what would iraq look like today if we had not invaded iraq? who knows but let me give you a possibility. sanctions would eventually gone away without a doubt. there's no way that the united states would hold the sanctions together. they would have gone away. he would have restarted his weapons program and he would have had chemical weapons and he would have had a violet to go weapons capability and probably would have developed a nuclear weapon. either you would have had to have dealt with that if you saw it happening where he would have won. and then you fast-forward and you say okay what happened in tunisia, what happened in egypt, what happened in libya, what happened in syria in terms of the arab spring could have easily happened in iraq. in other words people rise up and say we want you to go away. you might have a country that has these weapons of mass distraction that have the same instability today that libya has. so you can't look back and say that if we hadn't done this that iraq wouldn't look like that today. he could easily look li

from iraq in 2010. the prime minister immediately begins a purge of political opponents and military leaders, and al qaeda reemerges that same year. syria's civil war growing out of the arab spring in 2011 is stalemated because the rebels initial games are thwarted by iranian proxies. the hezbollah and iraqi shia militias and much-needed supplies and equipment from russia and iran. the rebels in 2011 and 2012 seek assistance from the united states, which is recommended by secretaries clinton and panetta, general dempsey and director contrasts. the united states refuses. al qaeda in iraq is incentivized by the protracted civil war in syria. moves out of a rock with several hundred iraqi fighters, establishing a sanctuary in northeastern syria, and grows a terrorist army of some 30,000 to 40,000. this decision baghdadi made is transformational for him and the most critical decision has made since being the leader of al qaeda in iraq. two years later, isis invades iraq and expands its territory in syria. i

and, yes, he was in american custody during the iraq war. has shown his face publicly only once. last year when he gave a sermon to his followers. but back when the u.s. had him under lock and key, he was seen as, believe it or not, a man who could be trusted. >> the americans seem to see abu bakr as someone who could keep the prison quiet. there are 24 camps within the sunni side of camp bucca, he was allowed open access to all of them. >> he wasn't considered from everything that we know now a high-level detainee, and he was allowed to, you know, lead prayers, he was allowed to give religious lessons. >> the future leader of isis was giving other inmates lessons on islam. those inmates were jihadists or former ba'athists, henchmen of saddam, or simply common criminals. >> it most assuredly was a jihadist university. unquestionably. >> put them all together in the baking heat of southern iraq, with al baghdadi, a man who dreamed of a new kind of terror, it was a recipe for isis. >> they were meeting, they were playing soccer together, they

first iraq. i visited iraq a few months ago, it was my first time there on the ground in five years. i worked in iraq and for five years in the american embassy and before that with the coalition for provisional authority. my sense is that in iraq, on on the military side there is progress. but there are two big challenges , two big challenges. first, on the resource side, but the iraqi government in baghdad and the kurdish regional government are both heavily dependent on oil and oil sales. low oil prices are really crunching their ability to mobilize resources in the fight against the islamic state. it was very noticeable to me that the kurdish leadership whom i have known since 2004 were generally concerned about their budget abilities to sustain the fight against the islamic state. some of of their fighters had not been paid for three months. even in baghdad, the authorities were concerned about the resources. the second issue on iraq, the politics of national reconciliation. mike just mentio

corps iraq. the unit responsible for ground toss in iraq. it ran surveys of basically everyone in baghdad. and if you look at those data you see a couple things that are very consistent with what the mercy corps team found here over a long span of time and the two things i want to highlight is first that the way armed groups treated civilians had very clear impact on their support for armed -- for non-state armed groups. so people who lived in little neighborhoods that experience violence at the hands of either the insurgents or the coalition in subsequent periods down to very small time periods, a week, 30 days, were more or less negative towards those groups in the same way you would expect from the results here. so the insurgents impose cost, people's support for them went down. government and coalition forces did and support for insurgents went up. critically -- and i think this is the important thing we learned from that -- that reaction was not uniform. the reaction during that time period

