10/12/2015 Newsnight

It's been a week since British airstrikes in Syria began.

Tonight we'll look at the fight against IS in the air

and on the ground and we'll find out how the Americans are targeting IS's

To date, they have had access to major revenues that have allowed

But if we can start taking a real chunk out of Isil's revenues,

The Defence Secretary will give us his assessment.

Also tonight: The decision on Heathrow's third runway -

delayed, conveniently, until after next year's

What does the chair of the Government's Infrastructure

And how climate change in Mongolia has created a tragic war

between sheep herders and snow leopards.

It's far too early to make any proper assessment

as to the effectiveness of British airstrikes in Syria.

It is predicted to be a campaign of a long duration.

We've been told to expect years, not months.

The first British targets were oilfields in eastern Syria,

making the point that economic targets are in sight.

All part of the effort to undermine the resources going to so-called

Today, in fact, news came that the coalition struck and killed

We'll hear more about the economic front shortly.

But how is the military effort progressing?

Michael Fallon is the Defence Secretary.

He's in Washington and he joins us from there now.

Thank you for giving us the time. What effect have British strikes had

so far? We have seen a very impressive start, the aria have

moved seamlessly into dealing with Syria and they were already

operating in Iraq, we have doubled the strikeforce, we have raised the

tempo of missions, more than doubled them. And we have already had some

successful strikes, as you say, on the infrastructure that supports

Isil, from which it drives its revenue and from which it has been

financing terrorist attacks in Europe to stop there is a long way

to go before we deal with the monster that is Isil-Daesh at its

source. A lot was made of the Brimstone missiles, at any of those

bemused? We have been using our precision strike ability, and these

munitions are a key part of that because they are able to minimise

munitions are a key part of that any civilian casualties and deal

specifically with targets like oil wells, one building but not those

next door and it is that decision strike that our allies want us to

bring to this campaign. How we used it so far in Syria? Yes, we have

been using these missions in Syria alongside the campaign network. Pave

way is equally as precise as the brimstone missiles and hitting these

oil well head decisively. What busy constraint? What stops us doing

more? The resources we have there or is it targets on the ground that you

are confident you can take out and are not civilian, without civilian

casualty? That are sufficient targets to deal with, there is also

a cover each night in support of the ground forces, dynamic targeting

where planes are above the ground forces, ready to give help. But

where the RAF has, and specifically has been to add that precision

strike and we will see more of that in the next days and weeks on

logistics and command control headquarters and only supply routes

that run from Syria eastwards into Iraq itself. I want to ask whether

we have people on the ground helping identify targets because Newsnight

understands that in Afghanistan, brimstone missiles, three quarters

were directed by people on the ground who were able to ten point

two target and if you do not have a very clear idea about what the

target is, there is no point in having a precise missile that hit a

target that might not be the right thing. Have we got people on the

ground guiding us? Not our own people but there are Kurdish forces

fighting in north-east Syria against Isil-Daesh and we are providing a

lot of the overhead surveillance, the intelligence and analysis in the

skies above that helps more precise targeting. Those people on the

ground, they are directing our missiles? Just to be clear? Yes,

wordy Kurdish forces need help in taking out targets, those targets

are cleared through our targeting processes and agreed and we will

come down and had them for them. The key question, only one week in, is

whether we can sustain the effort we are making there. What is your view

of the sustainability of this? It is only 16 jets out there, six Typhoons

and ten tornadoes, people are saying that is using up quite a lot of this

lack we would have had in the RAF? The RAF are fully engaged in this,

they have been able to sustain the campaign and Iraq over more than one

year, flying six days a week, flying pairs of tornadoes in the sky,

helping this campaign effort. We have doubled the strikeforce so we

should be able to sustain us for some time. We have one of the

largest strike forces in the region and we plan to be there for a while.

What happens in the event that something happens elsewhere in the

world that requires fast jets, typhoons and tornadoes, to assist?

