Ramadi the capital of iraqs Anbar Province. And lets go to cnns Senior International correspondent arwa damon in baghdad. Is isis being pushed back . Is isis losing ground . Those are two assertions that the white house was making last week to sort of cool down all of the secondguessing thats been taking place here in washington. What can you tell us from the ground there . Reporter first of all, one has to continuously keep in mind the battle lines here are constantly shifting and small chunks of territory do regularly go back and forth. Following the fall of ramadi a week ago, isis did push into other smaller towns located to the east of ramadi. Now, the Iraqi Government has managed to recapture some of them but not only on its own. You had a unit that was comprised of the iraqi army, plus, and was arguably the deciding factor in this, the Popular Mobilization units and that is this Iranianbacked Shia paramilitary force. And it was largely due to them that they were able to accomplish these very Small Victories in the grander scheme of things. They are using the sunni tribes were being told using them to hold ground. But these sunni tribes are very underarmed when it comes to the potential threat they might be facing by isis. The government at this stage has no choice but to use these unconventional fighting forces. As has been made painfully clear at this point the iraqi army does not have its own units directly under its own command that are capable of taking on an entity like isis. Although there are some 3,000 u. S. Military advisers in iraq the resilience of isis is fueling more questions as well as criticism about the current u. S. Strategy to defeat the terror group. Im joined now by democratic congresswoman tulsi gabbard, she served two tours of duty in the middle east. And republican congressman adam kinsing er kinsinger who served as an air force pilot in iraq. Thank you very much congresswoman, congressman, for being here on state of the union this morning. Lets get right to it. President obama said earlier this week that the u. S. Led coalition is not losing this battle against isis. Congressman, ill go to you first. Is he right about that . Clearly, isis has gained momentum in particular over the last week. As weve seen the ground that theyve gained both in iraq and syria. And id like to just break it down to what i see as the basic problem here especially in iraq where were seeing the sunnis continue to be persecuted by this Central Government in baghdad. Their distrust for the Central Government this iranian influence, shia militia has really created a situation where just as a matter of survival they have no place else to turn to protect their families and their communities other than to isis. You have the solution. The Kurdish Peshmerga and sunni tribesmen who are literally begging, i met with a sunni tribal leader last week in washington they are begging for arms heavy weapons, ammunition to be able to fight against isis to protect their families and their tribal lands and their territories but still to this point both the u. S. And the central Iraqi Government is failing to provide that and therefore isis continues to be able to grow. What do you make of that congresswoman, the president s assessment last week that were not losing . Well of course youre not losing and youre not winning because were not really engaged in this fight. At some point were going to have to understand that the goal is the destruction of isis. The president when we began this attack i guess on isis he said you know were going to bomb them were going to hit them but were not going to put troops on the ground. In essence what the president did was say look we need to destroy isis unless that takes boots on the ground in which case the existence of boots on the ground is worse than the existence of isis. I think the president needs to stand in front of the American People and frankly lead on this and say look you know this is a cancer thats growing in the middle east. This isnt just a situation where if the house catches on fire it will burn down and we look at a burned down house. This is now a house on fire in a densely packed neighborhood where this is going to spread to other places. So i think we have to be very aggressive at stopping this cancer now in iraq in syria, in libya where its existing and i think we have to show a big major blow to isis because right now you have a lot of people that are sitting in their basements looking on the internet that want to join isis not because they want to be martyrs but because they want to be part of something big. And until we show that the chance of martyrdom increases greatly by joining isis i think were going to continue to see this problem with foreign fighters. It seems that we have a strategy in place in terms of providing air support to the Iraqi Security forces on the ground or the peshmerga in the kurdish areas in the north but it doesnt seem that that is an effective strategy at this point, that its not working. You can get into semantics as to whether were losing or winning or failing, but that strategy just doesnt seem to work. What do you propose at this point . I would like to point out a couple things. I think there is definitely more we can do in providing the blows in the air strikes, but the Iraqi Government does have a choice, and they have a choice by arming directly the sunni tribesmen as your correspondent just pointed out. They are woefully underequipped. They have the will to fight and they are on the ground begging and saying give us the heavy weapons, the arms and ammunition that we need to be able to fight against isis. Instead the Iraqi Government is relying completely on this Iranianbacked Shia military. The u. S. Government is now saying well were going to expedite more arms more ammunition these antitank weapons to the Iraqi Government when we see that these Iraqi Security forces have cut and run and left their weapons for isis at a few opportunities and these weapons are getting into the hands of the shia militia. I want to point out something that happened in the while we were going through the Armed ServicesCommittee Hearing process for the National Defense authorization act, where i cosponsored an amendment that would authorize the u. S. Government directly arming the kurds and the shias. We had a leader of the this shia militia, Muqtada Al Sadr as we were going through this hearing live he said if this bill is passed we will have no choice but to unfreeze the military wing that deals with the americans so it can start targeting american interests, both in and outside of iraq. So when you look at this, these are the people that the United States is aligning itself with who are essentially saying we are going to come out and attack you if you dont do what we want. And congressman, i want to ask you this, because you heard some fellow republicans this week senator Lindsey Graham john mccain, talk about a proposal to send in roughly 10,000 troops into iraq primarily to do training and provide intelligence that sort of thing, not to go and fight house to house in combat situations. What do you make of that proposal . Does that sound reasonable to you . What do you think . Yeah, its reasonable. Im not sure of the exact number but lets think about where weve been here. And the question is are we winning against isis . 