Scott Ritter: TRUMP is DEAD WRONG About U.S. Missiles & Stockpiles

The Bleacher Report app is your destination for sports.

Right now, the NBA is heating up, March Manus is here, and MLB is almost back.

Every day there's a new headline, a new highlight, a new moment you've got to see for yourself.

That's why I stay locked in with the Bleacher Report app.

For me, it's about staying connected to my sports.

I could follow the teams I care about, get real-time scores, breaking news, and highlights

all in one place.

Dallow the Bleacher Report app today, so you never miss a moment.

The focus is understandably on getting the straight of Hormuz open, and all the military

tasks that go along with that is they're going to be taking of the Carg Island, is they're

going to be some sort of grounding curse in somewhere?

What is going to happen with Iran?

Are they going to give in under the bombing?

Or all of those kinds of things that have to do with how this is going to be, the war

is going to be solved.

But even around that, there's some other issues, which in many regards are as important

and maybe in a couple of categories, more important, and that's things that happen outside

of the Gulf.

That has to do with American allies and some of our other competitors in Russia and China.

We're going to go into that today, and we have nobody better to get that done than

we have Brother Scott back with us again today, who is a veteran Marine Corps Intelligence

Officer, a former United Nations weapons inspector, and now one of the most sought after

military analysts in the business.

And one, we've been trying to get on the show for a long time, and I'm glad we're having

you back here for a second time.

Welcome back, Scott.

Thank you very much, sir.

It's always an honor to be here with you.

And it's a privilege for us to have you, because I know you genuinely are one of those

sought after voices here.

A lot of people are interested in what you have to say, which is why our viewers are

tuning in today.

Well, let's kind of take a look at what's going on here, because first of all, it's

kind of set the stage here for what?

Where President Trump's mind is, because he's thinking that we're now in day 17.

I think when this started, I think that the most likely case scenario in his mind that

this was going to be three to four days, we're going to have a decapitation strike that

they were going to give in, because they were as weak as they had been in 47 years.

And all you need is a bunch of shocking on.

Bam, it's going to be over.

Whoops.

That didn't happen.

And so now that the question is, do we have the staying power?

Do we have the ammunition?

Are we going to wear out our forces?

Those are questions people are asking.

Well, President Trump thought he was going to calm everybody's nerves as we begin when

he said this.

What we do have, though, is at a very high level, we have unlimited weapons at a medium

to high level, and they're really doing the trick, and we're not using the, they call

it the elite weapons, because, frankly, they have it outside of the original attack they

haven't been necessary.

These companies, these companies are building facilities, and they've already started all

over the, many of them are building, many buildings right now to make sure that we

wait two weeks instead of two years for weapons.

Well, that's a remarkable thing.

Now we only have two weeks for weapons instead of two years.

That's great news.

What do you say to that?

Well, again, not knowing the details of what he's talking about, but being somewhat familiar

with defense industry, I had the privilege of being a start treaty coordinator, and also

during the INF inspections that are early on in the counterintelligence stage, I coordinated

with major defense industry companies throughout the country that could be peripherally involved

or directly involved in the inspection process.

Then I've been studying, for instance, Soviet defense industry for some time now, and

now Russian defense industry, so I have, I have a modicum of knowledge about this.

The president is just not being honest, I mean, he's saying they're building buildings.

I mean, you know, and I know, just living in a neighborhood, watching housing go up

around here, how long it takes to put a building down, poor foundation, put the stuff up.

It's far more complicated for a defense industry facility.

I mean, there are safety regulations that have to be done, site surveys that have to

be done.

You just don't snap your fingers and make this happen.

And the money has to come from somewhere.

Companies don't build infrastructure on their own.

Very rarely do you get a company say we're going to bet on the come here, and we're going

to go ahead and build this on the hope that we get the contract and that Congress will

appropriate money.

And that's the important thing.

Congress has to appropriate this money.

And the last time I checked that, that hasn't happened.

So the president is talking strategic theory.

You have companies saying they're ready to put, you know, to start building foundations.

But even once you get the building constructed, you've got to put the production equipment

in there.

And some of it's pretty unique.

And then you've got to get the people capable of operating the equipment, train them up to

the standard necessary.

There are security clearances involved.

Supply change involved.

You know, there's not an infinite amount of the materials necessary, including some materials

that can be singularly derived or solely derived, procured from China.

I mean, you know, when we get into these precision guided munitions, et cetera.

So the president is just dead wrong when he says what he's saying is that, you know, he

they've created a strategic intent to increase the, the scoping scale of defense industrial

capacity.

But they're nowhere near that.

These weapons will not be ready for years, years, if not all.

And that's something I wanted to ask you, because you have some familiarity with the, with

what the Russians did here from the outside, I was able to observe things that were reported.

And when Russia made its initial incursion into Ukraine in February 2022, I think that

they also thought that it was going to be a short term operation, that they were going

to get a negotiated settlement.

I'm not talking about the strategy now, but they thought that it wasn't going to last

a long time.

And then when it became clear that that's not going to happen, it's now its plan V,

they had to start ramping up their industrial capacity.

And then they had to go on the defensive for the better part of a year, 2023.

And after that point, at least it observed from the outside that for about 18 months later,

once the demand signal was sent from the Kremlin, that to their industrial capacity,

which went into an overdrive to try to build new factories and hire new people and all

that kind of stuff, it took about a year and a half before they were really starting to

have production level.

Is that accurate?

And do you think that is commensurate with what could be here, if we had the same demand

signal?

Well, the thing, but you're, first of all, you're, you're very, you're very correct in

what you've said.

Let's dig a little bit deeper.

And we seem to have a bit of a glitch there.

Well, there we go.

There we got him back.

I think the FBI might be upset that we're talking about these issues, but so what?

You know, the, the Russians aren't like we are during the Soviet Union times, defense

industry, work private corporations, they were state owned enterprises.

And even during the transition after the closes of the Soviet Union, when they did become

private, they, they didn't function at all.

So what happened when Vladimir Putin became president is they began to transform the defense

industry, industrial base into what they call joint stock companies, where the Russian

government would come in and buy the procure, the, the greater shares.

So these companies, although they have a private aspect of it to it, and they're, there's

somewhat of a profit margin under normal times operating, you know, at the end of the day,

the government controls them and directs them.

And what happened is when they went to the mobilization, is that the government directed

that certain things be done.