Perhaps something in the Baltic states? Do we have any spare

capacity at all to be in any other theatre rather than the one in Syria

and Iraq? Absolutely, we have more Typhoons and tornadoes guarding the

skies over Britain against any impression by long-range Russian

aircraft and aircraft in the Falklands deterring any possible

Argentinian reprise of their original invasion and we have other

aircraft that we can send, we're sending them back to the Baltics in

the spring to be part of the policing mission so these are not

the only aircraft. We have doubled the force inside Cyprus. Fully

equipped, Battle ready, the diamond fleet aircraft, how many spare are

sitting around? You cannot take them out of the squadrons looking over

the UK and put them in the Baltics? You will not take them out of the

Falklands and put them in another theatre. What have you got it is

another theatre that comes up in the next two years? The answer is

enough. So after Syria that we were able to double the strikeforce after

the vote, we have other aircraft in reserve and we want to keep some

aircraft in reserve, as you say. There are other threats to this

country that might emerge and we may have other commitments but there are

enough aircraft and we are able at the moment to make a meaningful

contribution to this campaign over Syria just as we have been doing

previously in Iraq. One last point, as the Defence Secretary, do you

ever reflect on the fact that we say that we spend more on defence than

France and France comes out ahead in different measures but the official

line is really the biggest spender in Europe, yet the French can put 12

jets, not as many as us, plus an aircraft carrier and 24 planes on

that. For the smaller budget they seem to get a lot more bang. Is that

fair? I do not think so, we are doing far more around the world, we

have troops and planes and ships on 20 operations around the globe

tonight, far more than the French and the building two aircraft

carriers to add to the Royal Navy and we're adding more frigates and

destroyers and the point of the strategic defence review we have

just completed his Regal have stronger and better defence, more

planes and ships and troops at readiness, better equipment for the

special forces. We are stepping up, as France and the Americans have

asked us to do, as the UN has asked us. We are stepping up in this fight

and I will be reviewing the progress of this campaign with the American

Defence Secretary and the Pentagon tomorrow. Thank you very much

indeed. One argument in currency last week,

was that more important than the military action would be

an assault on Isis and its finances - the oil trade, the donors sending

money in, the banking connections As it happens, the man

who is in charge of the economic war Adam Szubin is an acting

undersecretary at the US Department of the Treasury, responsible

for terrorism and financial We'll hear from him shortly

but first, Mark Urban The campaign against Islamic State

takes many forms, but it is the most violent that usually

grab the attention. This evening the Americans announced

that they killed Abu Saleh, who they described as Islamic

State's financial minister. We recently conducted strikes

against three leaders in Isil's Their removal will degrade Isil's

ability to command and control troops and it disrupts the ability

to finance their efforts. But a recent series of attacks

on the people running the groups moneymaking activities is just

the visible part of an often covert Unfortunately, finance is global, it

crosses borders without difficulty and I think the questions we have to

ask is what are we doing in Europe? How are we letting up in Europe to

tackle terrorist financing? And the Middle East? It does not matter what

the US does, frankly, this is a global issue and it needs to be

tackled at a global level. Where does IIS get its money? Oil and gas

sales provided 55% of revenues in this estimate last year. Foreign

sympathisers gave just 2%. Other businesses, taxes and extortion made

up the rest would even since this estimate was made, the group has

expanded its photo state activities and grown new revenue streams. You

might call it broadly extortion and by that I mean a combination of

confiscations, I'd write confiscations of course, and

taxation. The taxation, for example, takes a variety of forms, like

school registration fees, parking fines, driving licence fees,

violations of public space regulations and so on and so forth.

With oil contributing $40 million every month to IS covers, both

Russia and the American led coalition have been hitting the

trucks and other facilities used in that business. But Russia blames

tricky for facilitating the trade while Western countries highlight

President Assad's role in buying the oil so it is hardly a joined up

approach. There is a double game going on here and I am sure there

was lots of politics behind it. We have started to seek middlemen

individuals broke Ringo 's oil transactions, there was a recent

example of an individual standing between IS and the resident Assad

regime and we're starting to go after those middlemen but it feels

like there could be more that could be done. The further they have gone

in realising their dream of a caliphate, the greater the half

increased their need for money. Running everything from water works

to traffic police and schools, they have had to take over salaries as

the Syrian and Iraqi governments have cut them off. That means the

group large amounts of cash and could be feeling the pinch. Without

God, I think they cannot devote necessarily so much to military

upkeep. They have had to come up with new ways to find education

schemes soapmaking students in Mosul pay most of the bees for printing of

textbooks, for instance. There was always the danger with steps of

unintended consequences, for example while workers or civil servants

thrown onto the mercy of Islamic State and, indeed, its payroll by

actions taken by the Cornish. Nevertheless, despite the very

different perspectives about, for example, who benefits from the

medical world trade, among the partners engaged in action against

the group, there is some evidence that attempts to hit it financially

are bearing evidence. -- dividends. Birds and Western allies have also

made some games on the battlefield yesterday. We capturing this time.

