Gen. Barry McCaffrey: Obama Should Know 'Things Have Changed' With ISIS

MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports"

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Monday, 16 November 2015 01:43 PM EST

The president's statements on Monday about his plans for dealing with ISIS were very "disappointing," retired four-star Gen. Barry McCaffrey said, as he "should have acknowledged that things have changed."

"His own rhetoric, the 'JV team, they're contained,' obviously that's not the case," McCaffrey, who is now a military analyst for MSNBC, said on the network's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" program. "We have a million refugees headed for Europe. We have some now probable global operation by ISIS under way and it requires rethinking the strategy."

Cooperation is needed from Silicon Valley, he told Mitchell, agreeing with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who was on the program earlier, and "we probably need to have better, more muscular rules of engagement on both U.S. airpower and special operations with direct action against ISIS, where we find them in both Syria and Iraq."

Further, said McCaffrey, he found it to be "utter nonsense" when the White House announced there would be 50 special ops troops on the ground in Syria.

The White House, he said should outline political goals and approved military objectives, not design tactics on the ground.

"Probably the requirement on direct action would be to put 3,000 or 4,000 people into Jordan and Saudi Arabia and Iraq and Turkey and then conduct very direct lethal operations against ISIS on the ground," said McCaffrey. "They are capable of doing that. There will be casualties. These are some of the most courageous, determined people on the face of the Earth. They need to be directed to take strong action against ISIS and stop this nonsense of micromanaging U.S. airpower and special ops."

Ambassador Chris Hill, also on the program, said that he found Obama's Monday statements a bit disappointing.

"I think it's important, though, for the White House to understand a couple of things," Hill said. "One is that there are kind of two civil wars here. One is what we are trying to deal with on the question of [Syrian President Bashar al] Assad's succession and whether we can find a way forward with the Russians and others. The other, though, is dealing with ISIS which has clearly got a global reach as opposed to all these other Sunni groups in Syria."