The other thing is, for instance, in Butt Kinsk is a facility I'm intimately familiar with

because I worked there for two years outside the factory inspecting, everything that came

in and it came out.

And I've been following Butt Kinsk very closely.

You know, when, when the Cold War ended and the demand or the ability to procure quantities

of ballistic missiles dropped significantly, rather than getting rid of capacity, they

mothballed it.

They mothballed capacity, they retrained engineers, but they held on to their capable.

And this speaks volumes of the Russians.

Many of these engineers, rather than going for better jobs, stayed there because they're

patriots.

They also lived there.

They had their homes, they had their families there, but they didn't flee.

They went ahead and tightened their belts.

They stuck it out with the company because the company had been loyal to them for many

years.

When it came time to up-production capacity, you could turn to engineers who already had

about 80% of the training necessary.

You could send them through a technical engineering course, which the factory has.

They have their own in-house university and they trained them up to speed and you can

get a production line up and running relatively quickly, quicker than we can.

And you know, these are facilities that have already been cleared for the work.

These guys are clear to do it.

You just need to start, you have to hit the on switch.

So the Russians were able to rapidly transfer a transition into production.

And this is a system also that is constantly in working.

Unlike the United States where we build a system, we fit the contract and then we're done.

With the Russians, they'll build a missile, let's say the SS-25 when I was there.

There are ready, while the SS-25 is going through serial production, working on the follow-on

system.

And they're taking cadres of people out, training them up so that at the 20-year mark,

when the SS-25 is complete, they've already tested the next follow-on and they're ready

to transition into full-scale production.

So the Russians are always two or three steps ahead in terms of generation's generational

capacity, which means they're prepared.

It's like they're in the gym training for a fight.

It's not like if I did a championship fight, you know, building a, you know, the minute

man three, then I go sit on the couch and eat donuts.

I'm just getting fat.

The Russians, they built their missile, but they're still in the ring training for the next

one.

And they were able to make this transition very rapidly.

Whereas the United States, we're bound by so many restrictions.

You know, it's just the nature of the business.

But one of the biggest restrictions is financing.

Where's the money coming from?

You can't train people.

You can't hire people unless you have the money.

And what are you buying for?

You know, traditionally, we don't buy large volumes of these missiles because we weren't

at war.

The reality is people are going to say Congress is going to say, how long do you expect

this war to go?

Once we build up our stocks, I mean, do we really need to build four production lines to

produce these missiles?

Knowing that in two years, we'll, you know, if the rates are up, we're up.

And now what do we do with these production lines?

The United States doesn't mothball.

We don't put things in reserve.

We don't have people saying we're willing to hang around for 10 years and take a pay cut.

They want to move on to getting the full pay.

So this is an unrealistic plan.

It hasn't been subjected to congressional scrutiny, and I don't think it will survive.

And so that leads to the issue that the United States did.

If it still took Russia about 18 months to really get up to where they were having production

at scale to be able to support the, you know, the higher up tempo of the, the special

military operation is the Russians call it.

We would seem to be in a lot more difficult position because, as you say, the president

and Congress, nobody can tell them how long this is going to last.

We're talking three to four weeks.

That's not the kind of signal it's going to cause you to create new capacity, unless you're

just talking general.

But something like the Russians, they said, no, we have to get this kind of capacity.

They knew, at least I would imagine they had a pretty good idea that this was going

to take a long time after the initial plan didn't work.

But without those signals in the United States, I don't know how we get bigger that fast.

And then we seem to have so many more constraints.

I don't know that in 18 months from now, we can be at a level to where President Trump

thinks we're going to be.

How do you see it?

I can almost guarantee in 18 months nothing will be coming off the production line that

isn't already ready to come off the production line.

There won't be a new production line.

There won't be new equipment.

So again, President Trump, whether this is deliberate or just based upon ignorance, he

is a salesman.

He is right now trying to sell a concept to a very skeptical audience, especially his

political base.

He's somebody who has postured his America's the strongest nation in the world, and suddenly

America's confronting the reality that we're not.

That there's some problems here that we're not the 10-foot tall monster.

We thought we were actually about 5 foot 6 and a little overweight, not able to sustain

the fight.

I'm sorry, Bob sticks it an overweight that says it's not a good imagery, but I think

accurate.

Sorry.

But the fact is, there's other issues too.

What are we building?

We literally just found out that the totality of our most, what he calls, I mean, whatever

term used, the super duper or the best, the tier one, the top level, it doesn't work.

It fails.

So he's on my building production lines that are going to build weapons.

We already know don't work.

So even if all this stuff happens, the weapons will be producing don't accomplish the mission.

So we're not solving the problem.

Again, to give you another example of the Russians, the way their whole system works, especially

now with the special military operation, they have a team right there in the production

team getting feedback from the front lines about, hey, they've improved their air defense

this way.

We're running to a problem here.

And that team sits down with the, they work out a solution, and then they sit there

in the production line and they tinker the production line as they speak.

So they stop producing the missiles that don't work because the enemy found a solution

to them.

They hold the ones that they produced and get them back in to be modified, and they

begin producing missiles that now can overcome that, the turnaround for the Russians is literally

measured in a matter of weeks.

So they'll find out something within weeks, they'll have a weapon system on the battlefield

that already defeats the tactic that's been emerged.

That's how they do.

We don't work that way.

If you, anybody familiar with Afghanistan and Iraq, we had the counter-mind thing where

we put a lot of money into adapting vehicles, et cetera.

Look at the timelines associated with that and the procurement associated with that

line.

And it's very lengthy.

The Russians, you know, we didn't sit there and come up with the M-Rap in a week.

You know, that didn't happen.

Well, the Russians will come up with a modified esconder in a week, a modified caliber in

a week because they have teams out there right now who are doing the product evaluation,

getting the intelligence feedback, and continuously communicating with the chief designer and the

factory to ensure that the weapon systems that are being procured by the government to be

given to the military to fight this war are the best possible weapon systems.

This isn't how we work.

We're getting ready, you know, if we want to upgrade the patriot, we've got to let a contract

out to the manufacturer who put together a tiger team who will then drag this thing

out to as much money as they can, come up with modifications, they'll have to test them

out because they have legal issues, they have to make sure that they're legally, and by

the time they're ready to put a software update into the system, we're talking a year

and a half later after the problem has been identified.

Could you imagine going to war for a year and a half with the weapon system, it doesn't

work?

