ground combat forces to iraq or syria. it is not the authorization of another ground war like afghanistan or iraq. the 2600 american troops in iraq today, largely serve on bases. and yes, they face the risks that come with service in any dangerous environment. but they do not have a combat mission. they are focused on training iraqi forces including kurdish forces. as i've said before i'm convinced that the united states should not deg dragged back into -- get dragged to another ground war in the middle east. that is not in our national security interest and it is not necessary for us to defeat isil. local forcesond ground who know their countries best are best positioned to take the ground fight to isil and that is what they are doing. at the same time this resolution strikes the necessary balance by giving us the flexibility we need for unforeseen circumstances. for example, if we had actionable intelligence about a gathering of isil leaders, and our partners didn't have the capacity to get them i would be prepared to or

for instance, iran-iraq war. not really a shimmer of an uprising against the iraqi state during the iran-iraq war. hundreds of thousands of shiite serving in the front lines. likewise basra. by and large, they believe in the iraqi state, even though they've had a pretty shocking deal from it, particularly over the last decade. p.m. maliki, he recognized, even though he did it for his own political benefit, that he needed to cut the legs out from underneath them, before they took basra. the iraqis understand -- senior leaders understand they need to do something about the pmu's and the sawa. they need to partially demobilize them. they need governs to say we don't need a national guard division, brigade, for this particular province. we're secure. a way of reducing the threat of militia takeover in key provinces like basra. it's under ministry of defense. it's under the prime minister's office operational control. all these things are built into the national guard law. and they need to be. it's the struggle will b

any new problem in iraq very clearly is a new iraq. that's where i have some real challenges with the president's belief that he has any authority under the 2002. but leaving that aside, they're both obsolete. al qaeda as we knew it is no longer al qaeda as we knew it. would i get your agreement that as we defined it in 2001, it's really a different organization. is that fair to say? and anything we do in iraq and syria and other areas in which derivative organizations, including isil or daesh is in fact, at least fundamentally different or expanded and fits a slightly different definition. so we all agree on that part, i think. so, let me ask the broader question. aren't we dealing with two ideological groups, both of whom are a threat to regional security, to democracy, and to the west to a certain extent? one of them, daesh, is a radicalized derivative of what we once knew as al qaeda. the other, the shia activists, whether it's hezbollah, tehran directly or various groups at any level, are ultimately a group that looks at the 12th

state of iraq and the levant. they belong to one of the biggest tribes in the country. iraq's defense minister is a member of the tribe. all of those come from a single village east of tikrit in an area where isil is involved in fierce fighting with government forces. we'll hear from a our correspondent there in just a moment. but first we'll go to syria where isil forces are under attack from kurdish forces. zana hoda reports. >> reporter: syria's kurds have been war at war with the islamic state of iraq and the levant for months. isil fighters were defeat in ka banny. they have recaptured some territory, but lost several villages. it's not an easy fight. aircraft have been helping the kurds by targeting isil positions from the air. it's a province in northeastern syria, where isil controls pockets of territory. it's strategic for isil and the fight against the armed group. it borders territory controlled by the group across the border in northwestern iraq. and there is an important supply line that isil uses to

>> look at iraq. look at iraq. getting rid of saddam at the end of the day was not that hard. replacing saddam with somebody who could actually run the place very very hard. >> rose: but we also were misled by a bunch of bad people, too. some of the people we supported who felt they were-- >> sure, sure. but, you know, there was a reason why saddam ran the place the way he did. there's a reason he ran it with an iron fist. >> rose: the story was, was saddam the way he was because of the way iraq was or was iraq the way it was because of the way he is. >> probably a little of both. qadavi kept islamic extremists under control. so no, we don't have a very good track record. >> rose: back to isis. >> two very fundamental problems in the middle east. isil and iran. both of them are significantly detrimental to u.s. national security interests both of them. and yet there's this weird relationship between the two of them. where the iranians are actually helping us with isil. >> rose: the interesting thing, too is that in public opinion polls, whatever they mean, if anything more and