Here, Islamic State looted all of the property and enslaved the woman.

A reminder not only of the brutality of the organisation but also its

ability to take desperate measures against local people if it really

feels the financial squeeze. So now, the acting undersecretary

at the US Department of the Treasury responsible for terrorism

and financial intelligence, The man leading US government

efforts to cut off Isis' funds, and indeed throttle the money

of other terror groups and of nations which are deemed

to pose a security threat. I spoke to him earlier and asked him

how much money IS really has Isis, unfortunately, or Isil, is

sitting on a tremendous amount of money. We need to be very candid

about the threat we face as we try to cut off its access to revenue,

but the primary two sources of funding have been oil sales and

taxation, or you might call it extortion, of funds from the

population in the territory they control. What sort of scale are we

talking about? Hundreds of millions a year? Billions? I have no idea. We

are talking at least hundreds of millions and it could be the many

hundreds of millions. It is difficult, we don't have perfect

intelligence when it comes to their revenue streams. As they rolled

through, in terms of their initial military campaign, and took over

cities like Mosul, they were standing banks which had cash in the

vaults and Isil obtained control of those bank vaults. That is the bad

news. The good news is that once that money is spent, it is not

renewable. The Iraqi government has moved to sever the access of all of

those bank branches from Baghdad, so therefore the international

financial system. Let's talk about oil. Who on earth is buying oil from

Isil? First, Isil is a consuming itself of the oil it pulls out of

the ground and also has a population that requires electricity in Iraq

and Syria. Interestingly, maybe surprisingly for your viewers, the

President Assad regime in Syria is a primary customer of the Isil oil,

not withstanding that they are in military complex. Each has something

the other one once, money on one side, oil on the other and they have

done a bit of trade. What about the other oil that is being sold? How

difficult is it to stop that trade? Our focus is actually one phase

earlier, not necessarily stopping the transactions, but stopping Isil

from bringing the oil to market in the first place. What we have seen

over the last series of weeks has been stepped up and very smartly

crafted as a campaign by the coalition to conduct military

strikes against Isil's oil infrastructure and the oil tankers

that they rely on to bring it to market. You are saying that most of

the Isil money comes from internal sources? Oil, banks, taxation? But

there are donors. There is money given to them from outside and a lot

of attention has focused on Saudi Arabian donors. Are you satisfied

that the governments in the region are doing enough, and let's focus on

Saudi Arabia, to stop their citizens donating to Isil? I tell you, we do

not actually see major financial donations coming into Isil. I think

the phenomenon we witnessed in the cases of other terror groups, and I

would think of Al-Qaeda, Hamas, where you have deep pocket wealthy

donors, sometimes in the Gulf states, providing money, and

sometimes you have charities that are either abused or intentionally

set up to funnel funds to terror groups, we have not seen Isil using

those channels in any significant way. Now, in part, they would have a

very hard time raising funds in a place like Saudi Arabia. The Saudi

Arabian government has come a tremendous distance in terms of

setting up a meaningful anti-money-laundering and counter

finance regime. They deserve credit for that. -- counterterrorism

finance regime. You have to remember that the population in Saudi Arabia

sees Isil as a threat, which is true of many of the governments in the

region. Isil is carrying out attacks that are killing Muslims. They are

killing Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims. This is not a group that is

tremendously popular in many corners. How much do you think the

economics matters? How much can it achieve compared to air strikes? It

will have to be both, no question. Remember what I saw's needs are and

its expenditures are. -- Isil's. They are trying to gather territory

while fighting a multi-front war against the US, the coalition,

Russia and various other entities in the east, including the Iraqi army.

