Bannon's War Room - Episode 5236： War With Iran Enters Fourth Week

00:00:00.000 night in a post on truth social he wrote quote if iran doesn't fully open without threat the

00:00:05.940 strait of hormus within 48 hours from this exact point in time the united states of america will

00:00:11.560 hit and obliterate their various power plants starting with the biggest one first obliterate

00:00:19.320 and obliterate we know we know how obliterate went when well it was a few a few months ago

00:00:25.880 These threats seem to be coming hourly and scattershot, pardon the analogy, from this president, which makes me wonder still, as I was thundering yesterday, do they even know what they're doing?

00:00:41.180 I think the thing that's – there's a lot of interesting things in this post, but he has said over and over, we don't need the Strait of Hormuz.

00:00:48.120 Everything's fine.

00:00:49.460 So why is he so angry that it's closed?

00:00:51.440 Because the truth is we do need it, the United States.

00:00:54.580 Everybody in the world uses it in some way, shape, or form.

00:00:58.040 And so when you have a president who uses smoke and mirrors, who obfuscates, who lies,

00:01:02.460 who allies and adversaries can't actually understand what you want or what you're thinking about

00:01:08.220 or what you might do, who knows what this 48 hours means?

00:01:11.240 He loves to throw out a time, 48 hours, two weeks.

00:01:15.580 Within the next two weeks.

00:01:24.580 At the same time, at this point, we are essentially funding a war against ourself,

00:01:53.700 as we have eased Iranian sanctions.

00:01:56.420 And so the more we continue to bomb out their infrastructure,

00:01:59.900 whether it's energy, oil, anything that is coming out of that area,

00:02:08.120 but continue to ease sanctions and try to alleviate some of the economic pressures happening,

00:02:14.460 it is a vicious cycle here.

00:02:17.080 And it's putting our service members who are there

00:02:20.660 and the others who are steaming their way there in danger.

00:02:23.420 And the Americans that live in the region.

00:02:25.180 Right.

00:02:25.580 And not to mention everybody else in the Middle East.

00:02:28.120 Right.

00:02:28.680 And the one thing that I feel like all of us keep hearing on the show and off the show

00:02:32.560 is just that Trump cannot unilaterally decide that this war is over.

00:02:36.320 That takes multiple parties at this point.

00:02:38.740 And Iran sees what is going on now as the sole leverage that they have left.

00:02:45.140 And that is all lies in mucking up what's going on in the Strait of Hormuz.

00:02:49.260 And I think even if he decided he wanted to end this tomorrow, I'm not sure that's an option anymore.

00:02:54.520 You have weeks or possibly months of impact.

00:02:57.240 And also, when countries are desperate, when human beings are desperate, they act in certain ways.

00:03:02.480 And so what we're seeing in the straightforward moves, what Iran might do if Donald Trump goes through with this threat,

00:03:07.980 Iran, again, like you said, has a vote.

00:03:09.760 But most importantly, when they're desperate, they might do things that we haven't even thought of at this point.

00:03:13.480 I think an increasing number of countries are starting to see their own interests at stake here

00:03:17.460 and are starting to think about what they can do to contribute to efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz

00:03:23.180 and to protect their own national interests.

00:03:25.740 However, they're limited, really, in the capabilities that they can offer.

00:03:28.660 So we've already seen the U.K. and other countries expand access for the United States to use their bases in more ways.

00:03:36.560 And there's some talk among states in the Gulf, as well as the U.K.,

00:03:39.700 of potentially contributing to U.S. and Israeli offensive strikes on Iran.

00:03:44.320 and so that's something that we could see in the next couple of days which would be yet another

00:03:48.800 escalatory step but as far as these countries contributing naval capabilities for some kind

00:03:54.940 of effort to forcibly reopen the Strait of Hormuz I see that as very unlikely just given the

00:04:00.380 constraints on their capabilities and their historic unwillingness to take on the types

00:04:05.360 of risk that type of operation would involve. That Iran endangers the entire world the last 48 hours 1.00

00:04:10.440 The last 48 hours, Iran targeted a civilian area.

00:04:15.440 They're doing that as a mass murder weapon.

00:04:20.440 Luckily, no one was killed, but that's due to luck, not their intention.

00:04:25.440 Their intention is to murder civilians.

00:04:27.440 Second, they are using — they fired on Jerusalem right next to the holy sites of the three monotheistic faiths.

00:04:35.440 The Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Al-Aqsa Wall.

00:04:39.440 by dint of a miracle. Again, none of them were hurt, but they were targeting the holy

00:04:43.740 sites of the three major monotheistic religions. Third, they fired an intercontinental ballistic

00:04:50.820 missile on Diego Garcia. That's 4,000 kilometers. I've been warning all the time. They have

00:04:57.020 now the capacity to reach deep into Europe. They already have fired on a European country,

00:05:03.100 Cyprus. They are putting everyone in their sights. And fourth, they're stopping a maritime

00:05:09.100 international route, energy route, and trying to blackmail the entire world.

00:05:14.720 What more proof do you need that this regime that threatens the entire world has to be

00:05:19.720 stopped?

00:05:20.720 Israel and the United States are working together for the entire world, and it's time to see

00:05:25.940 the leaders of the rest of the countries join up.

00:05:30.500 I'm happy to say that I can see some of them beginning to move in that direction, but more

00:05:34.720 is needed.