And that's what we're getting ready to do.

Everything we're getting ready to procure isn't going to work.

We already know it doesn't work.

So you can build the best patriot pack through you want.

You can build the most advanced fad you want.

They don't work against what the threats that are out there.

So again, the president is behind the power ball on this one.

Yeah, and I couldn't give firsthand experience with that with what I worked in the Future

Combat Systems program while I was still on active duty.

And I saw the absolute absence of any kind of a system to do that.

They already had in their mind what they were going to build and what the in-state was

going to be and actions didn't make any difference.

So even looking at combat experiences of other nations around and eventually like even

the 2020 war and Armenian Azerbaijan, that didn't factor into anything.

We don't have a system for it.

We just have a contract and the contract has to be executed.

We're doing the same thing today by all accounts.

Now I'm not in there now.

I don't know if they changed it, but the evidence is that we haven't, which means we are setting

ourselves up for disaster if we run into somebody like Russia or China who does have that kind

of a system, we'll see where that goes.

One of the things though, Scott, that we're trying to do to try to mitigate some of that,

I think Trump knows whatever he says out loud, then it's going to take a long time to

try to get more ammunition, weapons and everything else out the door.

So now he's trying to say, all right, for this short term or this near term problem we

got with, especially getting the straight of a horror movie, we're going to need some help

and we're going to need it from our allies.

So now he's looking to NATO and trying to control them into joining the Frey.

We're always there for NATO, we're helping them with Ukraine and many insurgents.

And the notion that the Twitter doesn't affect us and we've helped them to be interesting

to see what country would help us when they very small endeavor, which is just keeping

this straight open that my comparison.

So that's all we're asking Scott, something easy, like just keep this straight open.

What do you say to that?

Who among you is ready to commit suicide on my behalf?

That's literally what he's asking.

If it was that easy, we would have done it.

We have the force capacity right there, you don't need to go to NATO and get shipping

that's inferior to ours.

We have the Arleigh Burke class destroyer, we have very good class cruisers.

We have aircraft carriers that can provide air cover.

We should just be able to, this is this easy for Donald Trump to sail in and sweep the

streets, except it's not that easy.

If we tried to do that, we'd lose every single ship we sent in there.

They wouldn't make it to the gauntlet.

And fortunately for the Europeans, they're smart enough to understand them.

And unfortunately for the president, you don't start a war of choice, which is also an

illegal war of aggression.

And then 17 days later, when everything's going bad, start saying, hey, who's here?

Who's going to come and help me?

You didn't talk to them beforehand.

You ignored them.

You littleed them.

And now you need help and you want them to come.

I mean, this is why, you know, I was saying that, but it's the same thing.

Trump's form of diplomacy has failed.

The arrogance of the United States and saying, we're the best, we're the super power.

Nobody's as good as we are.

We don't need you.

And suddenly we find out that we do need them.

And they're not ready to come to our aid.

And now the president has said some other things too, such as, if NATO doesn't come to our

assistance, this might be the end of NATO, which I actually think is probably the direction

we're going here.

So this may very well be the end of the NATO alliance.

So, you know, I thought it would be triggered over Ukraine, but it appears it's going to be

triggered over Iran.

Yeah.

It's a matter of fact, let me tell you that.

Europe is too.

I want to add something to that, on that point there, because what the US, America's

ambassador to NATO, ambassador, Whitaker went out, I think, to double down on President

Trump's statements, but, and I'd like you to listen to it from this perspective.

It sounds to be like, if you're on the receiving end of this and you're on one of our NATO allies,

this is not going to make you want to come to our defense, but it might make you say,

maybe we should be thinking about going our separate ways and see what you're doing.

President Trump has made NATO stronger, has encouraged our NATO allies to do more, to

spend 5% on their defense.

And we need strong, lethal European allies, plus Canada, to address their own conventional

defense and allow them to project power.

I mean, remember, the United States of America right now is the global superpower.

We are the ones that can do these types of efforts, but at the same time, if we had allies

that were equally strong, that could bring real capabilities, like warships, to the fight,

that would make us all stronger and make us be able to defend our people even better.

Yeah, so he's basically saying, I mean, to your point, you said a second ago about

wanting somebody to come and commit suicide.

He's like, hey, we need you guys to come and do this because we're not going to, with

our Navy, so we need you to come over here and you should, because we're the superpower.

I mean, that's almost, it's not circular logic, it's almost like diverging logic, I don't

get it.

How do you see it?

You know, there was a TV series, I don't know if you're familiar with it, maybe some

people in your audience are a game of thrones.

And my daughter's now were addicted to it, so we'd watch it every Sunday.

But there was a scene in there where the young new king was shouting out, you know, I am

the king.

I am the king.

And his father, who was his consultant, said, any man who has to say, I am the king is

not a king.

And I will say that any man has to say the United States is a superpower, means we're not

a superpower.

Teddy Roosevelt said, speaks softly and carry a big stick.

What we see from the Trump administration exclusively from the president on down are

people who are out there just cheerleading for themselves, telling us all about how great

they are.

But for that great itself evident, therefore you don't have to say it.

For that great, we would have cleared the street already and not be turning to, you know,

to our NATO allies who were never tasked with building fleets, capable of selling around

the world to clear straights.

I mean, this isn't their mission statement.

I think your dogs, your dogs, can clear the straight, I think.

Hi, dogs to clear the world.

There's a postman's mail to my daughter who's not a damn thing I can do to shut these

dogs up except shoot them and then I'd get in trouble, plus I love them.

But hopefully they'll stop barking soon.

They're two palm reigning to the two.

Wow.

I mean, I couldn't have picked dogs that barked more.

Oh, well, while you're talking about it, let me play one more sound about here, because

let's take a look at the reaction here, because this is Keir Starmer instead of saying,

oh, yes, sir, Mr. President, we're coming right to your aid.

He said this while taking the necessary action to defend ourselves and our allies, we

will not be drawn into the wider war.

We will keep working towards a swift resolution that brings security and stability

back to the region and stops the Iranian threat to its neighbors.

Now, look, that's classic Keir Starmer saying a bunch of nonsense that has no relevance

to reality, but he does say we are not going to get in this war.

So if he's saying that, and let me just toss Susan up on the screen, Germany says the

same thing.

The Germany's government rejects US President Donald Trump's demand that NATO allies

help secure the straight of horror moves, declaring that the alliance has no place in this

war.

