so many witnesses. the best thing to do when you make a mistake is recognize it,

own up. >> i recognized it in five ways. fair to say it was a mistake. >> it's as mistake. it was a mistake. >> thank you. here's another concern i had. even after that, did the president realized that was a mistake not consulting? >> you would have to ask him, congressman. the administration -- >> you're his envoy. i thought you might know. my other question he said later on, and i've been to europe and checked the path of foreign terrorist fighters, 5 or 6,000 that came from europe, what he said to europe was, europe, you know, you'll have to figure the situation out. and what you want to do with the captured isis fighters in their neighborhood. we're 7,000 miles away. we'll crush isis if they come near us. do you think that if their any europe they're no threat to the

u.s.? >> the president thinks they're a threat to the united states. he has done an extraordinary job defeating the isis caliphate. three, he is justifiably extremely frustrated by european relations. >> so little time. is it a mistake that he said that? is that the way to treat our allies? they'll have to figure it out. >> our allies should start taking back their own citizens who have committed crimes as terrorists. that's the point he's trying to get across. >> now, we've been told, too, that through reports that we've been told by another ally iraq, that they don't want us to keep our troops there permanently. they want us out of there. is that -- are you informed of that? they want us out. iraq wants us out. >> we have a large number of u.s. and coalition forceness

iraq working with iraqis against isis. i have every certainty we will be able to continue our forces there as the ambassador, the last time -- >> you don't agree with that statement that was reported that iraqi officials have said we don't want your troops here? >> some iraqi officials say that every day. what they're referring to specifically was the additional troops that we were putting into iraq we had not yet explained to the government of iraq as it's our job to do because of the urgency of the situation, which troops would stay, what missions they were doing, once we finished with that i'm more confident we'll get a good answer. >> you weren't consulted with the president's phone call, you weren't on it. what did secretary pompeo say to you in terms of next steps after that phone call? you're the envoy. he's the secretary of state. what did he say after in relation to that phone call afterwards? what did he tell you going forward? >> sure. we

while maintaining the confidentiality of internal government deliberations our going forward was get this offensive halted. look at every means possible. wi working with congress on sanctions, our own sanctions with treasury, presidential initiatives, the president took two separate initiatives three counting sending vice president -- >> i'm sorry. can you sit there today and say that as a result of the president's phone call with president erdogan, that that did not effect in any way erdogan's decision making? can you say that? >> i am -- i believe that erdogan was -- had taken the decision, in fact i pretty much know he had taken the decision before the call. but the president tried to do is put on the table all other elements -- >> the president -- this is a very enlightening because evidently people were aware even

some of the comments of the president himself would indicate that that phone call had a significant -- the president took credit for the fact he's bringing the troops back. he thought the phone call had an effect on erdogan's decision. >> the gentleman's time is expired. >> no. the purpose of the president's conversation with erdogan was to try to dissuade him from something that in the days before we had suddenly decided was not a possibility, but a probability, and then imminent. the president then deployed various diplomatic tools, incentives, sticks and carrots if you will, in an effort to get erdogan not to do that. he also made clear when erdogan said he would do it anyway we wouldn't support it in any way, we did not believe in this, we were against it, we wouldn't act militarily -- >> effective result. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back and i recognize the gentle lady from minnesota miss omar for five minutes. >> thank you, chairman.

it's very clear that we're here for one reason and one reason only today. three weeks ago president trump held the phone call with the turkish president recep erdogan during which by his own admission he gave turkey the green light to invade syria and the kurdish people. this one action set off a cascade of destabilized events that has endangered u.s. security the stability of the middle east and the troops have invaded northern syria, more than 100,000 people are displaced and hundreds of isis supporters have escaped. and turkey and the turkish militia have been accused of atrocities against the kurds, including the alleged use of chemical weapons. the trump administration brags about a cease-fire, though turkey has said their operation is likely to continue. these actions are indefensible.