00:05:35.720 President Trump's call to have the international community confront this terrorist, fanatic

00:05:41.220 regime of zealots, that is a call not only for the security of America and the security

00:05:46.760 of Israel, it's for the security of the entire world, and it's time for them to act.

00:05:52.560 Sir, what will your response be to this attack on Israeli civilians?

00:05:55.720 We're responding with great force, but not on civilians.

00:06:00.720 We're going after the regime, we're going after the IRGC, this criminal gang, and we're

00:06:06.420 going after them personally, their leaders, their installations, their economic assets.

00:06:14.160 We're going after them very strongly.

00:06:15.720 What does victory look like in this campaign?

00:06:17.860 Well, we've defined two clear goals.

00:06:20.380 One is to break completely their nuclear program, break completely their missile program, break 0.86

00:06:27.940 completely their capacity to produce the components for both of these programs,

00:06:33.340 we're well on our way in achieving it.

00:06:35.660 We've also set a goal of creating conditions for the Iranian people

00:06:39.220 to overthrow this tyranny that has tormented them and made life miserable

00:06:44.400 and is making life miserable for the entire world.

00:06:47.220 And I hope we achieve that, too.

00:06:48.920 Overnight, President Trump said that if in 48 hours the Iranians don't open the Strait of Hormuz,

00:06:54.120 that there will be strikes against the power grids in Iran.

00:06:57.300 Will you participate in those strikes, and what do you think should happen next in this campaign?

00:07:02.660 I think President Trump knows exactly what he's doing, and whatever we do, we do together, and as far as possible, in confidence.

00:07:12.620 As the prime minister was leaving, I asked him about President Trump,

00:07:16.240 and he talked about the great relationship that these two leaders have amid Operation Epic Fury.

00:07:20.800 The operation has now entered week four, and we do anticipate heavier strikes against the Iranian regime in the hours and days ahead.

00:07:28.600 A lot has been discussed this week about whether the U.S. would take Karg Island.

00:07:34.660 The president of the United States has expressed an interest in doing so.

00:07:38.800 What would happen if that were to take place, and what does that mean exactly?

00:07:45.220 Well, that does seem to be one possible option that the Pentagon and the White House are considering.

00:07:50.800 And it's something that the Marines that are on their way to the region could potentially participate in.

00:07:55.060 It's something that they would be trained for, an amphibious type operation.

00:07:58.720 However, it would be very high risk and would likely involve significant U.S. casualties for very low gains.

00:08:05.840 I think the strategy here is that if the United States were able to seize this island,

00:08:11.020 which would significantly reduce Iran's ability to export oil,

00:08:14.920 it would be an economic shock to Iran that would limit its ability to continue fighting.

00:08:19.680 But there's a few problems with that logic.

00:08:22.600 The first is it assumes the U.S. operation will be successful, and there's definitely no guarantee of that.

00:08:27.520 Amphibious operations are very difficult, and even if forces were able to come onto the island,

00:08:33.020 they would be subject to drone attacks and artillery fire.

00:08:36.040 So there's no assurance here that that would be a successful operation.

00:08:40.340 Even if they did that, it would do nothing to reopen the strait forcibly.

00:08:43.880 It's not the right location for that.

00:08:46.020 And right now, Iran's strategy is very low cost.

00:08:49.020 It does not need a lot of revenue to fire a few dozen drones and missiles to keep the strait closed and to keep the pressure on the Gulf states and the United States.

00:08:57.500 So I guess I see this as a very bad option. It has very high risk, high costs and very little upside potential in my view.

00:09:19.020 .

00:09:22.020 .

00:09:29.020 .

00:09:34.020 .

00:09:39.020 .

00:09:42.020 .

00:09:47.020 .

00:09:48.020 and he is dead

00:09:50.020 but he is dead 0.59

00:09:52.020 he is dead

00:10:18.020 I want to drill down on the sort of the end game here.

00:10:21.320 There was a bit of a kerfuffle, I would say, at this past week between the U.S. and Israel over Israel bombing natural gas fields.

00:10:29.400 Prime Minister Netanyahu came out and said very clearly that President Trump is the, quote, leader and he is the, quote, ally.

00:10:36.340 So what will Israel do when the leader, the U.S., President Trump, says this war is over?

00:10:42.960 Will Israel also stop the war?

00:10:45.860 Dana, you know, we've planned this operation together.

00:10:49.340 We're implementing it together.

00:10:50.520 There's never been a precedent of such collaboration between two militaries.

00:10:54.000 And putting an emphasis on what you call a kerfuffle, I think, is putting the emphasis in the wrong place.

00:10:58.480 Every day, every hour of the day, there's going to end.

00:11:00.100 My emphasis is on how it's going to end.

00:11:01.880 I know that you've moved past that.

00:11:03.400 You know what?

00:11:03.840 When it ends, it's going to end, as President Trump and Prime Minister have said,

00:11:07.760 where there is not an entity in Tehran that's going to threaten the region.

00:11:10.380 Now, if that's going to be brought about by this regime having a change of heart, hard to imagine, but going on the assumption that that happens, then it'll take place that way.

00:11:22.320 Probably it's going to take place because the Iranian people have had enough. 1.00

00:11:25.980 They tried to raise up last month.

00:11:29.040 They were brutally put down.

00:11:31.260 I think that we need boots on the ground, but they've got to be Iranian boots. 1.00

00:11:34.360 And I think they're coming.

00:11:35.880 How so?

00:11:37.260 Because the people, there's a point of combustion.