-led coalition in iraq and syria. the evaporation of the ambivalence was a gruesome murder of a lion, or a representative of the jordanian air force, and that touched people. the ambivalence is about what i.s.i.s. did to that particular individual. it's not necessarily a change in the level of ambilicence to u.s. -- ambivalence to u.s. policy or a change in concerns that some have with society, or jordan's alignment with u.s. policy, what we see among the elite commentary coming out of imam, the capital, is not reflective of what we see amongst some of the world tribes in the south. >> jordan is always portrayed as being on the knife edge. engaged in a permanent balancing act, vouched by bigger and sometimes maligned forces on all its borders. well, saddam hussein is dead and gone. hava el-assad is dead and gone, and his son has his hands full with a collapsing syria. what is the balance p balancing act now? >> if you look at the king's father the challenges he had was state-based. you had the problem of a hostile reg

skoort cooperation in iraq." philip smythe is a researcher at the university of maryland and author of the blog which focuses on shiite islamist militarism in the reg jor. "the shiite jihad in syria and its regional effects." commenting on the presentations we're really lucky to have p.j. dermer, retired army colonel who served multiple tours in the region, including two in iraq. and served as senior military adviser for reconciliation to iraqi forces in baghdad in 2008. before we start, just a quick reminder, please put your mobile phones on vibrate. we are live on c-span today, apparently. so we'll start with mike knights. >> thank you very much for coming today. it's great to see such a full room. and my colleagues on the panel with me, it's a real honor to be alongside them. so i'm going to talk today about some of the themes coming out of our new study. "the long haul: rebooting u.s. security corporation with iraq." and i want to go through the study in detail. what i'm going to do maybe is to try and pick o

iraq, with u.s. help appears to gear up to retake iraq's second largest city, mosul, which fell to i.s.i.l. last june. iraqi kurdish peshmerga forces magged to curb i.s.i.l. fighters back, while iraqi government force, with the help of local militia regained the initiative in the south. the gains have been achieved in coordination with u.s.-led air strikes and u.s. military advisors on the ground. so far president obama insists no boots on the ground. but there's one flaw in the president's strategy, and that is iraq itself. last year iraqi troops threw down their weapons and fled the i.s.i.l. onslaught. while that is not happening now, iraq's government is facing a financial crisis, and one of the biggest oil producers in the world, iraq a broke because of tanking oil prices. imran khan is in baghdad. >> so the prime minister had a very tough time passing his budget. it was finally passed on january the 29th, but it was a hard-fought political battle for him. what that has done is it's raised a ques

so we basically stopped the expansion in iraq, but within the sunni areas of iraq and the sunni areas of syria, isis has consolidated its position over the last six months. what does that mean? it means that six months ago they did not control all of that territory. now, they pretty much do. there were some towns they didn't control. they've taken those over. they've consolidated their position. that's one thing that's happened. the other thing that's happened in the last six months is, we've seen their ideology spread in two different directions. one is to young people in western, canada, australia, and the united states. people who had become radicalized. we've seen what they've done in paris, sydney, denmark, new york with the hatchet attack on two new york police department officers. we've seen that spread of their ideology. the other spread of their ideology, which has only become clear in the last month or so, is the spread to other extremist groups in algeria, in libya, in egypt, increasingly in afghanistan, and in yemen. and these aren't groups that didn't exist and all of a s

so we stopped the expansion in iraq, but within the sunni areas of iraq and the sunni areas of syria isis has consolidated its position over the last six months. what does that mean? it means that six months ago, they could not control all of that territory. now, they pretty much do. there were some towns they didn't control. they've taken those over. they've consolidated their position. that's one thing that's happened. the other thing that's happened is, we've seen their ideology spread in two different directions. one is to young people in western, canada, australia, and the united states. people who had become radicalized. we've seen what they've done in paris, sydney, denmark, new york with the hatchet attack on two new york police department officers. we've seen that spread of their ideology. the other spread of their ideology, which has only become clear in the last month or so is the spread to other extremist groups in algeria, in libya, in egypt, increasingly in afghanistan, and in yemen. and these aren't groups that didn't exist and all of a sudden have popped up to call th