This war has nothing to do with NATO.

It's almost like they listen to you.

It's not NATO's war.

I mean, what more do you have to have from two of your absolute key allies saying that

kind of stuff?

What does that tell you about our influence right now?

America's influence, even in NATO.

Well, even the French come out and said, hey, this is not planned.

I think he was the Latvian, so they might provide a ship, which would be interesting.

But the, I mean, it's curious.

What NATO is saying, or the Germans in the British are saying is, hey, we're busy committing

suicide here in Ukraine.

We don't have time to commit suicide with you in Iran.

You know, they are so heavily committed to the Ukraine narrative that there can be no

diversion.

You know, they're still trying to figure out how they're going to come up with 90 billion

euro to subsidize Ukraine.

They don't have, you know, they've talked about building this massive 800,000 man army,

you know, unified army.

They still can't get a 300,000 rapid deployment force put together.

They have no ability to, you know, put more than 12 to 20,000 troops into Ukraine unsustainable

on a bed best day.

So the Europeans are used to, you know, saying things they can't do.

And so at least they're smart enough to know that they're just overstretched, that they've

got no resources whatsoever, military, economic, or political.

I mean, how do you explain this to your people, although, you know, because the people will

start to say, wait a minute, you're going to go to straight war moves, right?

Yes.

And you're going to open it up.

Yep.

Because it's strangling our economy.

Yep.

Because we gave up on Russian energy because of you.

And now we're a prisoner to Middle Eastern energy and we can't get it, right?

So why don't we get Russian energy again?

That's the problem that the Europeans are already into.

They have to be careful because there's already in Germany, you know, there's a remaining

Nord Stream pipeline that works and all you have to do is put the on switch on and a lot

of Germany's, a lot of Europe's gas problems go away.

The same thing with oil.

You can just turn on the oil pipelines and it's there.

And as Europe starts to stew in the results of its own stupidity, as prices go through

the roof, as they start to have energy, crises, and emergencies, you're going to see the

people saying, hey, I don't care where it comes from.

We just need it right now.

And if you don't give it to us right now, you're done and no politician wants to hear

the, you're done from an enraged citizenry.

So, you know, Europe, there's, there's nothing they can do to open the Strait Ormuz.

They know that.

They don't have the military capacity to do it.

The United States doesn't.

The best way to get the Strait Ormuz open right now is what the Europeans are doing, talking

to the Iranians.

You see, behind the scenes, Europeans are already talking to them to get ships out with

energy that can come to Europe.

Yeah, I've seen both Italy and France, I think we're talking about that Spain is not

real happy about any of this stuff here.

We just see a fracturing of our alliance anyway, but I want to ask, I want to tap into

your, your experience as a Marine Corps officer.

So you have some understanding, especially of littoral combat operations.

What if you could just kind of tell us a little bit about it.

I'm going to ask two questions about this.

First of all, from a position of trying to force open the Strait Ormuz, given it's

very narrow band in there, but also the hundreds of miles of shoreline leading into that

horse you've been, that would all have to become under constraint.

Let's say that everybody that Trump called and weirdly even let's say that China, let's

say China added their ships to.

That's ridiculous.

We'll talk about China separately.

But let's say that everybody else, South Korea, Japan, France, UK, everybody, they say

yes.

And along and we've sent more ships into, can ships alone open the Strait?

No, you might get a ship to run the gauntlet one time.

You know, if you put, you know, 10 ships in a row and you have air power over there blowing

everything up the moves, you know, you might get some of those 10 ships to run the gauntlet.

Is that an open Strait?

That's an act that's that's war.

Who's going to ensure those shipping, the United States?

Not after the first two get sunk and then what happens to the arrange will simply change

their tactics.

So mine, that now we have the minesweepers clear in it again, air power, where's the

air power coming from?

Because the Iranians have shown they can get any airfield we want.

We have to keep our aircraft carriers pulled back because they can't operate.

So sustaining air, there's a difference in people need to understand this.

There's a difference between flying a long range strike mission, which is what most of

our mission and using staff weapons.

So you'll fly to a weapons release point.

You'll release the weapon and then you'll you'll return to your point of origin.

Now you're talking about projecting power over the target.

This means that you're not just flying to a point coming back.

You have to fly and then maintain a combat air patrol over this.

This is what we did in Western Iraq during the during the scut hunt, which I was intimately

involved with during Desert Storm.

You know, we had F-15Es, born holes in the sky.

We had A-10s doing the same thing.

You have to come in.

You have to refuel.

You have to hang out and then every once in a while you go back and refuel and come back

to maintain the constant pressure over over over land because that's what you're going

to need to suppress missile drone launch operations.

But air power alone is going to do it and we prove that.

You need to get boots on the ground.

So you know, we're going to have to if we're going to talk about securing the straits,

we're going to have to come in and take Chabahar or Bondar Abbas, you know, come in secure

port because you need sustainability.

So we have to secure port and then we have to, you know, basically advance up the coast

line.

So it's going to require, you know, 80,000 Marines, you know, we're going to need to,

you know, at least a core of Army three division four divisions there, you know, 24, 60,

80, 100,000 soldiers.

And you know, now we're talking to Major War, but here's the thing.

In 2019, General Burger, then comment on the Marine Corps and his comment on guidance

said he has reviewed the, the directions given to him by the president by the, by the

Secretary of Defense.

He said, we can't do the job they want us to do.

You see, the Iranians have standoff weapons that can strike our ships.

He said, we can't use legacy systems.

Right now we have amphibious ready to just, you know, ready groups to come in like the

USS Tripoli right now carrying 31st mu.

Our eggs in one basket.

What happens if the Tripoli gets hit and it will get hit if it tries to close in on the

short we run.

Well, that's what I wanted to ask you the secondary because you see, this is the 31st

mu right here.

And this isn't a Jerusalem post.

So take that for what it's worth.

It says only this expert, only the mu can conduct this operation.

You just said that, yeah, maybe 80,000 Marines, this is like 2500 actually combat Marines

understand of a no combat divisions, what can this one mu do in this war, whether it's

taken island or anything else.

What is the combat capacity for this one organization to get done in realistically?

Realistically, it's a battalion landing team reinforced in a lot of the reinforcements

comes with logistics for sustainability ashore.

There's an air wing and air component for limited vertical development, some close air

support.

But it's, it's basically a battalion of Marines, which is pretty good.