00:11:39.420 it. Look, nobody knew when the Soviet Union would collapse. Nobody knew when the Romanians would 0.76

00:11:43.280 turn their guns against their Ceausescu government. But it happened at some point. And if we degrade

00:11:48.160 them enough, the people of Iran are going to say we've had enough and we want a different regime.

00:11:55.080 Sunday, 22 March, in the year of our Lord, 2024, the kind of complexion of this war has changed,

00:12:01.860 I think, over the last 24 hours. And the next 48 hours, I would say, would be another inflection

00:12:07.420 point right there the israeli ambassador uh to the united states and dana bash it's not a kerfuffle

00:12:15.820 it's an outright second time and this is what's gotten us in the last 72 hours in this kind of

00:12:23.960 jam with no off-ramp once again the israelis in a joint unified command decide to do their own

00:12:30.980 thing against a standing order from the president united states which was attack this uh oil and

00:12:36.300 gas field jointly owned by the iranians and the uh qataris managed by the qataris and qataris

00:12:44.440 are saying took that 17 of their capacity for lng and it's led them to threaten i don't think

00:12:51.660 they've technically done it a force majeure on five-year contracts for gas for principally

00:12:59.900 uh european countries i believe some asian um and now in the last uh 24 hours there's been

00:13:08.300 basically a knockdown drag out ballistic missiles fired at a ballistic missile fired at

00:13:14.620 diego garcia cleo pascal will be here for that the israelis trying to hit i think

00:13:20.440 uh but the potential nuclear facility the iranians the iranians striking back

00:13:25.920 uh with a uh with a horrific attack on the israelis uh president trump at first saying hey

00:13:33.600 you know pox on all your houses we've taken care of what we've taken care of cendcom and the joint

00:13:38.880 staff has told us that we've degraded defanged declawed uh we're going to do a little bit more

00:13:43.760 of this and then we're out of here and her moves and keeping it open is your problem whoever uses 1.00

00:13:49.180 it asia the asian countries and the european countries it's your problem then yesterday

00:13:55.180 doubling down said he's given him a 48 hour ultimatum and that would approximately be 4 45

00:14:02.460 p.m eastern daylight time tomorrow if we're basing upon the true social posts and president

00:14:08.460 trump said hey mark the time right now um that they've got to open up to all shipping

00:14:16.380 to all shipping or suffer the consequences of he will take out he will call for strikes to

00:14:21.900 take out their entire electric grid. This continues to get ratcheted up every moment of every day.

00:14:29.500 We've got Admiral Gary Hall, who used to be the commanding officer, once the commanding officer

00:14:35.020 of the USS Terawa, which is what the Tripoli is, same class of ship, also was a special assistant

00:14:40.780 to the President of the United States and the White House and National Security Council

00:14:44.460 about alliances, particularly NATO. He'll join us, Cleo Pascal, Rabbi Willicki from Jerusalem,

00:14:51.020 All of it next in the war room.

00:15:00.500 Here's your host, Stephen K.

00:15:02.580 And I think I'll be prepared, I don't know, Monday or Tuesday to go into this more.

00:15:10.680 But I was thinking over the weekend that one of the other great strategists, maybe arguably the greatest strategist and field commander combined.

00:15:21.020 in history. Alexander the Great had this issue about the same part of the world in 324 BC

00:15:28.580 in a retreat from India, maybe a strategic repositioning, I think they would call it,

00:15:36.980 he and his generals, the War Council, because the Macedonians and Greeks, as hard as they were,

00:15:43.640 as tough as they were, going from Greece through Persia all the way to the Khyber Pass into India,

00:15:50.080 i think all the way the indus river maybe beyond they decided maybe we've gone too far from our

00:15:55.300 logistics chain and maybe it's time we go back and this concept was hey maybe we go back and

00:16:02.940 we'll go back to babylon right that's the nicest place and we'll we'll regroup and we'll rethink

00:16:09.000 and if you want to be the king of asia maybe we go back to egypt and north africa and we do the

00:16:13.680 whole thing and then you can call yourself the the king of asia all the way from where we touched

00:16:18.480 india all the way back through it at around this time in 324 bc think about that 2300 years ago

00:16:28.600 2300 years ago a uh probably the greatest expeditionary force at least from the west

00:16:37.240 i realized genghis khan and these guys were too shabby coming from the east but the greatest 1.00

00:16:41.580 expeditionary force to ever exist in the west and really although they were mainly macedonians

00:16:49.320 they had enough greek to be the foundational pillar of democracy and debate they had the

00:16:57.580 same dilemma the same exact dilemma they were on the retreat they decided it was going to be too

00:17:04.040 hard too tough to take the entire army and march it back through persia that uh what they were

00:17:11.380 going to do is go along the coast of the what they called the indian sea but really the north

00:17:15.840 arabian sea and um because the arabs weren't really a thing then weren't really a a known

00:17:21.820 entity uh and they were going to put into a fleet a fleet that would be just off the coast

00:17:28.220 in the north arabian sea and would head through wait for it the strait of hormuz

00:17:34.620 and go all the way up past carg island all the way up past those gas fields which obviously back

00:17:41.020 then no one knew about the wealth and how that would drive the modern industrial society they

00:17:47.520 would go to the essentially mesopotamia the tigers and euphrates and they would take as many vessels

00:17:52.900 they could up to babylon and then the army would uh would uh disembark and march up there and his

