it's moving forward on the impeachment process against donald trump. watch c-span3 as the house rules prevents a resolution on how certain committees will continue their investigation and thursday morning at 9:00 a.m. on c-span, the house takes up that resolution outlining the next steps, including how hearings will be conducted and transferring evidence to the house judiciary committee. follow the impeachment inquiry, watch life on c-span and c-span3, online at c-span.org or listen live from wherever you are on the free c-span radio app. >> defense secretary mark esper and joint chiefs of staff chair gave more details on the raid in syria this past weekend that led to the death of al baghdadi. from the pentagon, this is 15 minutes.

>> good afternoon, everyone. as president trump announced yesterday, united states joint special operations forces conducted a successful raid on saturday night results in the death of abu bakr al baghdadi. baghdadi and the thugs who follow him were responsible for some of the most brutal atrocities of our time. it marks a devastating blow to the remnants of isis following the detrustruction of their caliphate earlier this year. there is no guarantee of success in an operation with this level

of difficulty and president trump new this when he made the bold decision to order the raid confident in the expertise of our forces. our service members conducted themselves without incredible skill and professionalism and they executed in raid brilliantly. not a single united states service member was killed in this operation. despite baghdadi's death, the security situation in syria remains complex. nonstate actors continue to vie for control of territory and resources within the country. as we have learned from our recent history in the middle east, it is very easy to get drawn into continued conflict if our objectives are not clear. acting as a police force is not our mission. our mission in syria remaining the same since 2014, to enable the enduring defeat of isis.

it is intended to posture us to continue this mission and give the president options while returning the balance back home to the united states. those who remain will continue to execute counter terrorism operations while staying in close contact with the syrian democratic forces who have fought along side us. the united states will retain control of oil fields in northeast syria. these oil fields provided isis with the bulk of financial resources used to fund its terror. u.s. troops will remain positioned in this area to deny isis access to those resources and we will respond with overwhelming military force against any group that threatens the safety of our forces there. these oil fields provide a critical source of funding to the sdf which enables their ability to secure isis prison camps and conduct operations against isis, among other things. last week i was in brussels for the nato defense ministerial and

i spoke with our allies about the situation in syria. i reiterated our commitment to the defeat of isis and called on other nations to offer their support to help mitigate the ongoing security crisis. turkey continues to bear responsibility for the consequences of their unwarranted incursion which has brought further instability to the region. a number of allies have expressed their desire to help. the united states remain focus on our core mission and continue to work closely with the defeat isis coalition as we implement the next phase of the campaign. baghdadi's death will not end the ongoing conflict in syria. but it will send a message and provide a warning to terrorists who think they can hide. the united states, more than any other nation in the world, possesses the power and the will to hunt to the ends of the

earth, those who wish to bring arm upon the american people. saturday's operation is just one example of the incredible determination and great skill of the united states military. i'll now ask general millie to provide you additional details on the operation. >> as secretary esper stated, the special forces under the command and control of the united states central command conducted a counter terrorism operation which resulted in the death of al baghdadi. various agencies identified the target location four miles from the turkish border. in order to reduce the risk to u.s. forces and prevent miscalculation and escalation, an action consistent with operations in the past we coordinated with appropriate militaries and other organizations in the region to

establish deconfliction mechanisms. once on the objective, u.s. forces secured the compound. they were engaged and the threats were quickly our forces isolated the compound and protected all the non-combatants. u.s. forces discovered al baghdadi hiding in a corner. it ended whd en he detonated a bomb vest. the disposal of his remains have been done and is complete and was handled appropriately. the success of this complex operation is an incredible testament to the professionalism of the men and women of the joint force and interagency partners and their courage and bravery. they put themselves in harm's way time and time again to protect our great country. the secretary and i will now take your questions. >> you mentioned the oil fields,

securing the oil fields in eastern syria. has the deployment of reinforcements that you announced last week begun, and could you describe more fully what you intend to do there? >> we have begun deploying repositioning additional assets into the vicinity, as i said the other day it includes mechanized forces as well as other forces. that will continue until we insure we have isis -- or deny access to that oil facility. >> as a quick follow up, have you had any indications to the challenges of your presence there? >> not at this time. >> sir, do you have video of baghdadi's final moments? are you partnering with the kur kurds on the ground? can you explain how difficult it would have been if you didn't have troops or bases on the ground in syria and iraq. >> well, we do have video photos.