I mean, I'm a Marine, so I'm like, yeah, it's a battalion battalion can do a lot.

They can't do everything a battalion cannot force the straight impossible to get people

an idea of why I'm saying this in 1975, the, the US merchant ship of Mayigwez was captured

by the Khmer Rouge and the crew was removed from the ship.

We thought that the crew had been moved to an island called Kote Island.

And Kote Island is a little bit smaller than then Carg Island, which is the island people

keep talking about, you know, the, the Marines taking.

We sent second time night Marines in to, to seize the island and to recover the, the

personnel.

It was a vertical development.

They used 11 helicopters in the initial wave.

Three of those helicopters were shot down with significant casualties on the Marines and

the Airmen aboard that of the remaining, so eight helicopters, five were destroyed so

badly that they were taken out of the battle.

They limp back the ships or the shore, some had to be destroyed on the shore.

So we basically lost eight out of 11 helicopters.

Many of the Marines couldn't land because their helicopters have been hit.

They had to return Marines on the ground were in danger of being overrun.

It was not a good situation.

We had to bring in more helicopters and do more assaults.

We lost more helicopters damaged.

The thing that saved the day and the only reason why I know this is it was my father played

a role in this.

He's a maintenance officer and they were out of helicopters and the Marines weren't getting

not that island.

But my dad found a hangar queen in Thailand and identified it and said, hey, let's get

this thing up.

There's some engine problems with it, but they got it up.

It could participate.

It saved 44 Marines lives.

It came in at night, did a hell of an extraction, got them on a ship.

The engine eventually burned out because it was a temporary fix, but the bottom line is

we left under fire.

We, the Marine Corps, left under fire and we left three Marines behind.

We left an N60 gun crew behind alive at the time.

They were eventually captured by the commuersion executed.

Ladies and gentlemen, I just laid out what's going to happen to any Marines that go on

the Carring Island.

It's going to be hell on earth.

They're going to land.

It's heavily defended.

Trump is sitting there bragging about how he blew it the hell and everything.

The RGC said, no, we already wrote out that fight.

We're back.

An hour later, we got our defenses full up and running.

They're underground.

You can't get them.

It's not 5,000 Marines and sailors.

The sailors are on a ship.

They're not going to do anything.

They might have a sealed attachment that joins, but the seals, Marines, it's still

there.

You're only talking about a battalion landing team.

We can't do anything with a battalion landing team that's related to this war.

In World War II, to take islands, we took Marine divisions to do that, multiple divisions

to take islands like Iwo Jima and Taroa and Pelelu and all that.

Here we got a battalion.

A battalion takes a beach.

When you do a traditional amphibious assault, Red Beach won.

We'll be given to one battalion landing team.

Red Beach, too, will be given to a second one.

That's just the way it works.

Here they're trying to pretend that these Marines can go in and take an island.

They can't take an island.

They can't even come close to take an island.

A contested island like this, it will become a graveyard for the 31st Mew.

Gary, was that your show?

Is that something that's just new?

I hadn't seen that yet.

Last night on Air Force 1.

You basically just said, you're obnoxious for even asking me about that part of the Marines.

I asked the actual central question and that's how we're being treated.

I wanted to ask you, related to that, also, one of the other things that's under consideration

is a lot of people are saying, hey, look, man, we've done this before.

The 1987 tanker war.

Before today's war with Iran, there was the tanker war.

In 1987 and 88, during the final years of the Iran Iraq War, the United States launched

Operation Ernis Will, a Navy escort mission to perform oil tankers in the Persian Gulf,

ended up taking out some of the Iran's Navy and it succeeded.

Now, what do you say is that?

Is that a pattern for what can happen today, or is there differences?

A completely different environment.

The tanker war was a conflict between...

Got a technical blitz there.

Hopefully we'll get that.

There we go.

Back up.

The tanker war back then was actually a war, not between the United States and Iran, but

a war between Iraq and Iran, and they were in the business of preventing each one of them

getting their oil out.

So, Iran was attacking, shipping, taking Iraq, Iraq was attacking, shipping, taking Iran

oil.

So, we came in and escorted shipping in during either side to shoot at us, and they wouldn't,

because this wasn't a war between...

The other thing is Iran's capacity back then were very limited.

I mean, 1987, they were already into the seventh year of a horrific war with Iraq, one

that had drained their resources, and they just lacked capacity.

Today, it's the United States that is fighting Iran.

So, right off the bat, that redefines the whole conflict.

The Iran is down, direct conflict with the United States, and the Iranians have developed

and over the course of 20 years now, capacity to shut the straight orders moves down.

They recognize that this is the great vulnerability of the United States and Europe and American

allies, the energy security that keeps the global economy going, can be made insecure

in a heartbeat by shutting the straight orders moves.

So, the Iranians have been developing, they have a brigade, the RF brigade, which is

four battalions of missile launchers specifically designed to shut down the straight.

They don't need ships.

They've got the guys ready on the other side.

That's why I said, the only way you're going to stop them is to put Marines on the ground

and sweep up the coastline, and that's a whole different kind of fight.

In a battalion of Marines, a battalion of Marines won't even seize Chabahar.

You would have to come in with a brigade.

That was the mission of the seventh Marine amphibious brigade back in 1985.

When I planned, helped plan the amphibious assault against Chabahar, because that was

our mission.

So, it was a brigade that would go in, but we had to immediately follow on forces up

with the division to come in and seize the area around it.

So, this battalion is capable as we are.

They're not going to be able to do anything, they're going to have zero impact on this war.

Okay.

Let's broaden the scope out a little bit.

That's the tactical level and the things are going on with actually confiding the war.

Let's take a look now at what China and Russia are saying, how this is being them, because

there's a lot of concern at the beginning that what would China and Russia do?

Would they allow Iran to fall?

Would they get involved militarily?

Would they do something else?

Those are the things we're not sure about.

And actually, before we show this one, I want to show you Ambassador Whitaker's comment

also on television, which to my ears was a little strange regarding China.

A strategic military partner means that Iran and I guess China are trying to kill American

troops.

That's very bad for China.

That is not a good look.

And President Trump and President Xi are going to have to get together and work this

out, because ultimately, we cannot have a world where hostile forces, including Iranian

forces, are trying to do damage and injure and ultimately try to kill American troops.

And so, we need to push back every single day China is benefiting from cheap Iranian oil.

Those days are ending.