iraq asked for support from the community to stop i.s.i.l. gaining ground and haider al-abadi have been meeting with angela merkel in berlin with efforts to defeat the group and merkel is going to moscow and joined by france president for talks on the conflict in ukraine and push to enthe ten-month conflict as the u.s. considers arming the troops against pro-russian rebels. number of people killed in damascus rises after the syrian government air strikes on rebel-controlled areas in the cities east more than 70 people killed in the latest raid as kim reports. >> reporter: in the moments after the bombardment panic sweeps through. homes, businesses entire streets are decimated and bodies line the streets. >> translator: we were hit by more than 14 air raids and rushed to rescue peoples in the victims and rescuing people cut in pieces under the rebel. >> reporter: this is the eastern edge of damascus and syrian jets attacked the area on thursday the number of dead continues to rise. the injured were brought here but the hospital is full and med

same mistake in iraq in 2003. we destroyed the iraqi infrastructure, wiped out the army and had no blueprint to the move forward. >> i want to go back to marie. you were shaking your head. it seems like colin powell was right. he said you broke it, you bought it. we've broken all these governments from iraq, afghanistan, libya, half a government and what's left in syria and they're all broken apart, and we've become the gendarme and we're fighting isis. isis is here. until we get rid of it, it's going to be here to stay. my question, where do we go from here? >> i think what everyone was saying is too simplistic. in libya and syria, we supported people who were rising up in their own country to try to get a better future. i remember the time people saying we were too slow to support them. >> what government? libya? >> in libya and syria. around the middle east, when we were talking about the arab uprising, different than iraq. complete different. people were saying america should stand by these people looking to s

local crime in iraq. always meaning isis today in the state of iraq, al qaeda and iraq. zarqawi network it is all the same thing. even back during 2005, 2006, 2007 the primary funding for the insurgency was and continues to be today through localized crime kidnapping for ransom, extortion, political corruption, et cetera. where we have to deal with major donors we have tolls in the gulf we have the oil smuggling across the border. we don't have tools to deal with their crime at home because we don't have boots on the ground. >> what was the reason for having such an enormous ransom figure for james foley. they wanted 130 million american dollars. it never got that kind of money for lan some. the thbut they were never goingo get 100 million from any country. they know the united kingdom as a no random sol see anyway. >>> the boil that they have is sold ofrnt black market. thor sending it to $60 a veil. sometimes celling as low as 40 a barrel. because turks pay so much for gas supply and demand is a market. you can find someone who whether get the oil and smuggle it and bu

always meaning isis is today just what used to be the islamic state of iraq, al-qaeda in iraq, the czar coo wee network. all the same thing. even back during 2005, 2006, 2007, theirf the insurgency was and continues to be today through localized crime. kidnapping for ransom, extortion, political corruption, et cetera. whereas we have tools to deal with major donors in the gulf, we have tools even if we decide to implement them to deal with the oil they're spahning off. we don't have tools to deal with their crime at home because we don't have boots on the ground. >> what was the reason for having such an enormous ransom figure, for instance for james foley. they wanted 130 million american dollars. if they have all this oil money coming in, it never got that kind of money. maybe some countries pay ransom. but they were never going to get 130 million from any country. >> that's why many people think they weren't in it for the money at all. the united states and united kingdom have a no ransom policy anyway. >> the oil that they have selling on the black market, is there any way to shut t

and that was in iraq. and in 2006, 2007 time frame we were not winning. >> that was in the midst -- before you guys -- that was before the surge. >> that was before the surge. >> before the surge. >> that was at the height of the sectarian -- >> if there's anything i learned as an intelligence officer is never take your enemy for granted. and i don't take these guys for granted. not one bit. and so we can't take them for granted because of how they look, you know, and what they're dressed in. the -- the way that they move on the battlefield. because they're not moving as sophisticated formations. the way the weapons that they have. we tend to look at these individuals and groups and just go these guys aren't -- >> you were director of the defense intelligence agency. would you define today the biggest threat to america's national security the issue we've been talking about at this table this evening? >> yeah. great, great question. so this is the issue about what's existential to our country. what would ta

iraq and iran are tribes. they have been exploitedded by the isis groups in their midst. so we're trying to help them. >> thank you for the additional 15 seconds. >> thank you. dr. berra. >> thank you madam chairman and thank the witnesses. dr. rand, was i correct in hearing you saying we have been involved in 25 years of continuous engagement in iraq? >> to clarify, on and off for 25 years. i was counseling the time at the beginning of -- counting the time at the beginning of the gulf war, which coming up on the 25th anniversary of the invasion. >> so, as we look at this current engagement, it's accurate to say we're not talking about years. we're talking about pro longed periods of time, perhaps decades. no one disagrees with that. dr. brennan, in answer to my colleague from rhode island, when asked about who can provide the numbers of ground troops in order to maintain stability to create that open space, i think you characterized it as our allies in the region have limited capabilities limited ground troop

