I think people were waiting for this to happen. just no one really knew how to or prepared for it at all. now that it happened, the maliki government disenfranchised the sunni population. i just think this is a byproduct that. isis saw an opportunity. they took it. they moved quick. they were decisive. much like the u.s. military moved in in 2003. we were decisive, we had a goal, and we accomplished that goal. i think they ve got their eyes on the prize. they know what they want. and the population in the north and west support them. the white house says it wants an inclusive government in iraq. are there any now or have therer been any coalition governments in the middle east? is this an impossible goal? the issue is not that in iraq there haven t been sunni ministers. there have been plenty of sunni ministers. when i was there, there was a sunni defense minister. the problem has been the sunnis never really accepted the idea that the shia should be in charge. that s the key posit
Lubricated with money. let me ask you, if you can t call these militias partners, can you assign a word to describe them? well, they are participants in the conflict. they re participants who make the conflict even more sharply a sectarian conflict and that s not what we want. okay. sergeant, i just spoke with robert young pelten and he is very confident that the u.s. in their sarurgical strikes will essentially eradicate isis. do you concur with that? this is a force of maybe 2,000, depending on where you get your numbers from. i think if that s the mission of the soldiers and airmen that get deployed there, they ll accomplish that mission. what s more unclear is what s going to happen next. once we accomplish the mission, similar to what happened over the last eight to ten years.
Global mail newspaper criticized the president not so much for being cautious, they think caution is a wise thing, but they criticized him for not having a plan, for not having a policy going forward that says this is precisely what we re going to do. the president has said he doesn t want to have mission creep. he doesn t want it to become something bigger than it is. there s not a clearly defined mission going forward as to how we deal with isis and how we deal with iraq. i m curious, admiral, your assessment or your opinion of the critics that are out there of the obama administration right now. what do you want to say to them? well, i have felt, at times, that the president has been a bit slow to respond. for example, i felt, as i came on your show, i think a year and a half ago, and said that we should have been with small arms, giving some time of armament to the more moderate rebels that are in syria. so that isis, which eventually grew there, was able to take gain a base
Using saudi, qatari, u.s., other sources, was far too violent for al qaeda and has now found a home in iraq. a big concern about isis is the involvement of foreign fighters. those that we ve seen on this video and beyond, their potential to strike here in the u.s. are they too busy with iraq and syria to plan something like al qaeda had in the 1990s? yeah, this is kind a myth, the idea that, oh, look, there s foreign fighter. the bulk of the forces is made up of the local people. we take the 40 to 200 foreigners that have left this country or britain to go fight over there and say, oh, they re going to come back and be terrorists. they re typically used as suicide fodder because they have no military skills. this is asymmetrical projection of force. they re trying to say look how big we are. the reality is, this is a very small force that will be wiped out by u.s. forces and other
Site by u.s. special forces. secondly, the u.s. troops trained the iraqi commandos and special forces. they ll act as a force multiplier. they ll strengthen the resolve. when you go into combat with indigenous troops, you see our troops essentially strengthen and provide command and control and actually morale. the ability to go in and continue to fight. you ll see a lot of very violent actions against isis, which will lead to their probably, total destruction. when you say these violent actions, does that include americans on the ground, or specifically just from the air, the kind of air strikes we ve talked about doing, the drones, the gathering of intelligence and how long will it take to get rid of isis? that s a good question. the ultimate strategy is to put so much violence on these small groups of people that they can t function anymore. you saw this in 2001. you ve probably seen it in videos. where large groups are tracked for very long periods of times.
So that s kind of the name of the game. obviously, the rallying the shia militia, this is not good news for us. this is a really further development in this sectarian war. i think it s important to understand that to be sure, maliki s been a big part of the problem, but the sunnis have never really accepted shia rule. they ve never accepted it for centuries. i think it s going to be hard for them to accept any shia leader. so that is a really is a tall order. we have a sectarian conflict. moreover, as you ve seen with isis collecting money from various banks in northwestern iraq, this money is used not so much for what we are concerned about, that is terrorist assaults eventually on the united states or something, but it s used to make sure the various sunni sheikhs in anbar and elsewhere are well lube bra da
And the courage to approach john boehner. this tenacious 10-year-old and her mission that s a family affair. and new gadgets that could revolutionize the way we walk and talk. good day to all of you. welcome to weekends with alex witt. the isis terror group has taken control of two now towns in iraq in the past 24 hours. the mayor of a town about 175 miles northwest of baghdad says it has fallen into the hands of the sunni militants. iraqi security officials say isis seized another town near the syrian border. at the same time, thousands of heavily armed shiite militia men are marching through the street of baghdad today, this being a show of force against isis, following a call from clerics to defend holy sites. isis released a new propaganda
Statement that this isis force who the number i like about 11,000, are so far extended from syria to baghdad that they are basically at the end of their rope. they might besiege baghdad but i don t think they ll go beyond it. right now, they re facing up to the special forces of the iraqi government. they re facing up to the real hard-core american-trained troops that maliki kept around the capital. i think they re at the end of their rope. the problem is going to be rolling them out because they re embedded within the cities and having the intelligence that only our drones, only our satellites can provide, to say, here s where you want to pinpoint your artillery or pinpoint our drones. i think that s what you need to roll them back. some of the architects from the iraq war from the george w. bush administration have emerged, including cheney, blaming prmblame ing president obama for the current crisis in iraq. here s what rand paul is saying. what s going on now, i don t blame on
An estimated 20,000 shiite members of the newly formed peace brigades marched. they came heavily armed. some wore the iconic black masks and uniforms of the fighters american troops battled in the same neighborhoods just a few years ago. joining me, christopher hill, and matt pelak who served in the u.s. army in iraq and worked there also as a contractor for blackwater. one reporter at that parade today spotted people holding together the flags of isis, israel and the united states and lighting them all on fire. these are effectively our new partners. can we work with them? they re not our new partners. what we re trying to do is get a government in baghdad that is a government that has the support of the sunni community. and we know that that government cannot be led by maliki. so we need to work with the iraqis and find a prime minister candidate not named maliki who is acceptable to the sunnis.
Join us. that is the message from the young english-speaking jihadist. the fighters identify themselves as british and australian and say they are soon going to iraq to fight. terrorism experts warn members of isis from western countries pose perhaps the greatest threat to the u.s. homeland. joining me now is a journalist who has spent an extensive amount of time in iraq, author of the classic series the world s most dangerous places. among several other books. i m glad to speak with you. know you ve met militant groups from around the world. what s your assessment of isis and its capabilities? well, i think isis is very good at projecting an asymmetrical threat. numerically, there are not that many. about 2,000, to 3,000, depending on which sources you read. they re essentially being welcomed in by tribes in the anbar region, the same sunni people we paid off to create you remember the surge and the awakening.