Overnight Defense: General claims responsibility for Yemen raid | McCain warns on Syria policy | Sessions calls Gitmo a ‘very fine place’

THE TOPLINE: The heads of U.S. Central Command (Centcom) and Africa Command were on the Hill on Thursday.

Centcom commander Gen. Joseph Votel took responsibility for the controversial raid in Yemen that left one Navy SEAL dead and said the military has concluded somewhere between four and 12 civilians were killed in the operation.

“I am responsible for this mission,” Gen. Joseph Votel told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I am the Centcom commander, and I am responsible for what’s done in my region and what’s not done in my region. So I accept responsibly for this.”

Asked by The Hill after the hearing whether President Trump should be taking responsibility for the raid as commander in chief, Votel reiterated his role as Centcom commander.

“I think that might be — that’s — that — this was a military operation, and I’m responsible for military operations in this region, so I’m taking my responsibility,” he said.

Read more here.

VOTEL EXPECTS MORE TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN: Votel also told the committee he anticipates more U.S. forces being sent to Afghanistan to break what he and others say is a stalemate in the more-than-15-year-old war there.

“We are developing a strategy, and we are in discussions with the secretary and the department right nowthe general told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I do believe it will involve additional forces to ensure that we can make the advise-and-assist mission more effective.”

Votel’s comments come about a month after the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, told the committee he has a “shortfall of a few thousand” troops in the mission.

Read more on that here.

MCCAIN WARNS OF ‘TRAIN WRECK’: Votel was also pressed by committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) on tensions between Turkey and the Kurds in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

McCain said he foresees a “train wreck” in Syria if the Trump administration doesn’t better address tensions between Turkey and Syrian Kurds.

“Unless something changes, I foresee a train wreck here, and I’m not sure that the administration recognizes how seriously, particularly, [Turkish] President [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan views the threat that the Kurds pose,” McCain said.

U.S. forces in Manbij in northern Syria have recently started acting as a buffer between Turkish and Kurdish forces.

Read the rest here.

SESSIONS CALLS GITMO A ‘VERY FINE PLACE’: Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the Guantanamo Bay detention facility a “very fine place” Thursday, adding that he sees no legal reason not to send potential newly captured terrorism suspects there.

“I’ve been there a number of times as a senator, and it’s just a very fine place for holding these kind of dangerous criminals,” Session said in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “We’ve spent a lot of money fixing it up. And I’m inclined to the view that it remains a perfectly acceptable place.”

The comments are Sessions’s first on Guantanamo since becoming attorney general, though he expressed support for keeping it open during his confirmation hearing and as a senator.

President Trump has promised to keep the detention center open and fill it up with “bad dudes.”

Read more from Sessions here.

DEM DECRIES HALT IN VISA INTERVIEWS: The U.S. embassy in Kabul has stopped interviewing people applying for visas under a program intended to help interpreters who assisted U.S. troops who now face threats to their lives, a Democratic senator said Thursday.

“Allowing this program to lapse sends the message to our allies in Afghanistan that the United States has abandoned them,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) said in a statement. “It’s both a moral and practical imperative that Congress right this wrong immediately.”

Shaheen’s statement confirms a report from the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), which earlier Thursday said interviews were halted to “due to a shortage in available visas.”

Read the rest here.

ON TAP FOR TOMORROW:

A House Armed Services subcommittee will hold a hearing on the effects of sequestration and continuing resolutions on the Marine Corps at 9 a.m. at the Rayburn House Office Building, room 2118. http://bit.ly/2m4gpWA

ICYMI:

— The Hill: Pentagon hires former lobbyist for Peter Thiel’s company

— The Hill: Senate panel schedules open hearing on Marines’ nude-photo scandal

— The Hill: Senate panel advances Trump’s intelligence director pick

— The Hill: Dems seek to force House vote on Trump campaign’s Russia ties

— Associated Press: Deported U.S. vets in Mexico hope for return under Trump

— Associated Press: Kremlin denies violating nuclear arms pact with US

— Business Insider: The Marine Corps’ nude-photo-sharing scandal is even worse than first realized

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