That is not a cheap, inexpensive endeavour. So their financial needs

massive. To date, they have access to major revenues that allowed them

to sustain this, but it would we can start taking real chunk out of their

revenue we will see the revenue -- repercussions of that. What has

caused a bit of tension between the US and Europe have been enormous

penalties, hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars in the

case of the French banks, over activities by those banks which were

said to be breaking American law because of transactions between the

European bank and Iran. Do you think the US has been extraterritorial,

overzealous in the way it has punished European banks or some of

these transgressions? This was not a stray transaction here and there

which happen to find its way into a US bank without the knowledge and

intent of the European banks. What we are talking about are intentional

patterns, and often a programme designed to be able to access US

banks to route money to and from parties like Iran and Sudan that

were prohibited under US sanctions. And the intent was manifested in

things like scrubbing payment transactions and even setting up

computer transactions to find the word Iran and delete it and replace

it with something more innocuous. Add Szubin, thank you. -- Adam

Szubin. saga of bullying and other

unpleasantness among young Conservative activists,

and in particular the activities of Mark Clarke, the ambitious

organiser who has become something The scandal has gathered pace

since the death of young activist Elliott Johnson, who claimed

he was bullied by Clarke. But should the party have done more

to stop Clarke earlier? James Clayton has new evidence

of how long the party has known it The scandal over alleged bullying,

blackmail and sexual harassment in the youth wing of the Conservative

Party reads like a cut-price version of house of cards. At its heart lies

one key question, how much did the party know about the alleged

bullying before a stream of complaints were received in August

of this year, and what did they do about it? Were you given a dossier

about bullying in 2010? Arty children -- Chairman Feldman has

said he was unaware of any bullying allegations against Mr Clark until

Elliot Johnson and a slew of others submitted complaints in August. Last

month, the party said this in response to a Newsnight report. A

spokesman told us, we have been checking and rechecking that we have

not found any evidence of complaints made not dealt with, but we are

determined to get to the bottom of has happened. But now Newsnight has

learned that a number of complaints were made about bullying by Clarke

as far back as 2008, and intriguingly, one of these was even

submitted by a man who is now one of the party's most senior

spokespeople, its deputy director of communications. Newsnight has

obtained an e-mail to Richard Jackson, and he used to be a Young

Conservative activist. The e-mail complains of bullying and abusive

behaviour at a hustings of a conservative Future election.

Conservative Future being the youth wing of the Conservative Party. It

goes on to warn... It is understood Mr Jackson passed

on the complaint as well as one of his own to Roger Pratt, the then

head of discipline at CCHQ. We also have learned that a file was kept on

Clarke before 2009 containing multiple complaints. At least one of

those complaints was of a serious nature. It is the latest in a line

of disclosures about how much the Conservative Party knew about

Clarke. Here is a quick reminder. The young activist Elliot Johnson

took his own life in September. He left a note saying he had been

bullied by Mark Clarke. In August, complaints were sent to CCHQ about

Clarke including a memo from party worker which described him as

dangerous to young activists and that Clarke was sociopathic. In

2014, a young activist sent an e-mail to a party worker called

Chris Scott who said that Clarke had tried to damage my reputation and

remove meat from politics. And we have been told that back in 2010, a

dossier was handed to CCHQ warning of a culture of bullying. A

candidate's report was also compiled in the same year when Clarke lost

the bid to win the seat of tooting in London. One witness described his

extreme excessive behaviour, verging on violence. We now know of another

complaint in 2008 to the deputy director of communications.

A NACRO temporary spokesman told us tonight that the 2008 allegations

have been dealt with properly and confirmed that Mr Jackson made a

complaint. They say the party maintained it could not find any

evidence of complaint against Mr Clark, only they could not find

complaints about his behaviour on his road trip, which vast young

activist around the country in the 2015 election. The emergence of the

2008 complaint raises one inconvenient question. If even one

of his most senior media operatives had complained about Mr Clarke, how

did Lord Feldman remain so blissfully ignorant of the problem

for so long? It was at 7.06pm that

the long-awaited announcement on the future of airport capacity

in the south of England came. Well, it's probably Zac Goldsmith,

Tory candidate for London mayor. He'd said he'd resign as MP

for his seat near Heathrow So Heathrow didn't get

a third runway for now. A decision on a runway will,

we are told, definitely come next year, and it will definitely be one

of Heathrow or Gatwick. They didn't mention the London

mayoral election, but it The indecision could be seen

as a set-back for a process that was meant to take the politics

out of these decisions. We had a three-year-long

investigation by the Airports With me now, the man who is chairing

the new National Infrastructure Commission, which is meant

to advise government Lord Adonis, thanks to coming in.

Your reaction to the delay? We are getting there on a firm decision

about air Corps capacity in the south of England -- airport

capacity. The big thing was that the analysis of Howard Davies was

accepted for the need of a new run rate at Gatwick or Heathrow. It made

it clear it would be one of those two airports, so no question of

Stansted, the estuary or other options. There are further issues to

look at with pollution, which Howard Davies said needed more analysis and

there will be a firm decision next summer. It's important to understand

that Howard Davies said we needed the runway which is vitally

important for the economy, needed by 2030. If a decision is made him --

made by then, we could see one at Heathrow or Gatwick. It was said it

would be wrong to rush the decision. RB Rice sing the decision? -- are we

rushing? It is not over rushed, but there has been 25 years of debate on

this. I was transport minister in the last government and we did not

rush to take the decision either. You would Transport Secretary and it

was your policy, which was to build a runway at Heathrow -- you were.

