i was there 10 years ago. at that point, it was the sunni people who were in charge, dealing with the shiite uprising and now more of a shiite government dealing with sunni uprising in the north. i get very confused by this. i don t know the administration s thinking from adam here, but what i do know is this. many have said that the administration is not that comfortable with the iraqi government, with its control on things, to have forged these kinds of agreements up until now, what has become a disaster. does that mean we re comfortable now because there s no other option? reporter: that may be where this is headed but we just don t know at this point. the press briefing will get started in a few moments. the outgoing white house secretary, jay carney, he is going to be in for a grilling. as you notice here, the president did not say where this is headed and he s getting a lot
reporter: it absolutely is, ashleigh. we understand a few moments ago, the president made a few brief remarks on the crisis in iraq. he was meeting with the prime minister of australia here for a visit. according to the pool reporters in the room, apparently the president said he s watching the situation in iraq with concern, that he is not ruling anything out when it comes to ramping up assistance and he said, it s clear that iraq needs more u.s. help. what does all of that mean? as you know, we ve been talking about this almost 24 hours now. it does appear the iraqis are now open to some kind of u.s. military air strikes help them contain this crisis, when it comes to dealing with those isis military tan forces wreaking havoc across the northern part of that country and took the largest city of mosul yesterday as you know, ashleigh. all along signals we ve been getting from administration officials is this white house is not ready to pull the trigger on
and drone strikes and air strikes and we have said no. why? reporter: that s right. one thing they ve also been requesting is military equipment and hardware. i can tell you just last week, the iraqi government accepted a whole batch of f-16s that will be delivered to baghdad in a couple months. looking at what s happening on the outstanding grou ground right now, they can t wait a couple months. to the president s been on this footing to get the u.s. out of the middle east military on a variety of fronts he doesn t want to do air strikes unless he absolutely has to in iraq. what you heard the president say there was an indication of a lot of movement when it comes to that anti-depressioption, when might be short term immediate things that need to be done military, he s not ruling anything out, but he went on to say he needs help from the iraqi government when it comes to dealing with its internal political strife.
again any kind of resources to try to fix the problem? the iraqis are asking the americans help out, drones, air strikes, et cetera. the president is addressing these issues and we will come back after the break and watch live comments. back right after this. that amount might last.y ys i was trying to, like, pull it a little further. [ woman ] got me to 70 years old. i m going to have to rethink this thing. it s hard to imagine how much we ll need for a retirement that could last 30 years or more. so maybe we need to approach things differently, if we want to be ready for a longer retirement.
security team. there is a great deal of urgency now, ashleigh, as we re about to hear from the president on the unfolding situation in iraq. we have about 30 seconds before we get access to that. quickly, make no mistake, not ruling anything out is definitely not saying and maybe more boots on the ground, maybe the whole drawdown would be reversed. make no mistake, that s not what s being said? reporter: that s correct. i don t think there s any scenario where the u.s. would put ground troops in iraq. i think that is a bridge too far. the idea of air strikes is definitely gaining traction on capitol hill. we heard from carl levin, senate democrat, saying within the last hour, some of these things need to be looked at. keep in mind, ashleigh, there is a great deal of caution on the part of this white house. this is a president who campa n campaigned getting the country out of iraq. let s listen in. to stop the insurgency in