Latest / INSIGHT TODAY / Hegseth grilled over $37.5B Iran war cost

Transcript

Hegseth grilled over $37.5B Iran war cost · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Jerry hag Seth. Did you if you listen to my
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: comments you told you would have heard me say how
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: amazing our warfighters are. I heard failure. The word I
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: heard exactly. I will tell you how I use the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: word failure because I use the word failure to their leaders. You, sir,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: are the failure, not the men and women who are
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: on that front line. You don't have a strategy, You
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: don't have a long term plan to actually win this war.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Win the war. The men and women are going to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: be able to do it, but they need to have leadership.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Quinn, will you show Will.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: You show some leadership and stand up your fellow Democrats
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: who won't fund the troops, who stand and play partisan politics,
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Why you don't give us the money?
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Moments ago a fiery hearing wrapping up, where both Republicans
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: and Democrats said some tough questions for Joint chiefs of Staff,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Chairman General John raising Kine and the Secretary of Defense
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Pete hagg Seth. You just heard Democratic Senator Gary Peters
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: of Michigan calling hag Seth a failure. Hag Seth said
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: that the senator had Trump derangement syndrome. Kate and hag
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Seth appeared in front of the Appropriations Committee. They are
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: requesting eighty seven billion additional dollars. Sixty seven billion of
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: that is for the Department of Defense and the ongoing
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Iran war. Heke Seth also revealed that the American taxpayer
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: has already spent nearly thirty eight billion dollars on the
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: war so far, which Trump continues to call a conflict.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Earlier today, Trump also reiterated his plans to destroy Iran's
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Pickaxe Mountain. That's an underground facility south of Tehran and
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: where Israeli intelligence were told believes Iran has moved part
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: of its nuclear stockpile. Take a listen to Louisiana Republican
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Senator John Kennedy earlier today.
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: Now, what happens if we come home and in the
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: blockade to the.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: World Sir Iran has the potential to continue to be
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: a threat.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: We need some hard answers and some straight talk. What
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: will happen?
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: Pete, Senator, I would agree with the Chairman with the
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: likely outcomes, they would try to impose their will on
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: the on the waterways.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: We need straight answers. Do we have the ability to
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: destroy whatever is underneath Pickaxe Mountain.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: A lot of Senator, a lot of our capabilities are classified.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: But if anybody in the world can reach anything on
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: this on God's given God's green Earth, it's the United
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: States military, the most powerful military in the world. It's
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: all about options and trade offs.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, when it was her
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: turn at the mike, pressed Secretary of Heigseth on his
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: request for tens of billions of dollars to fund the
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: ongoing war.
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: You are asking for unlimited money for bombs when people
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: can't feed their families.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: And I don't know how this administration intends to defend
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: those decisions to the American.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: People, not unlimited bombs, Senator. I'm asking for the right
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: bombs at the right time.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Hearing started with General Kine, chairman of the Jointings Staff,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: recognizing the US service members killed in recent day. Secretary
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Hegseeth did not mention the dead in his opening comments. Today,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: the Pentagon released the identity of the soldier killed during
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: the disposal of an Iranian drone in Iraq. He was
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: thirty year old Sergeant Michael Emmanuel Swinton. He died on Sunday, General,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining us. I want to
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: play another exchange from the hearing and get your thoughts
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: on it. Take a listen.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: Are Russia and China helping Iran? And if so, how.
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: Well Senator.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: As the Chairman alluded to, there's definitely adversary alignment at
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: attempts to do so. And there are many ways that
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: we deter that, some of which are and the depth
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: and extent of it ought to remain classified, and it should.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: But there are ways in which both of those countries
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: are limiting at different levels, enabling some of the things
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: Iran is doing.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, does that surprise you at all? What do you
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: think China is doing to enable Iran?
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: Well? Thanks Jack, it's great to be with you again. No,
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: I'm not surprised by this. I mean, I think we
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: should expect that these two principal competitors to US, Russia
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: and China, are going to take advantage of the situation
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: and for their own purposes, try to cast us in
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: the best light or make things as difficult as they
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: as they can. Russia certainly has a relationship with Iran
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: linked to their operations in the Ukraine, and and I
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: think that China is primarily motivated by their economic objectives,
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: and they see that the challenge that this war has presented,
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: not just US, but you know a variety of the
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: globe here, and they are they are going to make
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: things as difficult as they as they can for us
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: trying to extricate ourselves on this or accomplish our objectives.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Israel believes that are on moved advanced centrifuges and part
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: of its stockpile of highly geranium to Pickaxe Mountain after
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: the Twelve Day war last June, President Trump said this today,
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: take a listen.
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: Well, that's where the action is, and.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: We'll be hitting that area very probably pretty soon, and
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: there's not a thing they can do about it. Normally,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that.
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: If I thought they could do something about it, I
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: would never say that.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: But we'll be hitting that area pretty soon.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: And very heavily.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Trump insisted that the US had obliterated four dough last summer,
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: and with it Iran's nuclear stockpile. We know pick Axe
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: is a facility deep underground and it's in central Iran,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: so a ground invasion would be quite difficult. What do
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: you think is the military? Is the US military's best
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: chance to destroy that site pick axe.
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: Well, yeah, thanks, you know, it's certainly the way that
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: we went out to Ford All with our massive ordness penetrators.
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: That's a capability developed specifically for this threat. Of course,
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: we used a lot of those last summer. I don't
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: know exactly what the inventory might be, but we've got
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: to be judicious with the employment of those weapons. So
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: I would imagine with this reporting, we're going to want
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: to confirm everything that we can before we take action.
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: But certainly we have to be concerned about Iran and
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: their commitment to a nuclear weapons program and the time
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: that they had after the strikes last summer to reposition
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: resources and try to reconstitute portions of their program.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Last night, the Pentagon spokesperson acknowledged, after lots of media
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: reports and questions, that nearly one hundred service members have
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: been injured just since July seventh. There are dozens of
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: unrecorded injuries in the military database. It's called the Defense
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Casualty Analysis System.
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: I know you knew that.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: That's where our viewers. Some are questioning why it seems
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: the Pentagon is slow rolling this reporting, slow rolling acknowledging
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: the w I a those who are wounded in action.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: What do you think do you find it odd at all?
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: Well, again, I think it's it's important for the American
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: public to appreciate the cost that we that is being
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: paid and these conflicts were involved with. And the system
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: that you just identified is one that has been designed
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: for that. It should be updated when the numbers change,
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: and it should be publicly available so American citizens do that.
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: I can't begin to explain why the Pentagon would be
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: doing what they're doing. I mean, certainly, I probably are
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: some concerns here about trying trying to prevent I ran
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: from understanding the damage that they may be inflicting on
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: our servicemen and women or on our facilities. That may
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: be a reason for it, But I in my view,
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: I think transparency here is really really critical for the
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: American people to appreciate what's at stake here with this
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: conflict that we're involved in.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Or Sacom Commander General Joseph Till. Always good to have you, sir,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, and as always, thank you so
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: much for your service.
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: Than