iraq with u.s. help appears to gear up to retake iraq's second largest city mosul, which fell to i.s.i.l. last june. iraqi kurdish peshmerga forces magged to curb i.s.i.l. fighters back while iraqi government force, with the help of local militia regained the initiative in the south. the gains have been achieved in coordination with u.s.-led air strikes and u.s. military advisors on the ground. so far president obama insists no boots on the ground. but there's one flaw in the president's strategy, and that is iraq itself. last year iraqi troops threw down their weapons and fled the i.s.i.l. onslaught. while that is not happening now, iraq's government is facing a financial crisis and one of the biggest oil producers in the world, iraq a broke because of tanking oil prices. imran khan is in baghdad. >> so the prime minister had a very tough time passing his budget. it was finally passed on january the 29th but it was a hard-fought political battle for him. what that has done is it's raised a question

we need to recognize that because it's not just starting with iraq and trying to do iraq first and then we'll deal with syria, it's understanding this wider problem that we have in trying to solve it in a way that, you know, that actually does something and suppresses it. we're never going to quite get rid of it. you're never going to get rid of the zealots that are out there. they exist from the beginning of time. you can suppress it and you can get governments to basically meter their own problems they have and do more about it. if governments are corrupt it's not going to help. >> charlie: i leave you with two ideas. number one is this idea the united states cannot believe -- cannot be the world's policeman. >> right. >> charlie: the other idea is if not the united states, who? >> yeah. so both. it's okay to be the world leader. it's okay we're the world leader. we should not, as i said earlier -- >> charlie: i didn't say leader, i said policeman. >> but policeman means we're going to have to be the force out there leading whatever the problem set that we're trying to solve is. so be

he had just come back from iraq. he had two or three tours in iraq. and you can imagine what the emergency medic in iraq was dealing with in 2006 and 2007. he decided he wanted to make a career as a nurse. he was having to come back and start with nursing 101. i mean, he had to start from scratch, as if he did not have this incredible wealth of experience and skill. and so we set out to work with state legislators and cities and others that oftentimes are responsible for licensing, to say, there has got to be transferability and credit for the incredible work that veterans do on the job, so that they do not have to start all over again and take a whole bunch of new classes just to get certified on stuff they already know how to do. and that has been really helpful as well. [applause]

iraq, with u.s. help appears to be gearing up to retake the second-largest city mosul, which fell to i.s.i.l. last june. so far president obama insists no boots on the ground. there is at least one flaw in the president's strategy, and that is iraq. last year iraqis threw down their weapons, and thread the i.s.i.l. onslaught. that is not happening. the iraqi government is facing a crisis. one of the biggest oil producers is broke because of tanking oil prices, and the costly war against i.s.i.l. is making matters worse. imran khan is in baghdad. >> reporter: teachers protest in basra, holding placards saying they have not been paid in nearly a year. >> we have not received our salaries for nearly a month. no one from the government is getting back to us or giving us answers. we don't take days off. >> reporter: it's not just teachers in the south. across the country state workers have been protesting that they have not been paid. the prime minister is in crisis mode. haider al-abadi is promising reli

iraq with u.s. help appears to be gearing up to retake the second-largest city mosul, which fell to i.s.i.l. last june. so far president obama insists no boots on the ground. there is at least one flaw in the president's strategy and that is iraq. last year iraqis threw down their weapons, and thread the i.s.i.l. onslaught. that is not happening. the iraqi government is facing a crisis. one of the biggest oil producers is broke because of tanking oil prices and the costly war against i.s.i.l. is making matters worse. imran khan is in baghdad. >> reporter: teachers protest in basra, holding placards saying they have not been paid in nearly a year. >> we have not received our salaries for nearly a month. no one from the government is getting back to us or giving us answers. we don't take days off. >> reporter: it's not just teachers in the south. across the country state workers have been protesting that they have not been paid. the prime minister is in crisis mode. haider al-abadi is promising relief

