Should the u. S. That is harder in terms of 2011 . A special line this morning for iraq war veterans. You and keep up with us on your social media pages, twitter, facebook, or email us. To very good monday morning you. This debate was playing out on the sunday shows yesterday. Among those participating, the former u. S. Ambassador to iraq, james jeffrey, who was on face the nation yesterday. [video clip] that is why general austin recommended that they stay on. We would have had a better equipped iraqi army with better eyes on the problem and be would have been able to do certain commentaries. Most importantly it was psychological. We would have had a stake, cared more what malik he was doing, and had more leverage to change it. Right, this is an iraqi issue, but it would have been better if we could have had had troops. Hehe mentioned host reed,ned senator jack from rhode island. He is a Senior Member of the Senate Armed Services committee. Heres what he had to say yesterday. [video clip] it was president george w. Bush and Prime Minister malik he who agreed that all forces would leave a rack. Say that president obama could have negotiated around that, but once president bush and president malik he declared all forces would be out, it was difficult, although the president tried to have a forining force their training, equipping, along the lines of what we are proposing in afghanistan, but once the decision was made in 2008, our troops were leaving in 2011. Has it contributed to the situation here . Not been our presence or lack of presence, but the i. Litics of malik h the collapse of mozilla was not a result of a lack of equipment or personnel, it was leadership collapse. In order to put the situation right we had to begin at the core, leadership in baghdad. Iraqi leadership working together in a unified way to defend and protect their country. For more on the Current Situation in baghdad and what is happening around the country in iraq right now, we want to turn to a Bloomberg News pentagon correspondent joining us by phone. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host we want to start with baghdad. To beingf terms like thrown around. What is happening in that city . Caller the reports are very fragmented. There is not a lot of major News Organization coverage because major News Organizations dont have a major presence there at the moment. It is confusing but it will add to the notion that the Iraqi Government is not waiting for focusupport and we should on aiding the kurds. Clearly malik he is holding on and that will strengthen the resists of u. S. Citizens and we strengthen the resistance of u. S. Lawmakers. You say he is waiting out the legal deadline to form a new government. Can you explain what is happening there and what the legal status is . Caller it is very unclear. Parliament was meeting this weekend. Decision laid the out in the recent elections. This timetable was endorsed by millions of iraqis. You get the sense that this is a final thumb your nose at the sunni population, the United States a defiant guy who has been a good ally of ours for number of years, but these may be his final throes of resistance, his final way of not going quietly into the night. It has military and political implications. Host cappaccio anthony cappaccio, where are the strikes, what are they talk targeting now . Caller the strikes of petered out. We have not had announcements and yesterday morning. It looks like seven or eight different strikes. They put out these announcements, but you have to listen to them carefully. They put out a series of different strikes in the northern area. Is mys pretty interesting sources are telling me that 90 to 100 planes are circling sorties,th various tankers, navy, and air force aircraft looking for targets of opportunity. Releases so far have been talking about hitting individual target. Mortar positions, artillery trucks, telling you that the United States is a pretty good teacher of what is on the ground. Of it is such that they can pick out individual fleeing or stationary targets almost at will. We have air supremacy over there. No air defense threat, but people need to realize we are not providing close air support. The u. S. Is taking out individual targets that the year the refugeesning in the mountains. Ofestament to the investment lands dollars and tactics over the years, but also to the 50 or so intelligence flights that have been going on for the last month and a half, where we are getting a pretty good picture of the ground. Earlier you mentioned the Kurdish Forces bringing gains. Have gainedy control of two towns in a rack that the militants had previously captured your cowhat does this strike mean for the kurdish fighters there . Caller this is the first time has gotten isil its nose bloody, more or less. The best way to get to these groups is to shake their confidence. It is hard to tell from sitting in washington about this, but i think in the next day or two we will get more information about areas wherein the the u. S. Has been striking. Imply that does this the United States or a rack can dislodge them from the gains they have made in the last month and a half. Those will be painful and long. But technical victories on the ground, targets here and there, bloodying their nose at letting the free ride of going through, bordering and hitting with artillery, it may be over at the moment. Yesterday we saw lawmakers and former diplomat talking your pastng troops in iraq 2011. Just lawmakers and diplomats, or are you seeing that at the pentagon . This isat caller history. Bush laid this out. Obama and that the government from 2011 could not agree. Going into iraq in the first place doesnt feel like it is part of the debate. Blaming the Current White House rather than the Bush Administration for going in in the first place. The armory that we left had spent 25 billion in building up the military. Another 400,000 or so local police and national police. A huge force against 10,000, albeit a powerful force. You