00:18:02.500 army would go through um the greek capital visit the tomb of um of cyrus the great but they would

00:18:11.580 trail him on the coast the same exact coast and when you read the greek historians that uh gave

00:18:18.960 the eyewitnesses account of that it was although they weren't fighting the entire way they had

00:18:26.260 fought all the way over there but coming back particularly in that part it was absolutely

00:18:31.140 brutal why the land there is like the surface of the moon i got the photos maybe i'll show

00:18:37.480 them here a few minutes about the coastline it was not easy then and uh and these were pretty

00:18:45.080 tough hombres 2300 years ago the greatest probably military genius of the west greater than caesar

00:18:54.740 greater than napoleon alexander the grain fact the one from caesar to mark antony to napoleon

00:19:02.260 to all of them used as the template in fact there are many stories about what caesar went to the uh

00:19:09.220 when he was in egypt went to the tomb of alexander the great the cleopatra saw him and he weep and he

00:19:15.140 wept because alexander had done by the age of 31 32 33 what caesar had not accomplished in his 50s

00:19:24.740 going through the same logistics problem.

00:19:28.320 It's quite ironic.

00:19:30.020 And I think there's a lot we can learn from the Greeks

00:19:32.040 and a lot we can learn from those men

00:19:34.180 about exactly what we're biting off here,

00:19:38.060 exactly what this has got to be thought through.

00:19:40.220 With all the modern technology and everything going on,

00:19:44.180 warriors are still warriors.

00:19:46.360 So this has got to be thought through.

00:19:47.760 We've got a lot of, I've got Admiral Hall,

00:19:50.900 Admiral Gary Hall, and the reason I asked you here today,

00:19:53.260 uh admiral thank you for doing it to change your sunday plans to join us is that you were the

00:19:58.420 commanding officer of the uss terawa which is the same class as the tripoli you you obviously as an

00:20:04.640 aviator and they do have i think aviators are always the commanding officers of of those

00:20:09.140 because of the the central mission of the air assets in support of amphibious operations

00:20:15.100 as as these is one from the tripoli from japan and now the uss boxer i think from san diego i

00:20:22.860 think we'll have a combination of around 5 000 uh fleet marines amphibious force it could be up to

00:20:29.140 5 000 men i'm sure more could be put in there i think the 82nd airborne elements of the 82nd

00:20:33.740 airborne have been put on notice just what is the thinking right now of cencom specifically as

00:20:40.000 president trump is kind of giving this ultimatum uh that the iranians either keep uh free navigation

00:20:45.380 of the straits straight of hormuz by roughly five o'clock tomorrow afternoon eastern daylight time

00:20:52.320 or he's going to unleash hell on their assets.

00:20:55.520 Clearly, one of the capabilities that people will be looking for

00:20:59.320 on maybe executing the president's plan is an amphibious operation

00:21:04.260 on the islands in the coast right there at Hormuz,

00:21:07.540 which the Greeks had to deal with, plus Karg Island.

00:21:10.120 Just walk us through what CENCOM, Admiral Cooper,

00:21:13.280 and people like you on that staff.

00:21:14.860 I might add also that Admiral Hall was on the staff in the first term

00:21:19.120 of the trump administration as a an assistant to really take a being in charge of for the president

00:21:26.740 uh our alliances uh and particularly nato we'll get to that in a moment but right now for the

00:21:31.320 amphibious part of it what are people thinking of well first of all steve it's great to be back

00:21:36.760 with you in the war room i think of course of dr strange love that there's no fighting here in the

00:21:42.280 war room. But when it comes to the amphibious ready groups, three ships, 2,500 Marines,

00:21:49.100 about 1,500 sailors, they come with a great capability. The Marine Expeditionary Unit is

00:21:55.980 special operations capable. And I think CENCOM thinks of them as well as Fifth Fleet as a Swiss

00:22:02.700 Army knife. They can do anything. They bring command and control. They bring air power. They

00:22:08.120 bring ground power and they bring logistics. They're qualified for 20 plus special operations

00:22:14.740 missions. They can do anything from humanitarian operations to rescue, recovery, or taking a small

00:22:23.040 island and defending it. So I think it gives us great capability. And with two amphibious ready

00:22:29.760 groups, the AAA and the Boxer, that's going to be great combat power. And I think it just gives you

00:22:35.400 great capability. The Strait of Hormuz, you know, is more than just oil, it's commerce. It's also

00:22:41.520 signaling that we have freedom of navigation, that we're in control, which brings stability

00:22:46.760 throughout the world. The amphibious operations in World War II, which I think are a good benchmark

00:22:55.940 for things, is it not a, not assumption, but is it not a part, when you're looking at,

00:23:02.280 simcom's looking at this that one of the key elements is obviously air superiority or air

00:23:07.240 supremacy but just as important as naval superiority naval supremacy do we have to

00:23:13.040 essentially have some sort of uh naval dominance around you know the gulf of roman what leads into

00:23:22.720 hormuz hormuz itself uh and then up to because there's these islands off of uh the coast of

00:23:30.020 Iran right there that look like they have to be seized. That's one of the reasons that they're 1.00

00:23:33.900 getting pounded right there on the coastline, pounded with these bunker-busting bombs, because

00:23:37.700 it looks like they've got elements dug in there. But do you have to actually get

00:23:42.380 naval forces, not as escorts for tankers, but actually in there to get naval supremacy to make

00:23:47.800 sure the speedboats can't come and everything like that before you launch? Or can you actually