we have exchanged about the situation in iraq about the problems about iraq and in the view of this difficult situation i still wish him power as an exclusive all right government and i wish them to see were are able to solve this problem against the terror organization is and there are huge challenges in the organization especially in the later state and especially brutal that is over the japan hostages and it shows that the es and the dramatic struggle in iraq and the federal government here we have taken the decision the peshmerga fighters with the government of iraq to support through weapons, through training so that we can combat this i.s.i.s. and it's our stance only through inclusive problems can be overcome and the struggle against this can be won. we can see the first successes in iraq because of the low oil prices, the huge challenges and we have spoken about this problem, about 80% of the profit comes from the oil exports and it has half looking at what it means for the country and we made it clear on one side and through this training and support through the support iraq and also

>> charlie: iraq. yeah, he was born in iraq. yeah, he's iraqi. he was born in samara, iraq, and he does his ph.d. in baghdad so this is where he gets the name baghdadi. it's not clear when he joined al quaida in iraq but he was one of the early leaders of the islamic state of iraq, i was a a -- he was a jurist in the group. this is what the islamic state itself says about him. also in the biography that i've read of him it gives the lineage of the man all the way back to the prophet muhammad saying he is a decedent of the tribe, one of the requirements inning islamic law for being the kale off. >> charlie: how do you think this turns out? >> it's a long-term challenge. >> charlie: that's what the president said. >> i agree with him. >> charlie: is the goal -- does the goal simply have to be containing it or can it be eradicating it? >> i think that, you know eradicating it is awfully ambitious because, first of all, this is a group that's been around, as you said, as you noted, for nine years. so i think that kind of containing it is the best thi

any new problem in iraq very clearly is a new iraq. that's where i have some real challenges with the president's belief that he has any real authority. but leaving that aside, they're both obsolete. al-qaeda as we knew it is no longer al-qaeda as we knew it. as we defined it in 2001, it's really a different organization. is that fair the to say? and anything we do in iraq and syria and other areas in which derivative organizations including isil or dosch is in fact at least fundamentally different or expanded and fits a slightly different definition, so we all agree on that part, i think. so, let me ask the broader question. aren't we dealing with two idea logical group, both of whom are a threat to regional security, to democracy, and to the west to a certain extent? one of them, dosch, is a radicalized derivative of what we once knew as al qaeda. the other, the shia activists, whether it's hezbollah, tehran directly or various groups at any level, are ultimately a group that looks at the 12th imam and his proclamation of what you ha

>> let's go to iraq. there were mistakes made in iraq for sure using the intelligence capability everybody embraced about weapons of mass destruction was not turns out not to be accurate. not creating and if i but of security after the successful taking out of saddam hussein was a mistake because iraqis wanted security, you know more than anything else but my brother's administration through the surge which is one of the most heroic acts of courage politically that any president has done because there was no support for this, it was hugely successful and it created a stability that when the new president came in he could have built on to create fragile but more stable situation the would've not allowed for the void to be filled. the void has been filled because we created the void. and so the lesson i think is engagement whether it's always the united states, it's another subject. i don't think has to be but when you have a failed state or a week state and you leave the first thing that happened was balan

custody in iraq from 2005 to 2009. the prison camp located in southeast iraq was named at ronald buca a new york city fire marshal killed in 9-11. he turned over authority to iraqis he was improperly let go in 2009. details are sketchy about what happened next. >> we know al qaeda as a great amount of autonomy within those camps in iraq. they kept their command structure. they were ordering and planning attacks from inside custody. in the years following his release baghdad did i climbed the ranks in eye can ra. later the group rebranded itself as isis. >> he clearly leap frogged ahead of al qaeda by declaring a territorial state. something that has empowered isis in many ways the islamic state to really now lay claim to being the chief terrorist organization in the world. >> back to the panel. why don't we know more about baghdadi. why can't we get more information we know we want him. >> he has been forecast to have been killed and wounded. certainly he is not dead certainly if he is wounded esz still getting around.