civil society in iraq is very vocal and active. and that level of vibrancy, that level of activity has also driven changes in perceptions among iraqis themselves and what they basically see as the usefulness of civil society and nonviolent ways of solving grievances and issues. when the first survey was carried out. only 39% viewed a positive view of civil society. by the time the 2015 survey had increase d to 50%. so 50% of respondents saw civil society as a force for good. and as able to broker solutions around their own issues and perception perceptions of governance and injustice. >> now i would like to open it up to the audience for questions. please, if you raise your hand, a microphone will be brought to you and wait for the microphone. if you also please state your name and your affiliation. this is being carried live through c-span. a question here? >> you were talking about governance, you are thinking about accountabilities and the problem in the government or law enforcement, whether they have something like prosecuting

iraq is a different situation but the political component in iraq is paramount importance. we need to have, we need to deter the influence of the iranians have with prime minister of body and i say -- a abbadi and dumbbells of their cracker says -- ambassador crocker said we are after the same goal in the coal is political unity. we spent so much time on this nuclear deal we should have been in and out of baghdad. secretary of state on the ground routinely working with this new administration to achieve the political unity that the united states said was their political objective but we are not even close to achieving that. the kurds are still looking for the weapons that they need and we are not even close on the tribal force that we need from the sunnis. isis is occupying sunni lands exclusively. the kurds have been able to retake their territory back. therefore you need common sense tells you sunni tribal force to hold the territory even if the iraqi army was able to reclaim it. and without that is not going to happen. so that's why i have said you have to more geysers a

from iraq in 2010. the prime minister immediately begins a purge of political opponents and military leaders, and al qaeda reemerges that same year. syria's civil war growing out of the arab spring in 2011 is stalemated because the rebels initial games are thwarted by iranian proxies. the hezbollah and iraqi shia militias and much-needed supplies and equipment from russia and iran. the rebels in 2011 and 2012 seek assistance from the united states, which is recommended by secretaries clinton and panetta, general dempsey and director contrasts. the united states refuses. al qaeda in iraq is incentivized by the protracted civil war in syria. moves out of a rock with several hundred iraqi fighters, establishing a sanctuary in northeastern syria, and grows a terrorist army of some 30,000 to 40,000. this decision baghdadi made is transformational for him and the most critical decision has made since being the leader of al qaeda in iraq. two years later, isis invades iraq and expands its territory in syria. i

on building a caliphate in iraq and syria.s, however, with the attacks against russia and turkey and france, clearly isis has expanded its ambitions and its operations. >> they understand, of course, that to be terror group number one, they must battle the country that is the world's number one power, america. they seek that confrontation and hope that the united states would come to the middle east and fight them on their terms, on their terrain. now, to be clear, they are opportunists and they ask and hope that their followers would act in america, but their main focus is not to come here. they want americans to go there. the leaders of isis have recognized that above all, they are a messaging machine which in turn becomes a recruitment machine. their gruesome videos would seem a repulsive turnoff and are to most people, but they work on the web. the shock and awe they produce makes them go viral and thus are seen by tens of millions. that ensures that these videos attract those alienated young men, a few thousand among the

the un reports that since isis invasion of iraq in 2014, nearly 20000 iraq civilians have been killed, nearly 3500 people, predominantly women and children are estimated to be isis slaves in iraq. the secretary division in iraq is no surprise that the training of iraq security forces has been slow and the building of support for sunni tribal forces is even slower. in syria, there is no plausible strategy to achieve the timeline that won't result in the tragic deaths of tens of thousands of syrians. there still no ground force that is still willing to take raqqa. no is there a prospect of one emergency. in the absence of a realistic strategy to greet the conditions for the achievement of u.s. goals, the administration has instead fallen back on hope. the hope that diplomacy without leverage can convince russia and iran to abandon aside and joined the fight against isis. yet, we read just this morning that russia's air campaign continues to target moderate opposition groups, and maybe grinning gaining traction in stabilizing the shard regime. meanwhile isis continues across the region i