00:23:51.860 launch with the helicopters back off in the Gulf of Oman? Yes, so consider defense in depth,

00:24:00.600 and we want those naval surface ships like you served on to provide anti-missile defense,

00:24:06.440 anti-surface defense. And so the Gulf of Oman is the doormat, Straits of Hormuz is the great gate

00:24:15.040 to the North Arabian Gulf. So could we go from the Gulf of Oman? Yes. And so basically it's not

00:24:25.120 so much helicopters now, but VSTAL, the V-22, which has, you know, capability of traveling at,

00:24:31.620 you know, over 300 to 400 knots can carry Marines and get them provide both helicopter-like

00:24:38.560 capabilities as long, as well as fixed wing capabilities. So yeah, there's no beach beyond

00:24:44.200 our reach as we like to say and world war ii what would you say private right now if you think about

00:24:52.880 world war ii amphibus operations completely different they didn't have the same capabilities

00:24:57.080 uh we have today and it was you know against tremendous opposition where right now we're

00:25:03.060 looking at you know uh drones or missile attack uh i think our naval capabilities you know our

00:25:09.540 goal has always been if there's a naval uh engagement with iran it's we're going to

00:25:14.880 sink everybody in their port and that's pretty much what we've done 0.61

00:25:17.700 uh admiral can you hang on i want to i want to a few more questions on this to get make sure

00:25:24.520 people understand what's being planned for uh and they're doing a lot of planning and getting and

00:25:29.920 putting capabilities they haven't pulled the trigger yet on an amphibious or air assault but

00:25:34.760 But they're certainly, as Admiral Cooper and General Cain, want to make sure they've got every capability in case the commander in chief pulls the trigger.

00:25:43.580 They're going to have a lot of amphibious capabilities.

00:25:48.080 Also, the president the other day said, hey, look, we've, you know, if you follow Captain Fennell, we've defanged and declawed them.

00:25:55.380 Maybe not perfectly, but enough.

00:25:57.600 And we'll do a little bit more.

00:25:58.740 but the Strait of Hormuz and coming in and out of the Persian Gulf should be the countries that

00:26:03.860 really use it. That would be the flags of Asia, Japan, and the Chinese Communist Party, plus

00:26:10.540 our European allies. Also, the wild card in this is the Houthis, who gave as good as they got back 0.99

00:26:16.840 in the summer against the United States Navy in the, was it the Gate of Tears down there in the

00:26:21.600 Red Sea is, I don't know, 10 times more lethal than Strait of Hormuz. Leads right to the Suez

00:26:28.020 and I will talk about all of that.

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00:26:55.180 Short commercial break.

00:26:55.960 Back in a moment.

00:26:58.020 War Room. Here's your host, Stephen K. Mann.

00:27:04.040 So, Admiral, and I'm not trying to put you on the spot, although you're an old and dear friend, so I'll put you on the spot.

00:27:10.060 The full disclosure, Admiral Hall was my kid brother's, I guess you were the senior stick.

00:27:16.960 You were the plane, the LAMPS pilot commander.

00:27:20.300 My kid brother was your was your co-pilot for many, many years and learned to be a great pilot under your mentorship.

00:27:28.060 You were known as a great pilot. But you've done as you went up in in rank and became one of the rare helicopter pilots that makes admiral.

00:27:36.680 One of the things you do, you were a great brief for thinking through problems and briefing.

00:27:40.280 That's why you were over. That's why you were at the White House in the Trump first term.

00:27:45.180 and particularly given, quite frankly, something that became a flash, a hot flashpoint, the NATO situation.

00:27:51.960 If you were with Admiral Cooper today and the president kind of calls in from Mar-a-Lago,

00:27:57.920 give me, give the audience one or two minutes of the pros and cons,

00:28:02.560 because you've got to understand the risk and how to mitigate it,

00:28:04.900 the pros and cons of for the president to get a framework for thinking about a potential amphibious assault

00:28:12.660 onto karg island to basically seize control of uh seize control of the iranians capacity to

00:28:19.880 actually get their oil out and monetize it sir okay well first of all you know i remember

00:28:25.880 centcom when i was involved with centcom at the beginning of oef talked we have to take data turn

00:28:32.420 it into information to facilitate a conversation in order to make a great decision and i think we

00:28:38.820 have the data in our intel you were you were at you're at centcom you were at you were at sunk

00:28:43.300 you were at centcom with tommy franks in the in the in the march up to baghdad correct in fact

00:28:47.860 uh you were in charge of psyops at the time you you information so you were ahead of the yes

00:28:54.100 yeah i dropped 40 million uh leaflets uh into iraq we did the radio broadcasting into iraq i

00:29:03.400 think we saved a lot of lives and saved a lot of the infrastructure. We did computer network

00:29:10.220 attack and computer network defense. So it laid the groundwork for the beginning of Operation

00:29:17.720 Iraqi Freedom. So I think we have the intel, also the amphibious ready groups, the Tripoli and the

00:29:26.720 Boxer have superior, extremely classified intelligence gathering capability and sensors.