Now, I don't know about your ears, but when I heard that, I'm like, you cannot be serious.

You are literally calling out China for supporting Iran that could eventually end up killing American

troops.

And you're the UN ambassador, the NATO ambassador, who's the one who helps coordinate,

organized, helping Ukraine kill Russian troops with American stuff.

How can you have such obvious duplicity and literally not even blink?

I'm throwing stuff at the dogs and shutting them up.

I think it worked.

The Coke can't grenade.

I didn't hit any dogs.

Don't worry, ladies and gentlemen.

Just got their attention.

No dog was armed in the process.

No dog was armed in the process.

No dog was armed in the process.

No dog was armed in the process.

No dog was armed in the process.

Pardon?

I was just saying, no animal was hurt and all the process.

No animal was hurt at all.

I did put some Coke is spilled on the ground, and I'll have to clean it up later in case

my wife's watching.

But look, you hit the nail on the head here.

The United States is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Russians.

Gleefully, I mean, Whitaker brags about this, about the role we play in killing Russians.

He wants to kill more.

Literally, the term we use is killing Russians.

We want to bring harm to Russia.

We want to strategically defeat Russia.

We want to bring Russia to their knees.

But when I come back, we want to kill Russians.

Vladimir Putin met with Donald Trump in Alaska at a time when the United States was killing Russians.

So Whitaker is a stupid dumb and ignorant.

Diplomacy is the art of doing things in very difficult times.

What he wants to do is have diplomacy in a perfect world where only the United States gets to kill other people.

China, if I were the Chinese, in addition to telling Whitaker to shut up,

I would say, well, the moment you stop sending weapons to China,

is the moment we will even begin to listen to you.

Because the only purpose of sending weapons to Taiwan is to kill Chinese if we ever had a conflict.

So, again, the hypocrisy of the United States is unreal.

But here's the real point here.

You know, the Iranians are not trying to kill Americans yet.

Americans are dying.

But if you look at the amount of weaponry that Iran has expended and the nature of the targets,

they're not hitting personnel concentrations.

They're hitting radars.

They're hitting communication, the relay devices.

They're hitting oil, you know, storage.

They're taking down, you know, infrastructure.

That's their priority.

They're not killing people.

They know where the people are.

They're not killing them.

And this has been their way the entire time.

Go back to this strike against Al-Adeed Air Base after the United States assassinated Kasim Soleimani,

the head of the goods force.

The Iranians hit with precision weapons.

They hit everything they aimed at.

Anybody who's looked at the overlay, you know, the targeting the battle damage on there,

they hit everything they're aiming at.

They didn't aim at the bunkers.

They didn't aim where the troops were because the last thing they wanted to do

is kill large number of Americans.

And that's the way it is right now.

There's a reason why our Kasim Numbers are so low.

It's because the Iranians are not trying to kill Americans.

And they're not trying to kill Israelis either.

Take a look at Israeli casually figures and take a look at the amount of damage that's been done there.

So, you know, unlike the United States where I can literally point out

the initial high-mars attacks and some of the attackums attacks that we designated,

we helped, we deliberately use them against training grounds to kill the maximum number of Russian soldiers possible.

We use them against command and control facilities to kill the maximum number of Russians possible.

We were in the maximum kill mode.

And now, Whitaker's going to what?

Lecture the Russians in the Chinese.

The Russians in Chinese will not let Iran fall.

Now, if Iran falls on its own volition, that's another thing.

I mean, the Russians in Chinese cannot be held accountable for any political weakness inside Iran.

That's an Iranian problem.

But so long as the Iranian government stays in power and such,

the Russians in Chinese will ensure that Iran is capable of defending itself.

That's the way that Russia has too much invested in the North-South economic quarter that they've been working out with the Iranians.

China just opened up the New Silk Road rail connectivity between Western China and Iran.

They're not going to give that up. They have this whole plan on how to develop the Eurasian Economic Union

and open up this whole new market that's going to be worth trillions of dollars.

And Iran is critical to that.

So the Russians in Chinese aren't going to punt on this one, ladies and gentlemen.

They're not walking away.

They will do what they need to do to keep Iran in the fight.

But most importantly, they will do what they can do to get this war over with.

The Russians in Chinese are spending far more time looking for a diplomatic solution

than they are trying to figure out how to help Iran kill Americans.

Well, I think that's really important.

And to try to figure out what chances you have of diplomacy,

as it's important is what you say and what you're doing is also the message it's going out publicly

and how public opinion, both the United States and the Middle East and in China,

how they are moving a lot of the stuff,

tells you how much leverage and room from maneuver you have at your country.

This, I'm just one piece here.

This is from the Global Times, the official Chinese Communist Party newspaper

that they put out.

So it's cleared by their government.

So when they put this out, the security of Hormuz depended on the number of warships patrolling it.

Then you can see and hear the little graphic if people can read that.

It shows that Uncle Sam here building a fire and then saying, hopefully,

other countries will help us put out the fire that we started.

And then the article goes on to say,

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi addressed this directly

during phone calls with his counterparts from Kuwait, Bahrain, Pakistan,

and Qatar for the exchanges abused in Iran.

This war should not have happened, he said.

It is a war that does no one any good to your point there about wanting to get it over.

It is a war that he said, noting that without the UN's authorization,

the US and Israel attacked Iran in the process of the ongoing US Iran negotiation,

which clearly violates international law.

In other words, he continued on.

Someone set the fire.

Now they're asking the world to help put it out and split the bill.

Now, what do you make?

Not just in the last comment there and how they obviously view that.

But the fact that he's talking with his counterparts in the Middle East.

And what do you think that might lead to?

Well, first of all, we know that the Chinese are very capable diplomats.

People may have forgotten about it by now.

But it was China that reached out and got the Saudis and the Iranians to sit down

and get, you know, renew diplomatic relations.

Something nobody in the United States thought possible or even saw coming.

You know, our job was to keep the Saudis and the Iranians on opposite sides of the fence

ready to go to war with one another, especially the Saudis.

They could buy more of our weaponry.

And suddenly, China came in and made peace.

And China is in the peacemaking mode.

The Chinese economy is such that their need for Middle East oil makes them a very important voice

to be heard by the Middle Eastern leaders.

So they're not going to be dismissed out of hand by anybody.

And so the Chinese are making the phone calls necessary to create the conditions conducive

for the kind of compromises that will be necessary for this war to end.