the sector in division is worse than iraq and it's no surprise the training of iraq's security forces has been slow and the building of the support for sunni tribal forces even slower. syria, there is no plausible strategy to achieve isil's defeat on a timeline that will not result in the tragic deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. they're still no ground force that is both willing and able to retake raqqa. know is that a realistic prospect of what emerging soon. in the absence of a realistic strategy to create the conditions for the achievement of u.s. goals, the administration has instead falling back on hope, hope that diplomacy without sufficient leverage can convince russia and iran to abandon bashar al-assad and join the fight against isil. yet we read just this morning that russia's air campaign continues to target moderate opposition groups that may be gaining traction in stabilizing the assad regime. meanwhile, i've continues to metastasize across the region in places like afghanistan, libya, lebanon, yemen an and egypt. its attacks on the globe as we saw in paris, san b

first, iraq. i visited iraq a couple of months ago. it was my first thyme there on the ground for five years. i worked there for five years. my sense is that in iraq, on military side, there is progress. but there are two big challenges. two big challenges. first, on the resource side, both the iraqi government in baghdad and the kurdish gional government both are heavily dependent on oil. and oil sales. and low oil prices are really crunching their ability to mobilize resources in the fight against the islamic state. it was very noticeable to me that the kurdish leadership, whom i have known since 2004, were genuinely concerned about their budget abilities to sustain a fight against the islamic state. some of their peshmerga fighters had not been paid for three months. but even in baghdad, the authorities were concerned about the resources. the second issue on iraq. the politics of national reconciliation. mike vickers just mentioned the importance of devolution and decentralization. i certainly agree with that. and i'm hopeful on tha

it also hurt iraq a great deal. it wasn't just a one-way back against i.s.i.l. >>> you raised the issues of the payroll, members of families. if enough members are captured and killed these costs appeared up. tell me how that works into a targeted strategy of defeating i.s.i.l. >> that's a side benefit to a targeted strategy. what we did find is that they basically had a promise. they have a payroll and they continued to pay families, payroll was based on family size. they continued to pay families if a person was detained or killed. what we saw was that their payroll costs were mounting throughout the 2000s when u.s. operations came large. so they either stopped paying, and that would hurt morale, they're breaking their promise to their members' families, and it was hurting their operations. we found a statistical relationship between the number of money that they sent to a specific area and the level of attacks in that area. so as we degrade their ability to raise money, we're also degrading their ability to krukt

it put iran in charge in iraq. it led to sunni empowerment, which is feeling al qaeda in iraq and isis. it made people wary of our engagement in the middle east. arguably over wary. but i think we have to acknowledge that for every mistake of action, there would of interaction. had we not done it, we might be sitting here talking about the mistake of leaving saddam hussein in power. i am reluctant to identify single things. you think about the region, in iraq, we intervened and occupied, it turns out, very badly. in libya we intervened but did not occupy. up very badly. in syria we neither intervened nor occupied and it has turned out very badly. for how wemodel should deal with these governments? again, i would say there is not a single mistake just as there is not a single answer for what we should do going forward. you, chairman. i want to thank all of you for being here. general, i want to ask you, we twice testran ballistic missiles this fall, and we know that recently the administration has issued minimal san

he showed extraordinary skill during the later surge in iraq, and in managing security in iraq during his years as overall commander there. he commanded at multiple levels in the army's 82nd airborne division and commanded the 10th mountain division, all with honor and distinction. just listen to that. listen to that roster of accomplishment. few have brought that kind of depth and breadth of experience to this critical command. the level of experience that helped him lead centcom with distinction, skill and the confidence of the nation's leadership during an extraordinary and complex period. it is this depth and breadth of experience that allowed joe and me to always -- i meant joe dunford in that case, i'll get to the other joe in a moment, to all we safely rely on lloyd, including now when we face an enemy such as isil. the opportunities and challenges in afghanistan and iraq and throughout the region are always changing. but one thing hasn't changed. general austin's limitless commitment to his troops and to his country. now general austin's long tour in this job will soon come to