what did you see in iraq? officials here claim they're making progress against isis in iraq. >> reporter: i was incredibly depressed frankly. i knew iraq was in bad shape. it was even worse than i thought. isis is a huge problem in iraq and syria. but unless you confront the much bigger issues the issue of will occurred kurdistan be an independent state. what happens to sunni areas? will the government in baghdad continue to be run by shiite militia militias? what happens with assad? unless you address the bigger issues, it is still going to be there. i was completely discouraged by what i saw. the iraqi army has been described as pathetic, little more than a coalition of militias. so i got no indication that things are going well. >> all right. richard, thank you for your sober account there. we'll discuss this attack plus the war against isis with two key senators from the armed services committee the first one is the chairman of that committee, senator john mccain of arizona. and the 2008 republican preside

i think that is the lesson we learned in iraq and afghanistan. with that i look forward to the testimony and questions. i appreciate the chairman holding the committee, i hearing i should say. >> i thank the gentleman. i mention to members we're supposed to have votes on the floor roughly around 10:40 10:45. i will try to be fairly strict with the time limits so that we can move along smartly. i ask unanimous consent that the full written statement of all of our witnesses be made part of the record. without objection so ordered. let me again thank our witnesses for being here. very pleased to see retired lt. general michael flynn, former director of the defense intelligence agency. mr. william braniff executive director, national consortium for study of terrorism and responses to terrorism with the university of maryland. and dr. mark lynch with the george washington university. all of these gent men have done very serious and helpful work for the committee and the country on the topic of terrorism and we're very grateful to have you with us toda

to bring iraq's communities politicians together and make this a fight for iraq, for the time being it seems each community is fighting for their own territory. >> protestors gathered in the egyptian capitol. this is a scene in sadat in southern cairo. protests are also taking place in east cairo. al jazeera journalists mohamed fahmy and baher mohammed have enough spent 405 days in prison in egypt accused of supporting the outlawed muslim brotherhood charges al jazeera has denied. peter greste arrived home in australia after being released early they are week. mohamed fahmy and baher mohammed are still imprisoned. al jazeera demands their immediate release. >> we'll go behind bars in new york where prisoners are getting a chance to be rehabilitated through a unique program. >> from baghdad to berlin, how a snapshot of iraqi history are trying to break stereo types. >> the dubai tour, in sport. >> monday. >> we're going to the bottom of the sea. >> deep submergence vehicles. >> three, zero, three, six. >> ocean experts have made some miraculous discoveries. >> octopus everywhere. >> but

the problem with iraq, you are absolutely right about the role of iran and iraq. it's pervasive and it goes down the shia militias. it's in every level of the government every level of the state, security forces the kurds. they have relations with everybody in iraq because they actually have a full spectrum strategy for data with a close neighbor. i would actually not pose iran as the primary problem in iraq i think the militias are a primary problem, and iran can use that instant when it is useful for them, and if they decide it's not useful for them and they can begin to move to try and shut it down. i think that the key point is going to be that it's impossible to have as you said it's impossible to have a strategy which is about keeping a unified state in iraq that isn't going to include some kind of tacit maybe not formal but at least tacit cooperation with iran. their role in iraq is simply too invasive and to real. and security forces can't be disaggregated and only working with sony units. and if you want to tamp down sectarianism, you can't than doubled d

bush's iraq war. even jeb bush himself was not immune to the pull of history where he meant to be talking about iran, he said iraq instead. >> the problem is perhaps best demonstrated by this administration's approach to iraq. we've had 35 years of experience -- excuse me iran. >> hate it when that happens. bush spoke of isis as a force grossly underestimated. >> president obama called isis the junior varsity four days after they took fallujah and when they comprised a fighting force of more than 200,000 battle tested men. >> 200,000 is itself a gross miss representation. 200,000 is an order of magnitude greater than the u.s. intelligence community's estimates. they pegged the fighting strength at between 20,000 and 31,500. it is a bizarre turn of history that the consequences of our last war in iraq have produced a new group of jihadists whose perceived threat is so large the country could end up scared enough into electing the brother of the man who brought us our first war with iraq. joining us is

