John McCain

For you to sit there, General, and say that we'd have to take out Syrian air defenses is either a stunning display of ignorance.

A congressional vote to authorize war against ISIL doesn't seem forthcoming now, because of politics here, and that it, quote, 'may require an attack on the United States of America to force such a vote.'

It is clear that, without American participation and leadership, there is no strategy to take Raqqa.

I do not understand why in the world you wouldn't want, as General Jack Keane, the architect of the surge, a small component of American forces with an international force.

Thank you. How long do you think it'll be before we retake Mosul or Raqqa?

Now is not the time for games.

These positions should be filled by confirmed nominees, especially in a time of conflict.

I think one only had to watch the press conference between President--with President Obama and President Francois Hollande, and you saw one leader who was very urgent, he was going around the world trying to get our allies motivated on…

I will do what I can to get the four that are pending before the Senate today confirmed by the Senate.

We want to know what the plan is, and we don't want to see a repetition of the testimony by the head of Central Command who said, 'Well, we have four or five less, and we've spent $43 million.'

If we leave again, the threat will return, and we will have to intervene again.

What we do need in Iraq is several thousand additional United States troops to improve and accelerate the training of Iraqi forces.

If there's not engaged American leadership, serious leadership, that people believe that we're in there and committed to the strategy, we're not going to be able to do any of these things.

So, if we have not contained ISIL, how are we to know--believe that we are succeeding against ISIL?

We need these funds to provide and transport ammunition, weapons, and other equipment to further enable the progress being made against ISIL in Syria by partners like the Syrian Arab Coalition.

Ultimately, to destroy ISIL in Syria, we will need a multinational ground force primarily made up of Sunni, Arab, and European forces.

This is an abject failure. The refugees are the result of it.

I have never seen a hearing that is as divorced from the reality of every outside expert and what you are saying.

I predict that, unless we do something different, it will remain, as General Dempsey said, stalemated, which means tragedy.

I hope we will get into more details about what you plan to do to reverse this action.

Will we tell them that we will defend them against Bashar Assad's barrel-bombing?

It was clear that we could have and everybody knows they could have.

You are recruiting people and not telling them that they are going to defend them because you have not made the decision yet.

This is not an issue that's going away.

It is shameful--shameful--to send people in and not assure them that we will defend them against attacks by barrel bombs.