defense secretary ashton carter blunt criticism pulled back a scab festering all year. despite millions of in u.s. training and weapons. i m joined by chris hill former u.s. ambassador to iraq dean of school of international relations in denver. thank you for being with us ambassador. let s talk about this. seven to one advantage, they collapsed basically, and retreat leaving behind their tanks, other heavy artillery equipment for isis to take over. now we have the vice president calling iraq s prime minister to smooth it over after the defense secretary said iraq s army wasn t getting it done.
from the shiite religious authorities to come out to take up arms and fight. the army wasn t willing initially to fight for the prime minister. but it seems many people in this country at least many.shias are willing to fight for their religious leaders. richard was taking baghdad, is taking baghdad, are there scenarios where we could see militants actually do that? you re saying we re seeing maybe a shift a bit today. but they made a lot of ground this past week. they made a lot of ground, but they made a lot of ground through relatively friendly territory. this country is divided up effectively into three pieces, a kurdish area in the north where i am right now, there is a sunni area in the west where all the fight has taken place, then there is a shia south. they have been advancing. the militants, the sunni extremists through sunni terrain and haven t met much resistance. baghdad s a different story. there are other communities
you want to join an organization where you see people who look like you and you feel welcome. we offer that to people. the need increased since 9/11. they have played a larger, more prominent role serving in iraq and afghanistan. give us a sense of how that change has happened over the last decade or so. well, as you know, when we entered iraq, we needed more skill sets than we had ready at that point and time. the army wasn t prepared to go to war. in order to cover down on all the responsibilities, they tapped into the army reserve and army national guard. it s been able to provide a lot of success for the country as we move forward in those conflicts. as we head into independence day weekend, what would you like americans to think about beyond barbecues and hitting the beach, what are the more important things to remember?
in that horrible scene in that parade, there was infiltration in that army that led to thatassassination. they just gunned him down at the reviewing stand. that shocked people like me because i realized even the army wasn t secure. is there a clear clin yags now between the muslim brotherhood between the opposition here and the army. are they clearly at odds of each other or is there infiltration that might side with a revolution tomorrow or the next day or next week? chris, the lower you go down the conscription poll, the more likely you re going to find the brotherhood. they ve been co-opted. they understand the threat the islamic extremists pose to their future, as well as the future of egyptian society. the people who came up come up through the ranks are the ones who could be least trusted if they re, shall we say,
what about those on our soil? are we keeping a close enough eye on them? if we use as kind of a game and look at major hasan, the accused killer down at fort hood who was in a psychiatric unit and yet no one in the unit which says something maybe about the level of professionals we had thought that this guy might have a screw loose and that he might be capable of violence, those kinds of things are going to happen. i think what we have to do is look to our law enforcement and intelligence agencies to try to interdict and predict terrorist incidents being hatched abroad and address them before they get here. you raised the hasan case down in fort hood. are the agencies communicating better because the army wasn t