00:29:34.200 So we control the electronic communications environment. So I think, you know, at CENTCOM,

00:29:43.140 at Fifth Fleet, they're going to be deciding, do we have control of the air? Do we have control of

00:29:47.360 the sea? What is the latest intel on the infrastructure at Karg Island? And then we do

00:29:54.500 massive briefs and rely on our training. So I think it's very capable that we could

00:29:59.660 secure that island, defend that island, and secure the infrastructure. But it would be a great deal

00:30:07.320 of planning. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, go ahead, sir. No, the MUSE, they've gone through this

00:30:15.380 training to get certified to deploy. We spend more time training than we do deployed. And even I was

00:30:23.240 talking to uh your little brother and we talked about you know the training that makes all our

00:30:28.260 operations capable and how it lasts throughout our our lives so i think the the marines and when

00:30:34.480 you have two amphibious ready groups that's going to be a tremendous power if needed or even did it

00:30:39.900 does it does it surprise does it surprise you does it surprise you given the centrality because

00:30:44.940 this as klaus fit says the center of gravity of this battle is not tehran the center of gravity

00:30:50.500 these battles the persian gulf understanding that and understanding that cencom understood it and

00:30:55.940 the joint staff understood it and fifth fleet understood it and the chief naval operations

00:31:00.680 understood it does it surprise you that we're night when on day 19 is actually when the tripoli

00:31:07.660 got underway and day 20 is when the boxer got underway because they're not going to be there for

00:31:12.780 what a week or so so if you want to use this compact you want to have this capability it's

00:31:17.280 not on, it's not on station, sir? Well, I think that showed, you know, as I thought about that,

00:31:22.580 having traveled a boxer's route to the Persian Gulf, it literally takes, you know, if they go

00:31:29.600 optimum speed, it's going to take three and a half weeks to get there. So I think that this

00:31:36.920 is a tempered approach that maybe you want to put that, those ready groups in there for phase four

00:31:43.300 of the operation where there are capabilities that can be moved in and out of the gulf as needed so

00:31:50.920 i look at it based on the timing that it takes to get there

00:31:55.300 that they're used for the end state of the operation

00:31:59.520 um let's pivot and i want to get george papadopoulos i'm going to get george into

00:32:07.820 this conversation too i want to talk about uh and maybe clio uh nato you were on the president

00:32:13.220 you were on the national security council in charge of a hot potato nato back then when the

00:32:17.580 president was saying hey look guys you got to get to two percent and i want a real two percent i

00:32:22.100 don't want you know women's health care i don't want climate change i don't want all of it your 1.00

00:32:27.700 assessment at the time was that nato was not a real basically a functioning alliance because they

00:32:35.360 they the politicians just wouldn't put the money into interoperability into maneuvers into equipment

00:32:42.320 that this was really on paper an alliance, but it actually didn't work day to day as an alliance.

00:32:49.780 I just want to make sure I'm not miscommunicating that. Was that essentially your position at the

00:32:55.240 time? That was my position while on the National Security Council, but also, Steve, I spent two

00:33:02.460 and a half years at NATO Northwood in the Maritime Component Command as the Assistant Chief of Staff

00:33:08.560 of operations. And so during that time, you know, yes, we throw great parties. We have a lot of fun.

00:33:15.400 But even something is planning the summer picnic. All the NATO nations shuffled their feet,

00:33:20.660 waited for the United States to say, OK, we'll take charge of it. So they had a small standing

00:33:26.180 naval destroyer group in the Mediterranean and a small anti-mine group, you know, in the

00:33:35.180 Black Sea, but very little capability. In fact, we came up with the idea of a naval quick reaction

00:33:42.560 force, and we would exercise it. We would have countries sign up per quarter. So we would have

00:33:48.880 four functional naval quick reaction forces. In one quarter of the annual calendar year,

00:33:57.560 we would deploy those forces. Well, guess what? No NATO nation signed up for the quarter

00:34:03.540 where we were going to deploy. And so the United States took that. So they're a very fickle force.

00:34:10.580 They love to talk about the alliance and how important it is. But the combat readiness comes

00:34:15.580 from national forces, not from NATO forces. And the other concern when I was there was,

00:34:22.420 can we keep up with the communication and information operations with the United States?

00:34:29.400 They're, you know, when they spend all their money on social programs and not on defense, they couldn't keep up with the technology, simple, basic radio communications.

00:34:39.360 So, yeah, they're they're a paper tiger.

00:34:44.040 And so my job, I want to go back in time.

00:34:46.200 I was. Yeah, keep going. Keep going.

00:34:49.640 No, I was told by the chief of naval operations, your job at NATO is to understand NATO so you can teach us all what NATO is.

00:34:56.640 is. And again, as far as fighting capability, limited fighting capability, little ability to

00:35:04.120 deploy forces. When I left there, I took command of amphibious strike group two, and I had 26

00:35:10.120 ships and 16,000 sailors under my command. That was larger than the British Navy, you know,

00:35:16.840 and Britannia once ruled the seas. So it's, NATO is not what Americans think it is. It's staffs.

00:35:24.820 I think we we got to have we got to have you back during the week in more detail.

00:35:28.820 But I want to go back to the summer in the Red Sea because the Red Sea, that gate of tears that gets you into the Red Sea, I think, from the Gulf of Aden into the Red Sea and then up to the Suez Canal.

00:35:41.040 Ninety five percent of what goes through there is for Europe during the summer.

00:35:44.960 It had to be an American carrier strike group down there fighting the Houthis.

00:35:48.760 And folks, don't discount the Houthis because they're a bunch of tribesmen in the mountains.