bush or dick cheney had not evaded iraq, there was no iraq war -- >> host: all right, bill, i think wegot the point. that's bill in west hartford, connecticut. >> guest: the book argues and i strongly believe that the iraq invasion was the original sin not just of the invasion itself that gave jehadist cause, was ready for the americans to arrive in 2003, also omission of not having security in place, essentially anybody was a professional inside iraq in the early 2000, dismantling the armed forces. also a very angry, you know, disenfranchised elite population that was happy to help coming in. plenty of iraqis that would have helped anyway. he was able to melt this extremism with the iraqi discontent and bringing two together turned out to be a powerful brew and those people who started the movement that's isis today. that's the same ideology, some of the same individuals, even guys like abdaul, the french terrorist, he cut his teeth in early stage. so this is all very relevant to the situation you have in isis today. >> host: randy in slaughter, louisiana. we have a couple of minutes

returnsájuz iraq we wil fight.s no coordination, they are openly hostile. >> rose: there's no coordination through the iraqi government. >> the iraqi government is giving them all of the stuff which we give to them. so we are indirectly supporting an army who are often guilty of the same crimes as isis. >> rose: we're talking about sunni fighters. let's take a look. this is the sunni fighters in the anwar provinces. here it is. >> do you think you can hold on [indiscernible]. >> they were saying now these attacks -- >> rose: what's the closest call you had there. >> they had two or three snipers in those trees that were firing fairly accurately. it looks bad. i wasn't too concerned that day. what you see from that clip is yes they need equipment and ammunition but they really need some training as well. you got guysrifles. >> all i could think too there were 50 of them and all firing their weapons at the same time and i'm thinking they're giving away our cover and they're just going to fire and kill all of us. half

>> yeah, i mean, iranian intervention in iraq is nothing new. the ties between iran and iraq are very, very old, they go back to the era of the ottomans. in the 15th, 16th century. in the 1970s the shah's goal essentially was to paralyze the iraqi army, to keep the arab nationalists iraqi governments busy fighting the kurds in the north of iraq rather than making trouble for the iran in the south. the support for the iraqi kurds begins in the early 1960s in cooperation with israel. iran's intelligence service and the israel intelligence service begin a covert operation to support the iraqi kurds. it's very important that iran has a role here because the iranian border was the only way for the israelis to actually be able to access kurdish territory. there is no other way to physically get in there. but of course for the iranians it's very sensitive because iran has its owned kurdish population and the last thing that the shah wanted was an independent kurdistan in northern iraq, which could create all kinds of problems in iran. so he played this

charlie: in terms of iraq and the ayatollahs of iraq.rdinate at all with the regular iranian army? ben: no. there commanded by senior iranian generals. when that tikrit operation was harder than they expected -- they actually pulled back and there were u.s. airstrikes and they were very angry. charlie: without the u.s. airstrikes, they may not have been able to do it. ben: they were still very angry that the u.s. was involved. all of the shiite militias said that if the u.s. returns to iraq, we will fight them. no coronation, they are openly hostile. charlie: no coronation to the iraqi government? ben: the iraqi government is giving them all of the staff which we give to them. we, indirectly, are supporting an army who are often guilty of the same crimes as isis. charlie: we've been talking about sunni fighters. this is ben with sunni fighters. [clip] >> do think you can hold onto him? >> [on screen] >> they're saying they're going to now use the tanks. charlie: what is the closest call that you had there? ben: there were snipers and the