part of iraq's government. so they've been around for quite a while. it doesn't mean they are growing at rates that we've never seen before. there is a new crisis that we have in the organization. the other main thing is the breach and this is totally overstated. i can't say how much annoyance that causes me because they are so open about this and how they control these organizations. they have to follow the media and here is the weird thing even if they are not directly controlling the group then beyond that they will try to influence some with cash and weapons and support and then guess what happens they become another little micro has hezbollah. you can't ignore this top-down strategy because the people are recruiting. there is a top-down trickle-down structure here how many of you in a few decades ago but have said. these are the main issues. why are they going to fight ends. and how did this me to the current events in iraq and of the militia fighting against isis? a religious crisis needed to be manufactu

military deaths in iraq totalled more than 4400 people. the iraq war cost $815 billion according to the congressional research service. the u.s. deaths in afghanistan totalled 2200 people. and the total of cost is $86 billion. death on the iraq and afghanistan side are much harder to calculate for various reasons but when civilian deaths are included, number in the hundreds of thousands for iraq and nearly 15,000 for afghanistan, and of course we haven't stopped there. including but not limited to u.s. drone strikes, united states has been involved in yemen and pakistan. and the information has been compiled covering the bush and obama administrations. they estimate that more than 800 people have been killed in drone strikes in yemen, and more than 200 have been killed in pakistan. so it seems we have been doing a lot of killing our way out of this situation for a long time. what does the world look like? having spent money and risking our troops worldwide, here is what it looks like. afghanistan is a corrupt state that many believe will o

that's the key to holding iraq together and liberating iraq from isis. >> the u.s. spent a decade training the iraqi forces. they were supposed to have a central military. hundreds of thousands of troops were armed, trained, funded by the united states. the u.s. spent a decade there doing it. as soon as the united states pulled out, that entire effort collapsed. as soon as isis came in with a few thousand guys they ran away from mosul, a big city nearly two million people. all that armored, equipment was left behind. these are the people the u.s. still thinks that the u.s. can train and get the job done? it was a total waste the first time around. why try again? >> it's our only option. between the iraqi military -- >> the peshmerga, they are fighting. but they have no weapons. the u.s. is still providing the weapons to the central regime in baghdad. some flows to the kurds. it's a horrendous mess. >> they have gotten a dozen. but they have a board we are isis. it's not going to do very much. we need to arm the peshmerga. deal with it. >> right now, the 400 marines

ground combat forces to iraq or syria. it is not the authorization of another ground war, like afghanistan or iraq. the 2,600 american troops in iraq today largely serve on bases. and, yes, they face risks that come with service in any dangerous environment but they do not have a combat mission. they are focused on training iraqi forces including kurdish forces. as i've said before i'm convinced that the united states should not get dragged back into another prolonged ground war in the middle east. that's not in our national security interest and it's not necessary for us to defeat isil. local forces on the ground who know their countries best are best positioned to take the ground fight to isil and that's what they're doing. at the same time this resolution strikes the necessary balance by giving us the flexibility we need for unforeseen circumstances. for example, if we had actionable intelligence about a gathering of isil leaders, and our partners didn't have the capacity to get them i would be prepared to order our spe

always meaning isis is today just what used to be the islamic state of iraq, al-qaeda in iraq, the czar coo wee network. all the same thing. even back during 2005, 2006, the insurgency was and continues to be today through localized crime. kidnapping for ransom, extortion, political corruption, et cetera. whereas we have tools to deal with major donors in the gulf, we have tools even if we decide to implement them to deal with the oil they're spahning off. we don't have tools to deal with their crime at home because we don't have boots on the ground. >> what was the reason for having such an enormous ransom figure, for instance for james foley. they wanted 130 million american dollars. if they have all this oil money coming in, it never got that kind of money. maybe some countries pay ransom. but they were never going to get 130 million from any country. >> that's why many people think they weren't in it for the money at all. the united states and united kingdom have a no ransom policy anyway. >> the oil that they have selling on the black market, is there any way to shut that down, bec

we have allies in iraq. the only way we are going to get those allies is if we outperform iran as a security partner. we cannot ask for everything we went from the iraqis unless we demonstrate that we are seriously committed about going forward. not just until isis is gone or mosul is liberated. but finally, until -- with no endpoint. what we need is a visionary, decades spanning re-engagement with the iraqi government for a deep, lasting security cooperation relationship. why wouldn't we? this is not lebanon. no disrespect to lebanon. if we lose iraq to hezbollah-ization of the security structure. this is a country with the same oil as saudi arabia. 35 or 40 million and going up. connected to every key regional state. this is like losing china in the 1950's. this is not some small country. even though some people in the administration have put it in a small box in their mind. that's not what it is. we need to do more than the minimum and then leave. we need to demonstrate we are therefore the long run and w