00:35:52.900 they're kind of they got they got the they're born fighting like the scotch irish these are

00:35:58.000 tough guys that have beaten the egyptians the british they're just tough they beat that they

00:36:02.680 beat uae the saudis nobody's ever really been to get and the reason is they just fight to the end

00:36:08.160 uh and they're very savvy and they they gave as good as they got the with the united states navy

00:36:13.080 last summer and i kept screaming and screaming i think the british eventually sent a frigate and

00:36:18.560 the French sent a Corvette, and the Italians sent a supply ship, and that was about it.

00:36:23.400 Right now, when the President of the United States says, hey, look, we've done what we're

00:36:28.880 going to do, and I'm going to have Cooper, and Kane is going to defang and declaw for

00:36:33.540 another week or two, but we're out of here, and if you use the Strait of Hormuz, that's

00:36:40.280 your problem, and you guys got to go in and keep it open.

00:36:42.520 what is the possibility of that being a reality with the combined uh navies of nato let's throw

00:36:49.920 in the japanese uh and maybe even give the pla uh the people's liberation navy uh is there any

00:36:57.440 combination thereof that could actually take the place of the united states navy to practically

00:37:01.700 keep the strait of hermuz open uh yeah hope is not a plan of action but i would rely more

00:37:10.340 on Japan's capable Navy than some of the Europeans to get there. If you remember back in 2007,

00:37:21.060 the British sailors were captured by Iranians and it was a whole, you know, Keystone cop 1.00

00:37:27.720 operation. So they're not as capable as they used to be. But I think once we finish up here,

00:37:35.540 It should be a simple process to keep the strait open using European naval forces in.

00:37:42.640 But I would rely on Japan. 0.99

00:37:45.060 I think they have the capability, the training, the discipline to maintain the straits open.

00:37:51.640 So when you say clean up, you mean after we've, are you saying, hey, after we've gone to phase four or whatever this phase is,

00:37:58.020 that we've actually taken Karg Island, when we've secured the perimeter of the Persian Gulf,

00:38:03.200 even if we have to take a beachhead on on southern iran and if we've got karg island at that time

00:38:09.440 you think we can turn over uh escort duty to the europeans and to the japanese to escort the

00:38:15.740 tankers in and out or is there some is there something we can do beforehand like president

00:38:20.560 trump originally said to kind of walk away and toss it to him well i think uh as we get as we

00:38:28.280 wind down this, that it's not that difficult to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.

00:38:34.020 I've been through that Strait of Hormuz dozens upon dozens of times, both in daylight, at

00:38:40.420 nighttime, in all sorts of conditions.

00:38:43.700 And so I think right now, just based on industry and insurance rates and things like that,

00:38:50.620 everybody's being super cautious.

00:38:52.200 But I don't think it's going to take a lot of military power to maintain the straits

00:38:57.460 open.

00:38:57.960 so that there's a freedom of navigation

00:39:01.280 and that shipping can flow freely.

00:39:07.380 Fantastic. Good report.

00:39:09.020 Look forward to talking to you in the next couple of days,

00:39:11.120 particularly as President Trump's got this ultimatum

00:39:14.200 for 445 Eastern Daylight Time on Monday.

00:39:17.880 Of course, we know that the Iranians are reaching out to people

00:39:20.420 to try to negotiate.

00:39:21.720 Amrhal, do you have social media?

00:39:23.680 Can people go and get you a website somewhere

00:39:26.120 where they can track you down?

00:39:27.960 Well, if you want to see my live streaming of my podcast or live streaming of once a month, we pray a rosary for our classmates in need of healing power.

00:39:39.280 In fact, we've included your brother there on YouTube.

00:39:44.400 I'm the Admiral's Almanac.

00:39:45.920 And if you want to communicate with me, you can go to Instagram, Gary Hall 76.

00:39:53.620 So that's how you can get a hold of me.

00:39:56.460 Not a big social media presence, but I do have a couple of podcasts, a radio show and Catholic Radio Network.

00:40:05.980 Crazy stuff.

00:40:06.900 Thank you, Admiral.

00:40:07.620 Appreciate you.

00:40:08.800 Particularly changing around your Sunday to join us.

00:40:12.320 Admiral Gary Hall.

00:40:13.640 Pretty good track record.

00:40:15.440 Infibious Ready Groove, NATO, the NATO naval aspect of it on the president's staff, all of it right there.

00:40:22.360 Okay, we're going to take a short commercial break.

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00:42:22.760 over 3 million satisfied customers make sure you're one of them here's your host steven k bann

00:42:32.800 okay welcome back um remember when you saw this kind of um uh major escalation between the

00:42:43.380 iranians and the israelis last night uh with both of them being hit and hitting each other that's

00:42:47.680 on top of the americans i believe another intense night of bombing on uh military objectives

00:42:53.900 laid out by cencom so remember that's kind of the substrate of this uh i think that

00:43:00.380 will rabbi willickie's tell me that the um uh the tehran uh regime has issued a response to

00:43:07.640 president trump's ultimatum they kind of said it the other day i think they said hey look if you're

00:43:11.660 gonna come in and take out our electoral grid and and you're threatening we'll take down every piece

00:43:16.480 of uh oil and gas infrastructure in the gulf or words that affect so we'll see um rabbi willickie

00:43:23.740 is going to have an update in a moment george papadapa is going to talk about maybe some

00:43:27.880 alternatives cleo pascal nothing uh warms my heart more here in the war room than have someone

00:43:34.320 introduce someone like you to the audience i don't know a year or so ago uh and to be so dead spot on