in iraq -- iraq, a different situation. but the political component in iraq is paramount importance. we need to have -- we need to -- we need to deter the influence that the iranians have with prime minister abe a de. i say ambassador crocker is the answer. he says other people are the answer. we're after the same goal. the goal is political unity. i'm frustrated here because we spent so much time on this nuclear deal. we should have been in and out of baghdad with high government officials. secretary of state on the ground routinely working with this new administration to achieve the political unity that the united states said was their political objective. but we're not even close to achieving it. the kurds are still looking for money and they're still looking for the weapons they need. we're not even close on the tribal force that we need from the sunnis. isis is occupying sunni lands exclusively. the kurds have been able to retake their territory back. therefore, you need -- common sense tells you, sunni travel force to

are they having issues with those sectors in iraq? ask each one of you will have the -- a minute and a half to address all these questions and make any closing remarks. >> the has been one very good trial that i am aware of. the basic finding is that there be alone does not work. therapy combined with fairly large amounts of cash to reinforce good behavior. it does seem to work. that is one study in liberia. so maybe not applicable in iraq. on your question about the available tools. as i said, very little is being done to the best of my knowledge. i am not aware of any extensive programs that are providing such tools to young people. i want to end on a positive note. on then our experience issue or what we did in northern syria, he's building at the local level is possible. it can be successful. you can prevent further violence from interrupting. this is why we are continuing our programming in the region and we call on other agencies to do so. >> to try and take off things on -- in order. it question on effective program models. it

you have still isil in control of mosul in the north, and iraq's government, iraq's security forces haven't yet entered mosul to fight isil. you have a fight still verge raging in rimadi, even though government forces were able to retake the center, the government complex of rimadi, still fighting isil in the north and east. then you have other pockets, areas where isil are trying to do resurgent attacks. it's a very complicated situation. whatever the government may come out and say in response to the ayatollah's remarks today, well, that still remains to be seen. they can't really say much. their hands are kind of tied, because in iraq, by and large, when you speak to the average man or woman on the street, they seem to believe that the remarks by iraq's government when it comes to their fight against isil and trying to ensure the security of the citizenry of this country, they seem to believe that that's a lot of propaganda. there's not a lot of trust in the government or the government institutions here in this country, and that's why they're going to need to respond to these remarks an

for those who have been following us, we try to make sure that the voices of iraq, realities of iraq are reflected in our conversations voices data, the iraqi are present through the data and through the work. quickly -- so the presentation of the report will bydone as nancy mentioned michael young first and she gave background of their bios so i will not get into that again. are outside. you can pick them up but they definitely come with a rich experience and michael will go have professor shapiro also comments on the report and dr. elia. michael. up to you. here.n do from michael: thank you. much to thery united states institute of peace for this opportunity to talk research.y corps' and to all of you for coming to we've found out sectariangovernance, identity and opposition groups in iraq. have a bracingo discussion about what these findings might mean for all of and policyymakers shapers. first of all, i think i want to make a kind of up-front of all theo first u.s. department of state, particularly democracy rights and labor section of the department whose consistent support for

first iraq. i visited iraq a couple of months ago. it was my first time there on the ground in five years. i worked in iraq for five years with the american embassy and before that with the coalition provisional authority. my sense is that in iraq on the military side, there is progress. but there are two big challenges. two big challenges. first, on the resource side, both the iraqi government in baghdad and the kurdish regional governmentin irbil. both are dependent on oil. low oil prices are crunching their ability to mobilize resources in the fight against the islamic state. it was very noticeable to me that the kurdish leadership, whom i have known since 2004, were genuinely concerned about their budget abilities to sustain the fight against the islamic state. some of their peshmerga fighters had not been paid for three months. even in baghdad, the authorities were concerned about the resources. second issue on iraq, the politics of national wre reconciliati reconciliation. mike vickers just mentioned the important of deevolution

or the future of iraq. but this is the most important. >> you mentioned an external folder abilities of the islamic state. i take the question was about an internal do you see anything inside the administration that could weaken the organization and? >> yes. x turtle and internal are related. because usually that is from the outside this is the most important filterable because the people are not determining their future. to have the say of their future and by intervening in syria. in order to cover the shortcomings. yes it is not a indefeasible. but the problem is there is an example elected whole of the middle east. from i am into the west. in so we have to set up this example and we have this for you. of march -- with the energy or prosperity. we have to say we are working for a long term future. in afghanistan and iraq. we have a the a plant and a the plan b. >> diaz see any sign that western governments have these plans for the post islamic state? >> i can't see that. i remember with that it needed to

