basra.he national guard largest being pushed through now senior iraqi leaders understand they need to do something about the pmyus and the sahwa. they need to confine them to can find into barracks, demobilize them. they need governors to say we do not need a national guard brigade for this province. we are secure. a way of reducing the threat of militia takeover in key provinces like basra. it's under ministry of defense control, it is under operational control. these things are built into the national guard law. they need to be. the struggle will be implementation. the iranian militias will try as hard as they can to take all the bits they like. we want to get paid, have pensions, light arms provided by the government. but actually we think that we will keep the rocket launchers and our ties to the irgc quds force. either way, some of these individuals, the dawa party are trying to keep a hand. they had these guys in senior deputy positions. likewise, the bottom left-hand side running the

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 be implementation because these guys and these iranian militias will try as hard as they can to take all the bits they like. we want to get paid, we want to have p

you can manage basra, you go to basra during the day but don't overnight there. you know?nd i, i always accepted huh advice. -- his advice. i mention that in a few places in the book i always accepted his advice. and if i didn't want to accept his advice, i'd get a new security officer. it's very important if you're going to have someone do a job you need to respect how they do the job. if you don't like 'em fine fire 'em. but don't ignore their advice because they're trying to do their job. and, you know, i did get into some situations as you allude to in darak, we had this ied attack on our motorcade. there were a couple of things that i remember calling julie my wife and julie gave the advice to me -- which i think you've given occasionally to a school child which is stay indoors. [laughter] but, you know, you've got to be willing to take some of those risks. but, ryan as you pointed out when mrs. praise your when katarina said to me how could you do this to your family, she really got me with that. i never forgot that. >> my name is fred -- [inaudible] from denver. of

likewise basra separatism. basra could break away and become abu dhabi if it wanted to. by and large they believe in the iraqi state even though they have had a shocking deal from it particularly over the last decade. pm maliki, in charge of the nights, he recognized i think he did it partly for his own political benefit that he needed to cut the legs under from underneath from the militias before they took iraq's crown jewel basrah. national guard law being pushed through now. iraqis understand senior leaders understand they need to do something about the pmus and the satwa one day. they need to confine them to barracks. partially demobilize them. governors in individual provinces. we don't need a national guard provision for this particular province. we're secure. reduce militia take over in key provinces like basrah. under administrative defense and administration control. under p.m.'s office control. all these things are built into the national guard law and they need to be. struggle will be implementation. because these badr guys and these iranian militias hard as t

a way of reducing takeover in provinces like basra. it's under prime minister's office, provisional control. all these things are built into the national guard law. and they need to be. the struggle will be implementation. these guys and iranian backed militias will take all the bits they like. we won't get paid, we won't have pensions, light armored vehicles maintained by the government. we want to have light arms provided by the government. but that's how they'll try to play it. that's how they always do. but i need to stay on this. this brings us back to the final point. some of these individuals, dhawa party are trying to lend a hand even though it's run by a bawa level leader. kazaw sxichlt samir haddad in senior deputy positions within mli. likewise bottom left-hand side you see fayed rung the shahabi portfolio, i guess you could say, the national security adviser. again, some conservative element of dhawa party, conservative as in they don't want a radical change in the nature of power in iraq they don't want to be one day jetti

newscasts of the shia marching and forming and marching in units from baghdad all the way down to basra. and what you see is first off they're all in uniforms. haidi al amri and guys come out of the closet and guys like him. they're in uniform. they have modern weapons all of them. not a couple of them like they used to be. two guys in the squad would have weapons and the rest of them would have wooden ones. they all this weapons. and the more sophisticated stuff like the explosive form projs projectiles. i don't know if you've seen those. but they're conical, 12 to 14 inches because they're very, very heavy because they're copper and would kill most of our mates in the fighting through the armored vehicles. they'd penetrate anything. and they're carrying these in formation. and they're in formation and marching and even the clerics are dressed up. so that didn't happen between the time isis took mow sxooult time the news guys got there. meaning it had been going on for a very long time to include why we're there. not just since we were deployed. that's the basis. and now we get to the