18 months ago i called for bombing isis when they moved into fallujah. At the time we thought it was al qaeda because they had yet to go through their divorce. I was accused of wanting to start iraq 3. But we saw what happened then as it went on. Isis grew and eventually people got engaged and wanted to destroy them. Were seeing this movement continue to grow. And i think at this point we have to understand that every day that goes by where we dont push this cancer back where we allow them to you know put car bombs in alleys we allow them to put i. E. D. S in towns they occupy right now, every day that goes by the cost of liberating iraq or the cost of defeating this cancer is only going to increase. I think we have to do the force thats proportionate and frankly the violence proportionate necessary to push back isis. The president likes to talk about the fact that were not going to send 200,000 troops into iraq. I agree, ive not heard a Single Person ever say we need another 200,000 troops back in iraq. But what i am you think thats a straw man argument, a bogus argument . Absolutely. The president , he likes to put two false choices up and say hes the one in the middle. I think the one in the middle right now is saying what do we need to do to be able to embolden the Iraqi Military where it exists, to arm the peshmerga, i agree with tulsi, arm the pesh americaa arm the sunnis. The problem is the peshmerga cant liberate all of iraq. They have a 600mile border with isis as it exists today. Theyre struggling to maintain their own territory. Its a very complicated battle. It is. What do you make of what congressmankinsinger just said there . Hes okay with 10,000 troops, maybe less, going in there. You know this. Deployment after deployment, and its breaking military families across this country on this memorial day weekend. That may not be the news they necessarily want to hear. More and more lawmakers calling for troops to go back into iraq one more time. How do you prevent Mission Creep from occurring, congresswoman . I think its important for us to really focus on what our mission and goal and objective should be, which is defeating isis. Lets look back to iraq several years ago where we had over 100,000 u. S. Troops there training these Iraqi Security forces. After the United States pulled out you saw how these Iraqi Security forces lasted. They cut and ran and dropped their weapons when they were faced with their first real battle with isis. The issue here is not about how many u. S. Troops can be sent to train these Iraqi Security forces because you cant train into someone the will to fight. They dont have the will to fight. This Iraqi Security force organization you do have people who have the will and the courage to fight, as weve seen time and again with the Kurdish Peshmerga. Now these sunni tribes are asking for the equipment that they need to be able to protect their families and their communities hey, jim. And yet unfortunately we are still not taking care and doing the obvious. We have these boots on the ground there who are ready to fight. And were going to have to wrap it up there jim, can i just well congressman, weve got to go. We appreciate your time. Go ahead and jump in there if youve got something to say. Let me say quickly, the American Military wants to defeat our enemies and i think theyre ready to go theyre ready to be unleashed, which is necessary, and thats what theyre called to do. All right. Very good. And were going to have secretary ash carter coming up in the next segment. And hes going to be talking about in some pretty stark terms that he believes that the iraqi forces dont have the will to fight. Well be talking about that coming up next. Ash carter talking to our Barbara Starr. 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Now, we can give them training. We can give them equipment. We obviously cant give them the will to fight. But if we give them training we give them equipment and give them support and give them some time i hope they will develop the will to fight because only if they fight can isil remain defeated. A lot of people in washington that you deal with on the other side of the aisle are saying, look, putting Ground Troops putting Forward Air Controllers air strikes are not working. What do you foresee . What is your view on this . Air strikes are effective but neither they nor really anything we do can substitute for the iraqi forces will to fight. Theyre the ones who have to beat isil and then keep them beaten. We can participate in the defeat of isil, but we cant make iraq run as a decent place for people to live. We cant sustain the victory. Only the iraqis can do that. And in particular, in this case the sunni tribes to the west. If there comes a time when we need to change the kinds of support were giving to the iraqi forces well make that recommendation. But what happened at ramadi was a failure of the iraqi forces to fight. And so our efforts now are devoted to providing their Ground Forces with the equipment, the training and to try to encourage their will to fight so that our campaign enabling them can be successful both in defeating isil and keeping isil defeated in a sustained way. Making sure i understand you, you are not at Forward Air Controllers on the ground yet. We have not made that recommendation. And Forward Air Controllers for our viewers would mean u. S. Troops on the ground to help pinpoint those air strikes. Joining me now to talk about all of this michelle fluor noy, the undersecretary of defense in president obamas first term and michael lighter, former director of the Counterterrorism Center under both george w. Bush and president obama. And michelle i want to go to you first because you were in the running for defense secretary this last time around when ash carter was tapped for that position and im just curious what you make of when you hear the defense secretary saying the Iraqi Security forces may not have the will to fight. I think when we talk about taking on isis and pushing them back in sun