Defense Secretary Austin says U.S. will do ‘everything we can’ to support Israel

John Yang:

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says the Pentagon will give Israel everything it needs to wage war on Hamas, even as it continues its strong support of Ukraine in its war with Russia. Austin visited Israel yesterday and this morning in Brussels before the deal to allow U.S. citizens to leave Gaza. He sat down with Nick Schifrin for an exclusive one on one interview.

Nick Schifrin:

Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for your time. Welcome.

Lloyd Austin:

It's good to see you, Nick.

Nick Schifrin:

We're about 36 hours after Israel called for an evacuation of Gaza City, 1.1 million people. Do you agree overall with Israel's evacuation order at this point?

Lloyd Austin:

Well, I'll — let Israel speak to its decisions. It's not my place to evaluate their approach to anything. What I'm focused on, Nick, is making sure that we provide them the security assistance that they need to protect their sovereign territory and to protect their people. And that's why I was there. I had a good day with Minister of Defense, spent some time with the prime minister.

As you saw, I spoke to Minister Gallant on Saturday of last week.

Nick Schifrin:

Right after the attack.

Lloyd Austin:

Right after it's happened. He expressed a need for air to ground munitions, precision guided weapons, and we're going to continue to do everything we can to provide them the support that they need.

Nick Schifrin:

Yesterday, a senior IDF official was talking to me during our visit, and he dismissed any concerns, humanitarian concerns about the evacuation. He said, look, we're at war. The evacuation is Hamas's problem.

Do you think that the evacuation is Hamas's problem, or does Israel need to consider the humanitarian effects of the evacuation?

Lloyd Austin:

I think any time you construct, you know, plan an operation, you have to account for civilians that are part of that landscape. And we talked about that, and we talked about the need to make sure that, you know, as you conduct your operations, you construct safe zones and corridors so civilians can transit the area and move out of the way of the hostile.

Nick Schifrin:

Did you ask them to create those humanitarians corridors?

Lloyd Austin:

We talked about that, yes.

Nick Schifrin:

Are you asking Israel to delay a ground invasion until those safe corridors can be established?

Lloyd Austin:

We are not asking Israel to delay or to speed up. That's their call, Nick. My focus is to support them, provide them security assistance they need so that they can be effective in the battle space.

Nick Schifrin:

Zooming out. Do you think that Israel can accomplish its stated goals — which are capturing or killing all Hamas leaders, destroying the group's military units, and making it impossible for Hamas to govern Gaza — at a reasonable cost to human life in Gaza?

Lloyd Austin:

Well, I won't assess their goals or speculate as to whether or not they're going to be successful. What I have asked them to do is to be thoughtful about how they select their objectives and, you know, taking into consideration the entire battle space, what's in that battle space, civilians, you name it.

This is a very complex environment, potentially, Nick. This is an urban environment, and this is probably a three-dimensional battle, because, as you know, Hamas has constructed a number of tunnels under the city.

And so if they conduct a campaign into the city, a land campaign, they'll have to account for that. They've done this before. They've learned lessons, and so they really have to think this through, and I think they will.

Nick Schifrin:

Yesterday, standing next to Minister Gallant, you said, this is time for resolve, not revenge. And you reiterated what President Biden said, that it was important to uphold the laws of war. Do you believe so far Israel has upheld the laws of war?

Lloyd Austin:

I haven't been in the battle space, Nick. I can only just see the images that you've seen. And again, this is very complex, and we'll have time to make those assessments going forward, but I would continue to encourage them to be professional, leaders to do the right things and to remain focused on the right things and keep in mind all those things that they were trained to do and conduct our operations in a very responsible manner.

Nick Schifrin:

I spent a lot of time in Gaza, and a lot of Gazans do not support Hamas. Do you believe that they have to pay the price, though, given Hamas launched the attack from that territory?

Lloyd Austin:

As you pointed out, Hamas is not the Palestinian people. These are separate entities. And so, I do not think that the people should pay the price for the actions of this terrorist organization.

Nick Schifrin:

What's your assessment right now of the chances of Lebanese Hezbollah opening up a second front?

Lloyd Austin:

Well, that possibility is always there. We would highly discourage any entity, any country, any organization from doing that. As you saw, Nick, when this happened, we rapidly moved a carrier battle group into the region, and that carrier battle group provides us with a number of options.

So, you heard President Biden say the other day that if anybody ever is thinking about this, you know, we would say, don't.

Nick Schifrin:

Is the U.S. prepared to attack Lebanese Hezbollah if it opens up a second front?

Lloyd Austin:

I won't speculate on what we will or will not do. But again, the important part is we have options. We have the combat capability to deter.

Nick Schifrin:

Does deterrence get more difficult as the fight in Gaza gets more protracted and gets even more bloody?

Lloyd Austin:

It certainly will.

Nick Schifrin:

Israeli government officials have embraced the idea that this is their 9/11. You were in the middle of two wars that the United States has fought since 9/11. And I wonder if you have any lessons learned over the past 20 years from your own experience that might apply to Israel's moment today and going forward.

Lloyd Austin:

One of the things that we learned is that you have to really think through next steps. You have to be very thoughtful about that because they will have long-term implications. Don't operate on reflex activity. Think through what you're going to do, what implications it's going to have for the country, for the region and beyond.

Nick Schifrin:

Mr. Secretary, thank you very much.

John Yang:

Nick also spoke with the Defense Secretary about the war in Ukraine, and we'll have that tomorrow.