raises the a large saying the level of violence in iraq has been staggering. also ahead, libya's rival political factions announce the formation of a long awaited unity government. >>> chinese stocks rise despite official physician suggesting the slowest economic growth in 25 years. >>> boycotting the oscars, u.s. filmmaker spike lee won't attend what he calls a lily white award ceremony. >>> the united nations is describing the levels of violence against civilians in iraq as staggering. a new report is based on firsthand testimony from victims that say at least 18,000 civilians have lost their lives in the conflict between the start of 2014 and october 2015. the report detailed how at least 3.2 million people have been displaced in the past two years, and around 3,500 civilians, many yazidi women and children are being held as slaves by isil. we have more from baghdad. >> a new u.n. report paint ago very bleak picture for the civilian population of iraq, the report saying between january and october of last year, nearly 19,000 civilians killed because of the

[laughter] the whole run-up to iraq was phony. they were trying to act like it was something the world was behind, which was all -- bu ll. so, i drew rumsfeld. usa, home of the rave. undern, the aussies, down -- someone says -- the coalition is bigger than i thought. [laughter] before we invaded iraq we had some cordial relations with saddam hussein at one point. like in the 1980's. this is what i envisioned after we went in and they captured saddam hussein. old buddy. alluded to this. cartoonists, members of the media and politicians. saying they had grave doubts about rushing into this. wasn't up for reelection, i would have voiced them. so, the thing just backfired. this is a two panel cartoon. someone is saying -- the u.s. is trapped in an unwinnable war. 3300 dead, 25,000 wounded, $500 billion spent. a terrorist recruiters dream. osama is saying -- fetch my flight suit. mission accomplished for him. muche just -- we pretty just gave a rack to it -- gave a iraq-- gave a rock -- gave to iran on a silver platter. i still do know

it would have been mired down in iraq. the great mistake by america was made by bush junior in 2003 because that american invasion was illegal, it was for the purpose of ray yeem change, and it destroyed the state institutions. the americans disbanded the party and disbanded the iraqi army. the result was chaos and islamic militias are best placed to move into the power vacuum. i think the colonel onsal-- colossal blunder was america was in 2003 not in 1991 >>> thank you for joining us. >> thank you >>> u.n. is calling for a 50 million dollars cash injection to help ethiopia. more than 10 million people need food aid. charles stratford reports from north-eastern ethiopia. >> reporter: this man used to have 53 cows. now he only has five. skeletons are scattered over the parced earth. he has lived here all his life. he has ten children. he has received two government food hand outs over recent months but says it's not enough. he says he has never experienced a drought like this before. >> translation: i'm afraid for the peop

saddam was the dictator in iraq. of that, all shiite opposition groups in iraq have such good relations with iran. many of them were in exile in iran. not seeing that iran would have such an influence on post-saddam iraq was one of the biggest mistakes of the war. someone did that -- see that coming and have a lot of progress in negotiating and having iran as an ally -- or just cooperating in a post-saddam iraq. charlie: what impressed you about this person? ben: you see a fighting sequence and you see that iraq is a mess. i think everybody now knows that it is a mess. i say, is it worse today than it was under saddam hussein? and ryan takes a breath and you think he is going to do a dick cheney undefended and argue and he completely opens up. it is one of the best interviews i've ever had the pleasure of doing. he was one of the most honest, thoughtful -- charlie: an intelligent. ben: yes. you cannot tell by the end if you was a republican or democrat. charlie: did he not work well with david trias -- david petraeus