You can start parsing out the terms being used by Donald Trump.

And you can begin to see, you know, the outline of an off ramp.

One where we declare victory.

I mean, you hear the president declaring victory every day.

We've won, we destroyed them, we've done this, we've done that.

The key to declaring victory, though, is that once you declare the war has to end.

And in order to get the war to end, you have to have Iran agree to bringing this war to end.

That way the president can say, I ended the war.

And I don't think Russia or China are going to argue with the president taking credit for this

because they don't care about domestic American politics.

What they care about is the larger geopolitical and economic picture,

which has Middle East oil flowing again.

That's their number one concern.

But they also remember the Russians are the ones that have continually said that the war in Ukraine can only end.

It can only be a ceasefire when the root causes of that conflict are addressed,

because Russia doesn't want to have a ceasefire.

And then five years later, be fighting the same war.

When the war in Ukraine ends, that's it.

There will be no more wars. That's the Russian goal.

The Iranian goal is when this war ends, there will be no more war.

And one of the Iranian demands, and we saw that articulated by their foreign ministry just last.

And we seem to be stuck again.

Sure it'll pop out.

Yeah, I think we're back.

Yeah, we saw that just last night.

They said one of the things is the United States has to leave the Middle East,

that the day of having bases everywhere surrounding Iran is over.

And what's interesting is that China is working with the Gulf Arab states right now,

and the Gulf Arab states are starting to say,

we don't know if we want the Americans back, that when this is over.

And the United States may go for that because the bases are destroyed.

It will cost us tens of billions of not more to reconstitute capacity at these bases.

And so I do think we see the potential of that.

And also if the war is over, if Trump declares victory,

then he can do things like say, well, we'll lift sanctions,

which is an Iranian demand to lift economic sanctions.

Reparations probably not going to happen,

but I think the Chinese can get on to back off on that one.

Maybe reparations for murdered school children or something of that nature.

We did a similar thing to the passengers on an airplane.

We shot down previously.

So we might see that.

But I do think we're starting to see the basic pieces of a compromised deal.

But the president, you know, he's going to have to pick the right time.

And he can't announce that until the Russians and Chinese come to him and say,

all right, we got the Iranians on board.

So I think there's a lot of diplomacy going on behind the scenes right now

to get the Iranians to where they need to be.

Israel is a wild car.

What's Israel going to do?

Because even if the United States leaves the Middle East,

if Israel is continually positioned itself to strike.

So there's going to have to be some sort of guarantees from the United States

to keep the attack dog Israel back.

Or the Gulf Arab States, you're going to have to form an anti-Israeli coalition.

So that if Israel goes to war against one, they go against the war against all.

And Israel won't do that.

This will probably unfold in the next week or two.

This war can't go on much longer, Colonel.

The American economy wants gas was $3.11 since last week.

It's $3.75 now.

And I don't know what it's going to be in a week, but I don't think it's going down.

The price oil is going up.

It was $95 this morning.

It's up to $106, maybe even higher this point in time.

You know, the president can't let this thing go on forever.

All this talk about the war can continue until September.

No, it can't.

The war will continue, I think, another couple of weeks.

And then Trump will be working with the Chinese and the Russians to find a way

that he could declare victory and get that diplomatic wrap off ramp.

Yeah.

And I'm all about him.

He can say what it wants as long as we get this war off the table.

In the few minutes we have here, I want to look a little bit at the Russian side,

but even more so than that, I want to look at what may come on the other side of this.

You just mentioned here about that the Chinese side is already talking to the Gulf countries.

And once this is all over and said, a lot of them are going to be going,

should we keep tossing the United States or not?

There was a piece in the Russian media this morning, which I think captures it.

I've heard this from other places.

I've heard this from an American source, too, that a lot of people are seeing

not that would carry this one right here.

A lot of people are seeing the, no, wait a minute, that isn't the right one.

Yeah, it is the right one.

Sorry.

A lot of people are seeing Iraqi in particular, but the Iranians,

it's kind of a David and Goliath thing that they stood up to the United States

when nobody else has in decades.

And they're seeing a new hero has emerged.

This is from Russian media on social networks.

It's not Donald Trump.

Elon Musk or Innamen, this is a Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Iraqi.

From time to time, he appears on American airwaves,

which with quotes and speeches blah, blah.

It went on to basically say, because they haven't been cowed.

They weren't like Venezuela, which, you know, they had one big cat

and everybody surrendered to lay down.

A lot of other countries hadn't even Iran last year,

but now they're standing up.

And if they come out of this with terms anywhere close to what they have set out here

and that the most of the world recognizes that they succeeded

and that we failed in our military objectives,

what is the ramifications going forward?

And especially, and if you can kind of characterize this with bricks,

how does that play into all this?

Well, you know, Iran was invited to join bricks as a full-on member.

They are a full-on member.

But that was under previous president Raeesi and his foreign minister.

Raeesi was very bullish on bricks.

And when his helicopter went down in May of, gosh, what was it, 2024?

You know, the Iranians were struggling.

The new president, Pekishkin, and Iraqi, the foreign minister,

they weren't bullish on bricks.

They're actually very pro-Western.

I mean, the Iranian president has been saying,

we need to have better relations with the West.

And Raeesi was saying, that's the direction we should be going.

We're not too sure about jumping with two feet with this big pivot to the east.

Well, thank you, the United States, Joe Biden and Donald Trump,

because we've taken two people who are ready to be to work with us,

and we've turned them dead set against us.

But you know, Iraq, she's very impressive.

I had the privilege of meeting him in September of last year when he and the Iranian president,

while also met, came to the General Assembly and spoke in New York.

They had a little gathering of, you know, Western journalists who came together

and could ask questions.

And you know, Iraq, she's a very sharp guy.

Very knowledgeable, very patriotic.

But he is his depth of knowledge.

He's a very competent individual.

So this is a man when he speaks.

He's not just saying, you know, politically motivated words.

These are words attached to a deep fundamental understanding.

I'm not just Iran, but how Iran interacts with the region.

If there ever was going to be a man that can help heal the wounds of war,

it's Iraqi.

I'm not worried about the Iranians emerging from this war.

Kaki and Kav, that's not who they are.

They're not looking to dominate the region.

They just want to live in peace and harmony with sanctions lifted

so their economy can function the way it's supposed to.

And Iraq, she's the man to make that happen.

I think, you know, he will emerge as a regional rock star,

as a global rock star.