The politicians have not done brilliantly at this. We took the

decision at the end of the government and we had ten years and

we could have moved on. But we are getting there. On your point about

the independent commission process, we would not be where we are today

without the work of Howard Davies and his colleagues, and it looks

like we are set for a decision. There are other two viable options,

next year, it will be Heathrow or Gatwick. I admire your optimism, but

this was the first test for the commission structure. The commission

look at it and advised and the government can have six months to

think about it and then they come to a decision, yes or no, and we have

indecision. Are you denying politics is driving the delay on this? I

couldn't possibly comment on why next May is a bridge to overcome.

They have taken a year over six months, and in the context of 25

years, it doesn't matter a great deal. Provided a decision is taken.

Because as Howard Davies said, we need the run by by 2030. -- the

runway. It is Yes, Minister, we have had an enquiry and the result is to

have an enquiry. If it was like that, there would be no commitment.

It isn't like that. The decision has taken some time, but the government

did say today that it accepts the case for a new runway in the

south-east of England which is a controversial proposition and it

says it must be Heathrow or Gatwick and now it needs to decide. Can I be

clear, if there is not a clear decision next summer, then the

commission process, the process by which you have a commission and then

politicians decide, that process will have failed and he would not

want to be running the National Infrastructure Commission?

It would not be a great advert for this process but what the government

has done today is a perfectly sensible step forward, to narrow

down, as Howard Davies did, the options for Heathrow and Gatwick and

look further. Sorry, but had anybody thought we were looking at any other

options? The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said we should still be

looking at the estuary. A good part of the work was looking at a

completely new airport in the estuary or expanding Stansted and

you recommended against those and by narrowing the options to Heathrow

and Gatwick... I really thought we really had narrowed it down to

Heathrow or Gatwick. I can assure you, it would have been perfectly

possible to take no decision. You did back Heathrow as Transport

Secretary. Do you support Heathrow? Howard Davies came up with that and

that was her personal view, so you support Heathrow? Let us be clear,

as chairman of the commission, we're not playing any role in this because

Howard Davies has done the review. But I think his report is

persuasive, in terms of the massive gains to the economy we will have

from a new runway, over ?100 million in terms of economic output and

hundreds of thousands of jobs and Heathrow is our most important port

in the country in terms of the value of the trade that comes through so

this is deadly serious for the future of the country and I do

support it but equally, what Howard said was it different recommendation

to Heathrow to the one I put forward. Much tougher conditions

insurance of pollution, in terms of noise control and entrance of public

transport access and the proposal he put forward is one that can command

much wider consent than the one we put forward but he says there is a

plausible case for Gatwick and that debate will rumble on for a few more

months. Not years. Flood defences, I think when the commission was

launched, flood defences were mentioned in the list of things in

the bag and whilst in Cumbria the Prime Minister said when you have a

flood but ask, are we spending enough? Is that high on the entry?

People say we are short of what we should be spending, we should be

spending a quantum more? As we have seen over the last week, we have to

look intensively at improving flood defences and it has only been going

for a few weeks so I will not be able to offer instant relief in

Cumbria and places dreadfully affected. But it is in our remit and

something we will be looking at because it is urgent for the

country. Thank you very much indeed. Tomorrow is deadline day

for the delegates from more than 100 nations trying to hammer out a deal

on tackling climate change Negotiations are expected to run

through the night as they strive to agree a plan which is palatable

for countries both rich and poor. But we don't need to wait

for the outcome to know that one particular place is already

being affected by climate change. Mongolia's temperature has already

risen by two degrees celsius, and scientists in the landlocked

country are warning it could heat up by another four degrees by 2080

unless urgent action is taken. The country is scarred

by desertification, and it's having a devastating impact on both nomadic

herders and the country's wildlife. And sadly, the number of snow

leopards is in rapid decline as their natural habitat

is encroached upon more and more. Film makers William Davies

and Hereward Holland joined a World Wildlife Fund expedition

in the Altai-Sayan mountain range in the west of the country,

to see what can be done to protect and conserve this iconic

and elusive animal. That film was made by William Davis

and Hereford Holland. That's it for tonight,

Kirsty will be here tomorrow.