. >> 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 is on its way, blaming problems. >> our budget is currently compressed. you know that our budget started with a draft law to have each oil barrel for $70. when the ministers council met to vote we were surprised by the drop of oil prices. so it couldn't build a budget on $70 per barrel. this caused a gap in the budget. >> reporter: economists are pessimistic saying iraq's economy is far too reliant on oil. >> translation: there's a lack of currency reserve and a lack of having multiple sources of economy. we hope there'll be other alternatives to get rid of the . >> reporter: those alternatives are discussed. taxing governmen

in 2008 after fighting in basra and baghdad i was a senior military adviser in baghdad, an iraqi divisioncommittee came to us and said, this is what a great day. yes. sadr retired from the battlefield mainly because maliki took the gloves off a bus and the iraqis came forward with us and we did a lot of fighting. special groups did not play in that fight. special groups were being guided from a different place. i think that is the key to understand between the nationalist point of the get to the second. what he said in his speech gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, great americans great iraqi patriot, today's the first day in the battle against iran. this division commander was shia. a sunni would say that anyway but he said that. this commander by the way is now in the state seeking a sovereignty was given command in the south, i will say where just a few months ago. and wendy got a call from maliki and maliki said i have visitors coming and i want you to put them to work, embed them in your step and they will help you achieve stardom. the division commander, the commander, not division, sa

before that assistant secretary for iraq, before that she worked for a year in basra in iraq. most people don't choose iraq when they're already in italy. she speaks arabic, she speaks french, she speaks italian, she also happens to speak croatian if that's necessary. she's the ambassador to the united arab emirates, an experienced diplomat. she has not been in the job on the uae for very long. it's very clear that it's good we have somebody highly qualified as a diplomat in that position right now. ambassador leaf has had a difficult first month on the job. ambassador leaf was confronted last week by the foreign minister of the united arab emirates, what they described as a blunt exchange. the reason for that blunt exchange, why the foreign minister from uae let our brand-new ambassador to his country have it, it's the issue of search and rescue. specifically, search and rescue of coalition military pilots who might fall into enemy hands, who might fall into isis' hands if they crash while conducting air strikes over syria in the war against isis. that foreign minister told o

places like basra and they are having problems there so at the same time the war with i.s.i.l.ly it is causing a bigger budget deficit, president obama is talking about escalating the fight against i.s.i.l. with iraq's help when the government is in the middle of this financial crisis thomas. >> a good point to expand and looking at bigger picture what does that do with the war fight against i.s.i.l.? >> it makes it tricky and they ran the north and west of iraq largely because of central government neglect and the sense there was a bit of a vacuum of government and seeing neglect because of budget crisis in other parts of the country and that has potential to underminority the government against i.s.i.l. and erode the government far from what i.s.i.l. has influence is and i.s.i.l. is still strong and despite resent setbacks i.s.i.l. remains strong although it's getting less money because of the collapse in oil prices but iraq is broke so at the same time the u.s. is relying on the iraqi army to help role i.s.i.l. back we will have to watch this one very closely. >> much more o

i think there is no reason to if you have basra which is the major income for the country essentially we like to see say those of us who've been after doing business, that bowser doesn't need baghdad or baghdad needs basra. he had had the oil in the have baghdad, the capital. yeah. by pusher look? why go into food fights up there in indian land for what? you are not losing anything. and i do also believe that once victory has happened there's a very good scheme of evidence that fights within themselves will occur and i think phillip what he should today supports that studied other civil wars in the middle east which support that as well. we have to challenge the assumption end of the shia when our kids a certain point in the program, then they will settle and the sunni areas are left. the sparse thing they could do is just sits because the dynamics of history of original show they will turn on themselves sooner or later one way or another. all those lines that phillip showed will have to go somewhere. >> ambassador? >> thank you very much. i have an observation and question. and obser