If he can survive, unfortunately, you know, he's a marked man.

And both the Israelis and the Americans understand just how, you know,

influential this man could be in a post-conflict environment.

And I would not be surprised if we, I mean, I know we're trying to kill him.

But, you know, I just hope for our sake because this is truly one of the smart men

who has a good moral compass.

He needs to survive this war so he can leading Iran out of this.

That would be the best interest of the United States.

But we may kill him.

And then what?

Then we get a more conservative man.

It's like killing Ali Hamane.

You know, now we have his son who is more conservative.

Not as capable.

If you kill Iraq, she is one of the most capable diplomats the Iranians have.

You're not going to get somebody of a similar quality.

You're going to get somebody who has resentment is seeking revenge.

And we'll make the post-conflict period, you know, more problematic.

And I'm sorry, I can't hear what you're saying without thinking of our secretary of war.

I mean, Secretary of State Mark Rubio, who seems a lot more interested in military affairs

than any kind of diplomacy.

So we don't need another one of those on the stage.

Listen, in the last few minutes we have here for you.

I want to put up one other thing.

So forget about diplomacy for the minute we're all that stuff big going.

And even other than the large arc there that there is no clearly evident,

militarily attainable target the US can go.

So we got into a war and now we don't have a military way out of it.

So we have to figure something else out.

Well, if diplomacy doesn't work and if we don't get a situation where we

submit to anything the Iranian side is asking,

there is another possible alternative to have been kicked around here.

Now, I'm going to show you something that a former speaker of the House of the United States

said on Fox News here recently.

And he's going to be referring to something that on the service of it is supposed to be

supposedly a tongue in cheek kind of thing.

But you'll see that with the Newt Gingrich here, he doesn't seem to be joking with this.

And I would like your view on it.

He writes instead of fighting over a 21 mile while bottle neck.

We we cut a new channel through friendly territory.

It doesn't thermal nuclear detonations and you've got a waterway larger

than the Panama Canal deeper than this who isn't safe from Iranian attacks.

Now, you even see that this the, I guess,

a rock or something on the bottom of it said, you know,

this is the originates from a satirical article blah, blah, blah.

And I'm sure Newt Gingrich would say, oh, I was just kidding.

But I'm telling you there are people who were thinking about that very

outcome. What do you think about even the thought of using nuclear weapons if this doesn't go our way?

Well, first of all, people need to understand that this is part of our nuclear posture.

Read it. If, you know, we can use nuclear weapons preemptively, meaning we can use them without weapons of mass destruction trigger or nuclear trigger.

It's not a purely deterrent weapon.

It's designed to be used and can be used preemptively.

And it can be used in a manner where significant numbers of American troops are put in harm's way.

You know, we're not going to sit back and do nothing if 40 to 50,000 American troops are suddenly in danger.

We will do what it takes to save these troops.

And that includes the potential use of nuclear weapons in a preemptive fashion.

And so if this war goes south, we exhaust our missile interceptors on land.

And it's the, remember, the only thing that keeps the carrier battle group viable is the fact that it's surrounded by ages, class ships that have SM3, block 2s, SM6s that can shoot down missiles.

We have a finite number of these. And when we run out of them, the carrier battle group is literally defenseless and we'll have to withdraw.

Our airplanes operating on bases, when we run out of missiles, we got nothing. The Iranians aren't going to run out of missiles.

So if they don't, if they're, if you can't find an off ramp, there could be a situation where significant numbers of American troops are now in harm's way and we can't defend them.

And at that point in time, the United States doctrinally can most definitely use nuclear weapons.

It's something that is, it's just doctrinal. I would also point out though, and you know, Pete Hexeth, even I don't like the man.

He said this once. I mean, maybe he forgot about it, but he said every time when we had exercises where we use nuclear weapons and thought we could have a limited nuclear war, it always bounced back and forth and fenced with a global exchange.

This is a very dangerous situation for the United States to use nuclear weapons.

People need to remember the environment that we're operating here, the last remaining arms control treaty between the United States and Russia, a new start expired on February 4th.

There is no more arms control. In fact, both sides now, especially the United States are increasing the number of deployed nuclear weapons.

We're going in the wrong direction. And there's no, no framework of limitation that we have nuclear and our key right now.

And you throw into that situation where we start using nuclear weapons. It's, it's not going to be what nuclear says.

We use nuclear weapons. We're going to begin a process that doesn't end until everybody in the world's dead from a general thermal nuclear exchange.

So nuclear weapons aren't the answer. And I hope there are people telling this to Donald Trump.

Although we know the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told him, we can't keep the straight or moves open.

And Tulsi Gabbard told him, there will be no regime change. And he's still with the war on the premise that we would change the regime.

It would keep the straight open. But somebody needs the key to remind this president that we can't use nuclear weapons. That is not the answer.

It will only create, you know, basically life ending consequences. We need to get out of this war.

And the Russians and Chinese know that. And they're working to help create an off ramp that will give the president face saving some sort of face saving mechanism.

Well, let's, let's pray to God that that's exactly what happens because it's just unthinkable what would happen if we go down a dark path.

But listen, really appreciate you coming on and talking with us, really value your observations, especially your experience as a Marine and then a diplomat.

So we really appreciate it. Thanks for coming on.

Thank you very much for having me.

And we are going to be sure and like and subscribe. You haven't done that. And also to let everybody know we are on podcast.

If you get your information from podcast, you'd like that. Just go to wherever you get your podcast. It's Spotify, Apple podcast and Apple podcast.

And it helps the other one. Anywhere you're looking for information, we've got it for you there. We're on some stack at Daniel Davis deep dot dot some stack.com, wherever you get your information, we have it.

Be sure and share this with those that you know, because this is one of the few places you are getting the no kidding truth. And now it's exactly we just saw with Scott Ritter.

Thank you very much, folks. And we'll look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Daniel Davis deep down.

Well, I don't try to talk you into buying gold or tell you how to run your stock portfolio, but there is a way you can help us.

Subscribe, hit that like button and share this with somebody you love.

At Verbo, we understand that even the best of plans sometimes need a little support. So we plan for the plot twists.

Every booking is automatically backed by our Verbo care guarantee, giving you confidence from the very start.

Whenever you need help, it's ready. Before you stay through the moments in between and after your trip.

Because a great trip starts with peace of mind and maybe a good playlist, but we've got the peace of mind part covered.