we're not prepared at this time to release those. they're going through a decrasification process. you'll see in the coming days we'll set up operational briefings by central command and you'll be provided some video and photos of that. >> carry out this operation if you didn't have troops on the ground? >> from an operational standpoint, the united states military can strike any target anywhere anytime. >> i was going to say the same thing. we have incredible reach. we can strike anybody anytime anywhere. the terrorists should be aware of that. they should have seen that now after us doing this multiple times. with regard to your question regarding the stf, we stay in continuous contact with them. >> what was used to destroy the compound? what kind of ordinance was used today destroy the compound? you mentioned you had video. do you have video from inside the tunnel itself? were you able to get that because the k-9 was where on

video or did you have something else? one more -- >> you just get one. >> how about one and a half? the name of the k-9, please? >> that's three. so ordinance used. multiple types of ordinance used to include the jbus, hellfires, as well as small arms fire, et cetera. a variety of munitions. the bombs were used at the tail end which was used to destroy the compound. your second question about the video. i'm not going to classify the video, what we do have and don't. i'll wait until everything's appropriately declassified and we'll make sure you're provided that. we're not releasing the name of the dog. the dog is still in theater, the military working dog performed a tremendous service as they all do in a variety of situations.

slightly wounded. fully recovering, but the dog is still in theater, returned to duty with its handler. we're not going to release photos or names of dogs or anything else. it's classified, protecting the dog's identity -- [ inaudible question ] >> four questions now. baghdadi, his remains were disposed off according to s.o.p.s. >> was this baghdadi's headquarters? was he just passing through? how much material did you take away? >> there was material taken away. i don't want to characterize exactly what or how much yet until it gets exploited properly. as a matter of course, we always do sensitive site exploitation on any objective anywhere. as to whether it's his headquarters, it was an area in which he was staying on a

consistent basis. >> what about prisoners? you took some? how many? in whose custody are they in now? >> they're in our custody in a secure facility. [ inaudible question ] >> there were two adult males taken off the objective alive. they're in our custody. >> thank you for your time today. i wanted to look at the what's next aspect. the president alluded to materials being collected from the site itself. can you elaborate on what's been collected, looked through now? >> it would be best not to for operational reasons but that information needs to be exploited properly for any follow on missions we'll do. >> what next is we'll continue the mission, to insure the enduring defeat of isis in the region. >> follow up, please. we've seen reporting that this raid was launched from al assad,

from irbil. can you clarify? >> we're not going to discuss from where the raid took place. it took place from somewhere in the region. >> can i take you back to the question of oil fields and the military role in oil field missions, if i may. you're going to protect them again and keep control against isis and other potential adversaries. does it include the possibility, in your view, that u.s. troops are prepared to deny access to the oil fields to either russian and/or syrian forces? is that, in fact, part of your mission to specifically deny them access? my follow on to that is, how do you know -- what do you need to see to know you're done with the oilfield mission? presumably you're not keeping troops there absolutely forever.

how do you know when you're done? what do you need to see? russia and syria, please. >> the question you're asking, barbara is about purpose and then the ways would be the military question. so i'm going to punt over to the secretary. specifically for that. but the military task that we've been given is to secure, continue to secure down along -- you know where that is, the triborder area, we'll continue to do that and secure the conoco oil fields. the purpose is to deny those oilfields access to isis in order to prevent isis from resurr resurgence. we don't want them to resurge, they get a lot of revenues from that. i'll let the secretary -- >> my specific question is within what you want to do in the oil fields, does that

include denying access, preventing russian or syrian forces, which now have changed the battle space. >> the short answer is yes, it presently does. in that case we want to make sure sdf does have access to the resources in order to guard the prisons, in order to guard their own troops, in order to assist us with the defeat isis mission. that's our mission, to secure the oil fields. >> you just said you would deny russia and the regime -- >> general, president trump described yesterday baghdadi wi whimpering or crying when he died. can you elaborate? >> the secretary was asked the same question yesterday. i know the president had planned -- but i don't know what the source of that was. but i assume it was talking directly to unit members. >> you haven't talked to any unit members who described that to you? >> i have not talked to unit

members, that's correct. i've talked to the kmnders and others but not down to unit members. >> thank you for doing this. the sdf commander has said there was an sdf member that was part of this raid. he's talked about the intelligence the sdf provided. can you confirm all those details on your end? also on the oil fields, can you talk about the overall picture in syria now after these last couple weeks? putting more people in to protect these oil fields, are there going to be more troops in syria than there were before? >> i think the second question first and i'll let the chairman answer the first one. we're reinforcing our position in that area. we also were given the earlier directive. at the end of the day, we'll be sending troops home. that's the -- president made a commitment to do that. we're going to reinforce and make other moves to insure we

can accomplish that mission of securing the oil fields in order to deny access to isis. >> more going in than there were coming out? >> no, at the end of the day, my expectation is that it will be fewer than what we had before and they'll be going home. >> remind me of the first question. >> about the sdf commanders -- >> this was an operation for personnel that were on the objective. i know what you're referring to. there was a comment reported in the media that the sdf had soldiers or troops or one person or something on the objective with our forces. i'm not going to comment on what may or may not have happened on the objective. the actions on the objective. the aircraft coming in, aircraft overhead and soldiers conducting assault was a u.s. only operation. >> thanks,