i believe that, as in any conflict in the world, our response as a committee charged with overseeing this administration's foreign policy, must be guided by our values. respect for human rights, self-determination and human dignity for all involved. what is missing here in all the conversations about great power competition and about diplomatic norm and sanctions the most important and fundamental sng of what's happening. this is a question in the end of human rights and democracy. it's a question of whether kurds have the right to exist as kurds. we need to center the rights and dignities of human beings center the rights and dignities of the kurdish people, as kurdish people. we've loud this. and we need to talk about accountability. accountability does to the mean

canceling and freezing bank accounts. it does not mean crippling the turkish economy, enacting mass punishment on populations that didn't choose this. it means thinking seriously about justice for these atrocities. it means thinking seriously about how we stop arming and supporting brutal regimes in the name of our national interests. it means looking with clear eyes at foreign policy that threatens entire groups of people as expandable tools to be used and then discarded. if we believe it serves our narrowly t narrowly defined interests it means not using the lives and suffering of human beings halfway around the world, suffering we have permitted that we have encouraged, as the card we play in our domestic political arguments.

so ambassador, if it turns out that the turkey or turkish backed forces have used chemical weapons on civilians, what responsibilities does that trigger for the united states? >> again, we have taken a position with the assad regime on using chemical weapons. we are opposed to it. we made the announcement. secretary pompeo at the u.n. general assembly about a month ago on the latest use of it. chlorine by the asaid forces near idlib. we're looking into the one accusation that was made, the use of white phosphorous which under some circumstances is a legitimate military ordinance. under other circumstances it is not. you have to look at the circumstances and that's what we're doing now . >> when we had the hearing, i

talked about how i felt turkey and russia were guiding our policy in syria and how that was alarming to me, i just wanted to know whether you had an input from the letter that president sent to president erdogan on october 9th? >> i was involved in receiving the letter from general mazloum the commander of the sdf that the president then passed on to president erdogan. and i was involved in the generale -- this ises the probl -- this is the problem of consultation, we consult with the secretary, the secretary with the president all the time on a variety of issues. this president and other presidents then take decisions based upon the sum of all of that, instincts, gut feelings and everything else, it's how it works. >> yeah. >> and that produced that letter. >> yeah.

i wish that more of you had direct input on to that letter because i think it's fair to say that the letter is humiliating to the united states. i know you won't be able to agree with that publicly, but it is. both you know there is diplomacy, there is art to diplomacy and, quote, don't be tough guy, don't be a fool is not art. it's a national embarrassment and it's a disgrace. thank you. i yield back. >> the gentle lady yields back. i recognize the distinguished gentleman from the commonwealth of virginia mr. connelly. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome, mr. ambassador. mr. palmer. mr. ambassador, you've agreed that turkish incursion into northeastern syria is a disaster and has further compromiseds u.s. national security interests, that is correct? >> i was heading that way, that's for sure. >> we have 176,000 civilians so

far displaced. hundreds killed. potential war crimes committed. u.s. and allied efforts to secure an unduring defeat of isis perhaps put in jeopardy and prompted the sdf to align with isis and assad, not isis, excuse me, assad and russia, to protect themselves from turkey. and u.s. credibility damaged with our allies. would that be a fair summary of the consequences? >> possibly a bit harsher than i would put it. >> well, let me ask you this, was the president advised, therefore, not to withdraw u.s. troops, thus avoiding both the turkish invasion from turkey and the move from the south by sdf and assad? >> i'll try again on this one, congressman. the president received a whole

variety of advice on troop presence in syria, troop presence in afghanistan, and troop presence in certain other areas where internal conflicts make our presence less than obvious, such as in europe and in south korea. that's the job of any president. this one takes that particular issue very seriously as they should. that's separate from a decision on withdrawing troops or not withdrawing troops, is separate from erdogan's decision to go in. the turkish incursion was a decision taken by the president of turkey. it was not a decision he took because we told him he could or we wouldn't oppose them. he knew we wouldn't oppose him because we never told him we would oppose him. >> mr. administrator, there is, however, a sequence. mr. erdogan, despite many, many threats, has not undertaken this

kind of incursion until the president of the united states informed him that we were going to withdraw our troops and stop providing protection to the kurdish fighters and kurdish villages, is that not correct? >> that's totally incorrect. >> incorrect? >> incorrect. i've done this for two days and i'll do it again. those troops were not there to protect the kurds from the turkeys. >> that's not what i'm asking. is there a connection, the rest of the world sees it, between our decision to withdraw and the turkish decision to cross the border again engaging in what is euphemistically called combat with our kurdish allies? >> congressman n looking at thousands of pieces of information and intelligence, i have seen no indication that that was a factor in the turkish decision to come across. >> really? >> really. >> so your contention, given your portfolio, the turks were