00:43:39.680 on diego garcia the expansion of this war and uh and of course bb i think did a good job explaining

00:43:45.780 hey look they do got the ability to deliver a farther beyond than israel and qatar and uh and

00:43:52.980 saudi arabia is they launched a ballistic missile towards diego garcia which you had pointed out

00:43:59.600 for over a year here on the show that how important strategically it was the persians think so too if

00:44:05.260 it was not i think for an aegis class destroyer cruiser to take it down there would have been a

00:44:10.000 could have been a catastrophic hit onto the atoll in the in the in the in the um the pier in the

00:44:16.580 runway that is diego garcia you're you're you're you think the brits now know that uh maybe that's

00:44:22.940 an asset that we keep, ma'am? I'm very grateful for the coverage on the war room of the situation

00:44:30.040 in Diego Garcia. There were two missiles launched out at one, disintegrated effectively, and the

00:44:37.300 other one was defended. I think that this points to an even larger problem. Admiral Hall was talking

00:44:42.420 about NATO and UK capabilities. They're becoming increasingly clear that this is a serious problem

00:44:49.380 And all of the U.K. assets, I think, need to be looked at.

00:44:53.180 There was a drone strike on one of their two bases in Cyprus, for example.

00:44:57.840 And now the Cypriot government is talking about, oh, we're going to have to perhaps renegotiate or take a new look at having U.K. bases in Cyprus after this conflict is over.

00:45:09.720 That's another real serious problem for the U.S.

00:45:12.780 There are, I think, some major signals intelligence operations going on out of Cyprus.

00:45:17.180 And we're seeing a degree of potential penetration of the UK government that raises concerns also in financial sectors, where you've got that large embassy that they're talking about, the Chinese are talking about building in London, being built near some of the cables that transmit key information into and out of the city.

00:45:38.880 and of course those transmissions are very time sensitive if you're doing trades or things like

00:45:44.780 that and there was also reporting they've arrested a few people in the UK recently on suspected spying

00:45:53.200 for the Chinese one of them a Labour advisor spoke directly to Marco Rubio in December 24

00:46:01.720 about Chagos just before he became Secretary of State so they are we're going to have to really

00:46:08.160 look not just at them being not particularly helpful, perhaps, as Admiral Hall was describing,

00:46:14.960 but potentially being an actual vulnerability across multiple areas.

00:46:21.500 The CCP in all of this, give us your perspective. I know you focus on Micronesia and the islands in

00:46:28.560 the Pacific, the western part of the United States. What is the third island chain? How are

00:46:33.260 they taking this in right now because their oil has essentially been cut off we think but now

00:46:38.420 we're hearing you know last week that they're letting chinese flag vessels through what in

00:46:43.140 beijing how are they viewing this ma'am i'm i'm hoping uh that it's making them recalculate a

00:46:50.500 little bit on the ground i don't see a lot of slowing down uh so i was recently in yap and

00:46:59.360 Palau and Guam. And in Yap, if you remember, we covered the Chinese rebuilding of that Imperial

00:47:07.100 Japanese runway on Woolley Eye. That construction crew has now moved on to the main island of Yap,

00:47:14.080 where the U.S. is putting in $2 billion worth of infrastructure. And according to Secretary

00:47:19.660 Hegseth's public statements, although the negotiations aren't complete, and this is

00:47:24.280 where you get a concern i'm i'm i look more at kind of the left of bang what happens before

00:47:29.500 things blow up so that hopefully things don't blow up that same chinese company that was doing 1.00

00:47:34.160 the runway is on the main island doing a bridge which is in a location between the port and the

00:47:40.640 airport that the u.s is looking at rebuilding and they've also settled in to do over a dozen

00:47:46.560 secondary roads on the island so from a situation of about a year ago where there was essentially

00:47:52.140 no chinese installed government linked operations on the island of yap there's they're now settling

00:48:00.460 in and they they do the relationship mapping figure out who they can buy who they can influence

00:48:05.940 and they're settling in for the long run so that runway which is about 400 miles from guam which

00:48:11.460 they've completed they've completed the runway but they've left behind on woolly eye containers

00:48:17.980 and i don't know what's in the containers they also left behind a couple of tenders one of them

00:48:24.080 has sunk and has leaked oil into the lagoon so the locals are having problems with their fishing

00:48:29.000 supplies it's just it's not dialing down um so i hope that they're reconsidering but uh all of

00:48:37.320 this everything we've spoken about the islands dio garcia what's happening in cyprus this is all

00:48:42.660 logistics this is all about the four right and uh unless uh we can kind of do a proper assessment

00:48:50.020 and regain control on the logistics which is where the chinese are trying to cut off the u.s 0.98

00:48:55.900 if you remember admiral keating was uh testified in 2008 that he was told by chinese official

00:49:01.960 you take hawaii east we'll take hawaii west and they're putting in place logistical control in

00:49:08.600 order to um to try to make that happen like happened with the japanese driven door two

00:49:13.700 they're looking at the same map uh cleo you're putting up great stuff all the time with us the

00:49:20.820 geo strategic confrontation between the chinese chemist party in the united states of america

00:49:25.740 where do people go uh uh x just my name cleo c-l-e-o-p-a-s-k-a-l um and i'm real cleo still

00:49:36.460 on getter thank you ma'am appreciate you thank you sir always great

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Bannon's War Room - March 22, 2026

Episode 5236： War With Iran Enters Fourth Week

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