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Iraq and the country slides towards all out sectarian war, president obama says he's prepared to send up to 300 military advisors to work with iraqi forces. with the robust u.s. military presence in the region, he's also prepared to strike if necessary. our correspondents and analysts are standing by with the kind i have coverage that only cnn can bring you. we're going to begin with be senior white house correspondent jim acosta. >> brianna, after getting the u.s. out of iraq, president obama announced today that the u.s. is cautiously getting back in, as you heard him say earlier this aftern...

They are conducting reconnaissance, gathering intelligence. i think we all understand that the key question is 100 military advisers on the ground, does this directly contradict the president's statement, no ground forces in the iraq? they may not be in direct combat. they are not expected to go into direct combat. but they may find themselves in dicey situations. and as we keep saying, if you are part of special forces, you know you have to be prepared for anything. jake? >> i want to go right now to cnn military analyst and retired air force colonel rick francona. colonel, explain the semant...

Would be no combat troops? >> i think they're parsing words here, don. what they're saying, they're not going to put combat troops, call these advisors, trainers not in a combat role. this is a good move. they can be there to control air strikes if that's going to happen. i think this is the first step in maybe some sort of air strikes, some sort of interventi intervention? >> you don't like it? >> i remain unclear there's anything that the united states can do to make this situation of this what is an ethnic civil war any better. what is clear is that we might inflame anti-american sentiments...

If that is to be an option. so this would not be a big surprise. but this is a big announcement. it is essentially u.s. boots on the ground if that's what comes to pass. but the white house keeps emphasizing they would not be in a combat role. so yeah, this is a big deal, this meeting. it's been going on for about a half hour now. you could say, well, if this was not going to substantially change the footing of the u.s. role in iraq at this point, why would the president be coming out at 12:30 and making an announcement? >> sure. >> reporter: however, you look at this meeting that he had with ...

Officials, jake, is just because you send special operations forces into iraq doesn't mean they'll be in a combat role. they are sticking to this insistence that there will not be a combat role for whatever forces go into iraq. so i want to make sure that that point is made. at the same time, why the hesitation? jim sciutto was just talking about this. we've heard a number of reasons over the last week. first, the president said late last week that he wanted to see maliki impose some political reforms in his country to be more inclusive with the sunni and the shia and the kurdish minorities in...