have to wonder what we got for the investment. Should we have stayed or not . , thanknthony cappaccio you for joining us this morning. Caller thank you. Host should the u. S. Troops have stated a rack past 2011 . John mccain tweeted over the weekend the real story of to as failure foreignpolicy story. He wrote that along with lindsey graham. Nowhere was the failure more pronounced than over the debate of whether to maintain a limited number of troops in a rack past 2011 troops in iraq past 2011. Host thats the story that he linked to yesterday. We want to get your thoughts on this debate. Keith this morning, a democrat calling in from the skiing, michigan. Muskegon, michigan. Caller mainly what we are doing over there is a bush cleanup. Maintainjust trying to what was done by the last administration. Trying to maintain what we started. Like your comment, from the bush years. The warring factions over there, the different tribes and everything is basically what prevented us from being able to keep troops in there. Malachi maliki made sure we could not stay in their. Russia plays a big part in this because of syria. Allow prudent to have control over their, saying we wanted better relations with russia obama tried to allow putin to have better control over their, saying he wanted better relations with russia. Obama allowed him to step up with the syrian situation, but who tune is basically a stake in the grass. Boudin putin is basically a snake in the grass. , at the sameates time if russia is doing so much over there that is just basically disrupting the entire region. The situation in syria, something that Hillary Clinton recently touched on. Heres the story from todays financial times. We are asking you to weigh in on whether u. S. Troops should remain a rack. That should have remained in a rock should have it remained rackrock remained in he remained in iraq. This on our Facebook Page from youwant to hear this morning. Like we said, a special wireless morning for veterans of the war in iraq, 2025853883. Dan, good morning. My overall view of obama in the last year, he should have done this like a month ago, ok . In general the immigrant thing i live in atlanta. They poured a bunch of them in here. 300,000 to get them to speak english. Stay on iraq for me. Do you think the situation could have been avoided if troops had stayed on the ground . Caller i do, but like the person in front of me said, you would have had to keep up egg force on the ground forevermore. Joe is calling from woodbridge, virginia, republican line. Oddly enough, as a republican, i agreed with joe biden way back when, when we had in troops 150,000 troops in the country troops in the country, it would have been a more stable place. As far as the troops staying, i think we should have left at troops in the country. I do not agree with your guest. Obama campaigned on ending that war. It was ever an option for the Obama Administration. I believe we should have boots on the ground right now. Isis is a disgusting and inhumane terrorist group. If we dont fight them over there, one day we will be fighting them in the streets of the United States of america. Host on the issue of partitioning, we will be talking about that in our next segment. We will be speaking with retired colonel ben connable of the Rand Corporation. We will be talking to him about that subject and what is going the ground. John, arlington, virginia, good morning. Lets face it, when president bush made the agreement for everyone to get out by 2011, it was going to be hard for obama to say well, maybe not. Obama would not give up on the Legal Authority over there. We were not going to accept it and that was the end of that. Second, the kurds are not 100 angels on this. The kurds grabbed cure cook kirkookcure cook , which is a time bomb. I wanted to get onto mrs. Clinton. The president said that part of the problem in libya was that we did not followup. The fact is that when you try to overthrow a government, like we did in iraq and like Hillary Clinton supported in syria, you dont know the consequent. That was proven in libya and iraq and i dont see why would not have happened in syria. It is a tough situation. No one is an angel over there. If you are going to do it right you have to put three quarters of one million soldiers over there. Jodi on twitter says host we especially want to hear from a rack war veterans. We have a special line for that. We will go to the line for democrats now. Tom, good morning. Caller thank you for cspan, thank you for the opportunity to talk. From the perspective of a former republican, i used to be a moderate reaganite, but there is no such thing as a moderate republican anymore, so i am a democrat now. I voted for mr. Obama because he said he would get us out of iraq. ,t is not the president s fault pulling the troops out, when president bush that arty set up the timeline. If we were going to let that , we could not force our will. Is i do think it we need to stop trying to be an empire in the world and just bring our troops home. Thank you for letting me make my point. Congressman alan grayson echoed some of the comments that you just run up. As we said, senator john mccain is one of the leaders in this discussion. He was on state of the union close to guest today. Heres what he had to say on this subject. [video clip] obviously when the president proudly announced that the last combat troop was out of a rack, it was not a matter of whether we will win, it was a matter of whether and when he would be leaving the power with the conflict winding down, all of which turned out to be false. There is a vacuum of leadership throughout the middle east. The fact is that there is no leadership and that decisions have consequences. Our failure to leave a residual force and the announcement that we are leaving the area in a vacuum of leadership, especially in that art of the world, we are paying a price for it. Host senator john mccain, yesterday, member of the Senate Armed Services committee. We have that line