Gallego: ‘We Will Stand with Israel. We will help them in this fight against terrorism. We will be there every step of the way.’
WASHINGTON, DC – Last night, Rep. Ruben Gallego (AZ-03), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations, joined MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss his commitment to stand with Israel and how his personal experience with urban combat informs the type of intelligence and specialized support he’s pushing for Congress to provide.
Watch the full interview and see the transcript below.
Lawrence O’Donnell
Congressman Gallego, what can you tell us about your conversation with the Israeli ambassador?
Rep. Ruben Gallego
Well, I can tell you a couple things. Number one, I communicated just the deep sorrow that I feel, my family feels, and all Americans feel for the atrocity that was committed upon Israeli citizens and citizens from all around the world. What Hamas did is a war crime. It is barbaric, and it's something that cannot ever be forgotten.
Number two, I wanted to communicate a determination, a determination that we will stand with Israel. We will help them in this fight against terrorism, and that we will be there every step of the way, like we have for the last, you know, decades that we've been together.
And then also, I communicated to them, you know, my personal feelings about, you know, what I feel for some of these young soldiers. Going into Gaza is very difficult. These young soldiers aren't that much different from my age when I was doing urban combat in western Iraq. I know that what they're going to do is very difficult, but it is difficult because they're going to abide by the rule of law. They're going to abide by the rule of war I should say, take their time in making sure they try to limit the much of civilian harm as possible, unlike what Hamas did when they were, you know, killing, raping and, you know, destroying children and lives.
And lastly, I told him that he could count on me and the American public, as well as Congress, to be there in support, to make sure that we get whatever supplies, whatever ammunition, whatever support they need from us to make sure they can continue this fight against Hamas.
O’Donnell
Is the kind of urban warfare that we might see in Gaza the most difficult or the worst kind of combat engagement for combat trained troops?
Gallego
It is. Look, you're dealing with an environment that's 360 degrees of threats - above you, below you, behind you. And you're also dealing with a very cowardly group of terrorists that will use civilians - and unfortunately, I saw this in Iraq too - where they used civilians as shields, where they will have civilians in the same building as they hide their weaponry, as they hide themselves and will actually shoot sometimes behind children, behind women in order for them to either, you know, kill, you know, their Israeli soldiers or harm them to get away. That is, unfortunately, the nature of urban warfare. And if you do urban warfare by the rule of war, where you try to limit the amount of civilian casualties, it unfortunately is slow and unfortunately is deadly. And it will cost Israel a lot of men and women. This is why it's important that we arm them with the intelligence, with the weaponry they need, the sophisticated weaponry that they need to minimize both deaths to Israeli soldiers, but also even to Palestinian civilians that are going to be caught in the crossfire.
O’Donnell
In your own experience in combat and on the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations, what about what's happening there now is somehow… is improvable at this stage with better intelligence? We saw a massive intelligence failure before this happened.
Gallego
Well, without going into particular details and process and equipment or platforms, gathering intelligence is very important, but also being able to analyze it. There’s...there's going to be an approach to basically trying to figure out where these cells exist, where are the command and control headquarters for Hamas, trying to use different types of signal intelligence, any human intelligence, to figure out where the hostages are, and from there trying to basically put and execute operation plans together and then integrating all types of, you know, fire and weaponry to do this.
So, what they may not have seen before, which is entirely possible, they will now be able to see more so now, because while you're in active combat, both sides have to communicate, and the side that actually has the capability to listen in on someone else is going to be the side that's going to have the upper hand.
O’Donnell
Congressman Ruben Gallego, combat veteran and the top Democrat on the House Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations. Thank you very much for your invaluable insights tonight.