mosul. they said they heard gunshots near their home and had enough. others were just on foot. what's happening to iraq? it's splitting apart into three warring pieces. in the west, the militants are taking over and being joined by those nostalgic for saddam hussein. in the south, the u.s.-supported shiite government under prime minister maliki, who has excluded sunnis from power, is struggling to survive. and in the north, the kurds, who have longed for independence for a century, are now taking it. today, kurdish troops seized kirkuk, home of one of the biggest oil fields in the world. this volatile patchwork nation the u.s. invaded and then stitched back together with the sweat and lives of thousands of american troops is rapidly coming undone. >> richard engel, nbc's chief foreign correspondent filed that dispatch today from northern iraq. richard now joins us live. richard, thanks for being with us. give us a sense of what you are