for former iraqi veterans, tim is, when in on it this morning. Tim is calling in on it this morning. Kept troops in iraq past 2011 question mark caller i wanted to 2011 . Isler my comment essentially all about this whole smart power thing. When Hillary Clinton came in, yes, there was going to be a new dawn you were new dawn. There was going to be this smart power, which is an oxymoron. Lets go down the list. Libya, that was good. Syria, that was good. We are still waiting on north korea. When you think about the stabilizing effect of american foreignpolicy and the lack of understanding at the state department, it is appalling. You ask some of these folks if this is containment or isolationism. Selective engagement . Some piece of a detente strategy . Some part of a cold market theory . What is smart power . Like Everything Else the answer is it is complicated and i guess you will have to get an advanced degree to understand it. The reality is that in less than seven years america has less prestige and their position in the world has slipped and it is time for a lot of folks to really think about this. This is not some bone some Bumper Sticker slogan. Before they start putting people back on the ground, they need to use the calculus that is available. Value of the object . What is the amount of prestige we are willing to actually sacrifice . Maybe figure out the value of in object and then maybe terms of the magnitude and the political effects of the strategy you can look at these things because quite frankly it seems to be easy to pontificate in congress, but the reality is we have a lot of people and it is obvious there is a critical misunderstanding of geopolitics. This in our next segment morning we will be talking about some of the strategy here. Want to show the front page of the New York Times today, showing an american jet landing on the flight deck of the carrier of the george h. W. Bush in the persian gulf, where some of these operations are being flown from. Also today in the washington , a piece by the president of the kurdistan region of iraq, looking for an expansion of the airstrike in the kurdistan region. Is essential that we receive support from the United States and other friends immediately. Every day they wait rings destruction and horror host bob is waiting, florida, good morning. Caller we never should have left. We should have cap the troops. We should have taken over the country. The oil tax should still be given to the American People. The arabsld war ii were all on the german side. They lost the war. Do we still not have all of those oil funds . I believe that our country should take over. And make a democratic government. All the funds of any war that we take part in will be paid for by those countries. Thank you. Host that was bob, in florida. Fred, independent line, good morning. Caller good morning, washington journal. Cspan. As a retired colonel, i trained Army Soldiers and air force airman. Let me tell you something, this is why we are the greatest military in the world, our people love their country. It is in their sole. You cannot train train people in iraq and afghanistan to have a heart and a love of country and honor. You cant train those things. Thats why these people took off their weapons and ran off. We could stay over there for 20 years training those people, but if they dont have those characteristics and, they will never stand up and fight for their country. We are wasting our time going back and forth on training and advisers. Those are euphemisms for babysitting. Do we have to go over there and babysit the people we spend so much money to train . Aboutpeople talking leaving soldiers or they dont want to fight for their country, they shouldnt have a country. Thank you. Host a veteran on the subject of veterans from the war in iraq. Washingtonom todays times. The government is paying three times as much in disability ,ayments as it did back then with more troops severely injured than in previous conflicts host one other story in the paper on veterans issues, from the washington post. D. C. Memorial for gay veterans is being planned, planned for construction at the Congressional Cemetery in washington, it will consist of three granite panels host there is a picture of that memorial, a rendering of the memorial that covers that story. It notes more if you want to read on that story, that is the federal page of todays washington post. Your thoughts on this debate, the debate the played out on the sunday shows yesterday, should u. S. Troops have stayed in a rack . Stayed in i rock stayed in iraq . Dan, turn down your tv and go ahead with your comment. Yes, i dont think the troops should have stayed in a save norio malik e, who would not give them protection. About john mccain and lindsey graham, one thing should be understood. John mccain ran for president in 2000. The people rejected him. He ran again in 2008. The American People rejected him. He needs to quit trying to be president. He keeps running around trying to be president , hes not president , hes a senator. Thank you. Host from our twitter page go to michael, waiting in morris though, pennsylvania, on the line for republicans. Good morning. Of course we should have left a residual force. The little girl from tennessee, your guest from bloomberg, they are still trying to blame george bush. For years obama has bragged about trying to bring the troops home. Now obama is blaming george bush for bringing the troops home . You cant have it both ways. Who brought the troops home . Obama, or george bush . David, from jonesboro, republican line. David, good morning. I think that we should have obviously left the troops in iraq. Understand it,te actually, when they indicated that they would be going home. Trying very hard to make us believe that things that we had seen and heard her family. I dont understand why he is so hellbent on doing that. Its obvious that they could around 13,000 troops. Thats what the military wanted. The question is why is it that obama did not want