prepared to cross the border and engage in combat even if it required going through u.s. troops? >> please put your microphone on. >> there were two outposts up there that did not have the mission of stopping the turks or anything else other than observing both sides. >> did the de facto have deterrent value? >> absolutely not. >> why didn't the turks go in sooner? how is it coincidentallies the turks decided to go in only after the conversation between our president and president erdogan of turkey? >> but the president -- this is -- the conversation that the president had with erdogan, again, i was briefed on how it went down, but not the specifics, but my understanding is, and it's i think accurate, the president only said after he could not persuade erdogan not to come in, that obviously our

troops would be out of the way because like any other president in a situation like that, correctly and importantly he does have to think about the safety of our troops. >> is it your contention that where we have troops in other hot spots, for example, troops in korea, south korea, the president ought to be prepared to withdraw those in the event kim jong-un threatens an invasion of the south or for that matter, putin decides he wants to, you know, risk triggering article 5 of nato and he wants to incur -- he wants to introduce troops where we have troops in nato allied countries, your position is they're not there for that value and they could and should be withdrawn to avoid harm's way. >> i've been unfairly emotional in answering what is an understandable question. but however curious it may appear, is a fundamental difference that we don't make

clear as a country, let alone an administration, between putting troops under treaty obligations to defend territory and people against somebody else and the troops that we had in northeast syria fighting isis. >> mr. ambassador -- i agree. a difference between a treaty and not having a treaty but there's also a matter of national honor and the word of a great country. we have fought side by side in fact the only group successful in destroying isis and its daily fate. the abandonment of the kurds is one of the most shameful things. that last honor. and i feel bad for you. i feel bad for your career because that's no way to end an honorable career defending the

indefensible. >> i insist on a response to this. >> the gentleman's time has expired. >> of course. >> all right. first of all, i know of no responsible american officials on sunday, whoever told our sdf allies that we would use military force to protect them against turkey. in fact, knowing that the turks had a major understandable problem with the pkk links of the sdf, we, again, very often, made the point that there had to be a political reconciliation of one sort of another and we committed to try to do that. in fact they did that. members of the sdf or the parent organization of the sdf had been

in turkey up to 2015. we also commit -- where we committed was we would do everything short of military force to try to hold off a turkish incursion, our turkish military action against them that included the sanctions that we warned the turks about that includes a cease-fire we negotiated. nobody in a position of authority that i know of and whoever it is this committee should call forth and have him or her explain on what basis he or she did that ever told the kurds we would protect them militarily against turkey. we wouldn't do that. >> mr. chairman. >> yes. >>. is it your testimony that it's your understanding that the president of the united states told it is my understanding he

told erdogan not to do it and certainly the rest of us did and it is my understanding that president made that clear as well. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. this decision by the president was, immoral, reckless, and undermined the american leadership in the world, and most significantly made us less safe. i want to start, ambassador jeffrey, you are the special representative for syria engagement and the special envoy to the global coalition to defeat isis. the reason we create special envoys is because we want someone who has special expertise a lot of knowledge about a particularly complicated issue and that will be a resource in informing policy in that region, correct? >> exactly. >> you're telling us that you

were not -- you were not aware of the decision of the president prior to his making it to withdraw american troops from syria? >> i was aware that the president -- >> let me rephrase, you were not consulted by the president to get your best thinking on this? >> i was consulted by the president through secretary pompeo literally dozens of times in the weeks and months before. >> but by the decision made by the president after speaking with president erdogan, before that decision was executed, were you consulted? >> very, very frequently but, again -- >> about american troop withdraws from syria? >> all of the time by secretary pompeo and people in the white house, sure. >> i presume you argued against it? >> i can't indicate internal u.s. government deliberations. >> okay. >> but i'm generally in favor of keeping troops on the ground when it makes sense. >> okay. and you said -- in this case it

made sense, i take it? >> that would be getting into private conversations. >> you say in your written testimony that president erdogan had a conversation with president trump on the phone and you say that in that call, he indicated that the turkey intended to move forward with this long planned operation into syria. now, we've had american troops in this place for five years. and the only thing that changed in those five years that would -- that caused turkey to actually execute was the withdraw of american troops. >> that's wrong. >> what else changed? >> no. the -- >> for five years president erdogan has clamored he wanted to do this but he didn't do it and he didn't do it in part, you would agree, because of the presence of american troops, is that fair to say? >> no. absolutely. >> the let me ask you about the phone call then. >> sure. >> in that phone call he was told clearly by the president, this your testimony, that u.s.