we're seeing it in iraq. we're seeing an idealogical spread iran is trying to push their ideology among iraqis among other moderate shia i don't like to use the term moderate shia but shia who do not believe in their radical khomeni concept. this is happening in syria in a nutshell. we're seeing this on this kind of regional plain. it is shocking not as many people were noticing it. there are a few myths and fact about the shia jihad. unfortunately in the press because it is hard to cover the issue a few things popped up. i actually collected quotes from people who i know were asking me bit as i was doing research. one of them said, don't all foreign fighters come in sunni? i included a chart here from the "washington post" which cites isis fighters and other sunni fighters. it just lists them as foreign fighters. one of the largest if not the largest foreign fighter continuing anti-inside of syria had nothing to do with al qaeda. . . nobody has anything to take it off or even investigate it. i could go here

press lead up to iraq war. there's been a lot of jokes saying brian williams only one punished with lies involving iraq. is there some truth to the idea we're focusing so much on this and ignoring some of those bigger issues? >> there's a great irony here that one of the legitimate, many legitimate crit ex-iques of the media they tend to focus more on personalities in a political campaign than fundamental issues. certainly if you compare damage apart from the damage done by nbc, from brian williams misstatements or lies or whatever they are compared to what the consequences were bad, inaccurate reporting of the run-up to the war in iraq it's geometric, it's enormous gap. this one other quick point i think worth making one of the reasons brian is in trouble, this fits a familiar narrative of on outsized personality who may not be what they want us to think they are. for instance the liberal who votes for school busing and sending kids to private school war with five draft, environmentalist who flies a private je

strategy in iraq as heroic. >> there were mistakes made in iraq for sure. using the intelligence capability that everybody used about weapons of mass destruction turns out not to be accurate. my brother's administration through the surge, there was no support for this and hugely successful and created a stability that when the new president came in, he could have built on to create fragile but more stable situation that would not have and allowed for the void to be filled. the void has been filled because we created the void. >> steve kornacki, most of msnbc's "up" and george pataki how does jeb bush separate himself from a very recent presidency with whatever your politics is now recognized to be the very unpopular war with iraq? >> he did not do that today. he said he's his own man and he is. he will be asked specific questions and he will outline issues that will allow him to stand on his own two feet. but what he really said today was basic republican orthodoxy. he said we made the wrong decision on cuba. almost all republicans agree on that. we have to

indirectly or directly communicates with iranian military inside iraq? >> no. >> the iraqi government doesn't share information with the iranians, and -- >> that would be a great question to ask the folks in baghdad. i don't know. i'm telling you we're not doing it. we're not talking to tehran. no i know but you're implying that we have some sort of -- [ inaudible ] some sort of indirect relationship or sort of allowing it to happen. we are not communicating directly, either with tie iran or the assad regime. we're not doing it indirectly. and we're not trying to fasting tate or encourage some sort of indirect communications either. >> a third party is not doing that on its own for whatever reason? >> we do the very best we can everywhere we operate to protect information as best we can. >> the question about -- that there's no evidence indicating that -- strikes on february 6th [ inaudible ] >> i don't think josh said there was no evidence of civilians on the ground. he said there's no evidence, we have no indication that there were civilian casualties

i look at the situation in iraq. it's painful to say this but the big strategic winner maybe you agree or disagree in that part of the world seems to be iran. >> without question, they are the biggest winner of what's going on. but i asked a question of the white house general counsel about the authorization to use military force. we will send them into syria. they will fight isil. they will turn on assad. he knows that assad does. if he does attack the people we train, i asked the question will we defend them from an air campaign? >> the free syrian army? >> yes. he said no. i said why? he said we don't want a backlash from iran. that says all you need to know about -- >> iran is supported by assad's regime. they are aligned with the iraqis right now, this new government. >> they are running iraq. >> it's a very disturbing situation. stand by senator. there's more coming up. our senior international correspondent nic robertson is joining us live. i take it talks are under way at this late hour where you are. what is