armed forces would not support or be involved, a good thing, that's a really strong statement, we actually won't help you kill our allies who helped us defeat isis, that's a strong statement for the president, and then he said, and the u.s. with will not endorse those actions. i should hope not. but you never say, he -- that the united states would oppose it and would, in fact, do everything it can to prevent it from happening and you said just now, our troops would be out of the way. you're saying that when president erdogan said we're going forward, president trump said, well, i can't endorse it, we're not going to help you, but we'll get our troops out of the way? is that your testimony? >> the president said all of that, but the -- i think the context is incorrect. the president said, we've got two little i think he meant the two little dematchment up there, they will be out of the way so don't do anything bad to them. >> in that conversation where

the president said, we won't endorse it, we won't support your actions, and our troops will get out of the way. after that phone call and those reputatio representations were made turkey began the invasion and the slaughter of the kurds. >> turkey had taken its decision before the phone call. >> after that phone call they executed. they made a decision. but they executed it, correct? >> that's true. >> and it's been reported that yesterday russia and turkey agreed to a plan to push kurds fighters from a swath of territory south of turkey's border, cementing vladimir putin's role in turkey as u.s. troops depart and american influence wans. do you agree with that assessment? >> not completely. >> well, it clearly leaves turkey and russia in control of territory formerly held by kurdish fighters. >> that is true. >> okay. and it certainly cements

vladimir putin's very significant role in syria now. correct? >> putin has long played a very prominent role in syria and he sees this as playing an even more prominent role. >> you do as well, as an expert in the region, don't you? >> i'm very troubled by this agreement. >> okay. because it increases the role of turkey -- i'm sorry the role of turkey and russia both in these region, correct? >> there are many reasons. >> that's two of them, at least, right? >> probably. >> okay. you also said that you thought we could continue our relationship with sdf. i hope that's true, although it's hard to imagine that they would have much confidence that they can rely on the united states in light of our conduct and the notion that because there wasn't an explicit promise -- sometimes in international affairs as you know better than anyone in this room, when you have people who have acted on your behalf in your interest, a considerable sacrifice, more than 10,000 fighters really, really skilled

fighters from the kurdish people that helped us defeat isis, that doesn't require a written contract we would expect people to act in american interest in the future. i hope that they'll continue to work with us, although i can understand if they decided not to. ambassador jeffrey, you're familiar with the serious study group report and recommendation, correct? >> i am. >> we had a hearing last week with two cochairs of that group and they gave us detailed lead read outs of how the president's ability will succeed in syria and they painted a picture not very bright. some of the assessments contained in that report and get your feedback. one was that liberation of isis held territory does not eliminate the group's threat to the united states and do you believe that decision to withdraw has made it easier or harder to contain isis inside of syria? >> well again, the president this morning has said that he's not withdrawing all of the troops. generally speaking withdrawing troops from a situation be it

iraq in 2011, be it syria in 2019, does not enhance our ability to deal with internal fret. >> it's complicated by the fact that the president said it's russia and turkey's president to contain isis, didn't he? >> i believe at one point he may have said that. >> that's not -- is that the policy of the administration? >> we have an agreement with the turks as part of the cease-fire agreement to work with us in containing isis and the turks actually in the area around albad did that quite successfully in 2016. the russians at times have been successful against isis in pa mere so it's thee cretically possible. >> you said you were not on the telephone call between the president, president erdogan, and president trump. you've testified a lot about the call. have you seen a readout of the call? >> i've been briefed extensively on the call. >> by whom?

>> by members of the administration that were on the call. >> have you seen a transcript of the call? >> i have not. >> you were then made reference to a letter that was subsequently sent three days later. presidential message. or presid. did you deliver that message >> i delivered a message that the president had cleared to the turkish leadership, to president erdogan that if they did not accept a cease fire we were trying to negotiate very quickly we had good information that the sdf would turn to the russians and the syrians, so that therefore they could get a cease fire with us and minimize the damage, or they would wind up being faced with more russian and syrian government involvement in their area, which is exactly what happened. they didn't listen to us. and they now have a more difficult situation from the

turkish standpoint. >> and ambassador, did you participate in the preparation of that -- i don't know how to describe it, the letter the president wrote that the only thing that was missing is maybe it should have been written in crayon did participate in the drafting that have letter from president president trump to president erdogan don't abtough guy, don't be a fool. >> we provided information to inform diplomat kple the president's decision. i would note in the wake of that letter while president erdogan referred to it publicly in a rather dismissive way, i'll throw in the waste basket. he spent five hours with spt trump's emissary, negotiated an agreement and had a very positive call with president trump the next day which i was on. so whatever we say about the letter, the letter turned out to be a pretty effective tool of dplom. >> ambassador jeffery, i'll just end with this. i hope that you hear from this

committee a bipartisan sense of disgust of the policy of the president, harming our standing in the world. betrayed alt important ally to the united states which undermines our ability and leadership around the world, has created a greater opportunity for ice toys reconstitute and impose a threat to the united states. all of this can be attributed to the turkish invasion you will not convince me and many members of the committee that that was precipitated by the president's conversation with president erdogan and not being forceful about keeping u.s. troops in the reasoning. as a consequence of that, that's what changed. five years had passed erdogan had threatened that but never did it but when the. said we'll get out of your way, i can't condone it, it was an invitation to do it. and that undermined the national security interests of this country. it was a dumb idea for the president to do it. it wrought chaos to the region

and undermines interests of our country and i hope you take that back as clearly terms as you can as the administration and congress tries to figure out how to mitigate the damage in has wrought upon us and the world and with that the committee stands adjourned. and friday funeral services will be held for maryland congressman elijah cummings who died last woke. the 13-term congressman's life will be celebrated at new psalmist baptize in maryland. online at cspan.org or listen live on the free cspan radio app. live friday night, two candidates challenging president trump for the republican

nomination. cspan hosts a conversation with massachusetts governor bill weld and governor mack sanford. talking about their plans, strategies and why they are running against the president. they'll be taking your calls abtweets and facebook comments. part of cspan's campaign 2020 coverage, live friday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on cspan. watch any time on cspan.org, and listen wherever you are using the free cspan radio app. politic con, the unpolitical political convention live from music city center in nashville. saturday, 2:00 p.m. eastern on cspan. speakers include ann coulter and colin forum. former director james comby and analyst for nbc news nicole wallace. james carville and sean hasn'ty

and al franken. watch live on cspan, any time on cspan.org and listen wherever you are using the free cspan radio app. this saturday, on american history tv, on lectures in history at 8:00 p.m. eastern, the 1981 trial of gene are jean harris aktdsed of murdering hermann taryn ouer. >> she was smart, did well in high school, went to smith college, graduated phi beta kappa did everything a wealthy young woman was supposed to do. she says there was a struggle over the gun. there is evidence he is boozed he had hit her in ways he had never hit her before. there is no evidence he had hit her prior to this or struggling to pull away the gun. >> and president richard nixon's

silent majority speech. to you, the great silent majority of my fellow americans, i ask for your support. i pledged in my campaign for the presidency to end the war in the a way that we could win the peace. i have initiated a plan of action naej me to keep that pledge. >> sunday, at 6:00 p.m. eastern former u.s. foreign service officer john lincare on his time as a hostage in iran. >> what permits you in your culture to detain a guest against his will? >> and at 8:00, on the presidency. ronald reagan's white house political affairs director, frank donateli and the craig shirley on reagan's campaign for the white house. >> reagan cleans up in new hampshire, wins two to one. and it was such momentum it's a good thing we won by such a big

margin because we already spent most of our money. >> explore our nation's past on american history tv. every weekend on cspan3. next we hear from founder and president of project veritas. james o'keefe. talking about how he started his organization that specializes in hidden camera investigations. this is 30 minutes. [ applause ] ♪ thank you very much. it's great to be here. and i never thought i'd be standing here ten years ago. and i'm going to tell you a story that's pretty unbelievable. as you can see, project veritas, be brave, do something is our motto. we believe in citizen empowerment. we believe in equipping citizen was hidden cameras blowing the whistle on government institutions.

as you can see ten s