. >> dickerson: stay in iraq. ramadi has been retain or partially retain by iraqi forces why is that so important, retain from isis which took it in may. why is that important? >> it's important for two reasons, john. the first is, what was taken from isis and second is who took it. what was taken, this was strategically significant city. largest city in anbar province, the capital where the sunnis in iraq live. on the strategic road to syria, on the strategic highway to jordan. 70 miles from baghdad, an embarrassment to the iraqi government when they lost it seven months ago. what was taken is of significance. who took it, all of the games to date in iraq have been by the kurds or by shia militia in this case it was iraqi security forces. >> dickerson: tom, we look back on this say this was a turning point for the region? >> i think it's important progress, no doubt about that. a part of continuing progress against isis where they lost about 30% of their territory that they had at the height of their sweep across

so islamic state has appointed iraq is to be the governors of iraq you territories and syrians to recovery of the syrian territories. now, as time goes by fighters have flocked to the organization for many different parts of the world. do you think the attentions inside the organization between the syrians and organizations on one side and the fighters from -- on the other. >> actually the conflict is not there yet. maybe there are some sense of difference between the nationalities working are getting together the best rate. until now, -- you can see it, and mainly -- the chechen and yemen and tunisian, the afghan he, they're not the decision-maker. they can maybe carry out in order, execution for example, we have groups in each group has its own special to your expertise. they are in charge to a certain side of the organization. about five or 6000 of them. they are willing to go blow themselves up. this is the most dangerous one. if. if you have other ones for example, that execute people, they are also the media which is done by sophisticated people. there is one those american who is fr

the number of groups in iraq is scary. the way these groups are structured, the line of commands and their affiliation, sometimes to local partners is also very dangerous. my question is always and this is something i tried to bring up in my discussions with iraqi officials when i meet them is what is the plan to handle the caseload of the 60,000 to 100,000 fighters who are today on the ground. when the conflict ends. these people have been outside the civilian life or well now. even as the conflict and stood a there is a political settlement. what will happen to 62 100,000 young people who are outside the school system or who have been fighting for a five years now or not more than this. this is another scary question that comes across my mind. --it highlights the need for thateport makes the point addressing those issues is a multiyear thing. you have to stay with it. there was questions the back. >> if i am following the hypothesis it is that civil vehicle toa proxy see improvements in governance. as opposed to tackling

it also has a history going back to the iran iraq war, and eight year terrible war, unprovoked by iraq at the beginning, which is the saudi arabia yns helped to finance. and these scars are still not resolved. >> and there's isis. >> and there's isis and other jihadist elements, which, by the narrative of the iranians, they see that the saudis have, in part, encouraged. and if they will point to the fact that almost all of the terrorists involved in 9/11 were saudis, none were iranians. >> thank you very much. >> so tension piling upon tension in a region already fraught with sectarian division. when we come back, you heard what jack straw said about needing both powers to defeat isis in syria or iraq. next, how is that going? we get a special report from the iraqi city of ramadi. let's celebrate these moments... this woman... this cancer patient... christine... living her life... loving her family. moments made possible in part by the breakthrough science of advanced genomic testing. after christine exhausted the standard treatment options for her disease, doctors working with the cen

he is indonesian with linked to islamic state of iraq and the levant in syria.vaessen has more from jas car ta. >> reporter: they have been accused of being caught off guard. police are now trying to find out who was involved in thursday's attacks. they say they have evidence an exconvict who joined isil in syria, may have planned the attack. >> he gave the order from syria, but he has also the chief in -- in indonesia, that he the one basically performed the situation. >> reporter: this alleged leader is still on the run. three other men were arrested in a suburb of jakarta, suspected of plotting an attack. police have not confirmed if they were involved in thursday's attacks. analysts say an estimated 120 indonesians have been trained to commit isil-inspired attacks. >> translator: they have training camps. they have been fighting as war lords in the jungle, and have trained in difficult circumstances. we have information that they have received money from isil through uyghur people in china. >> reporter: analysts say the authorities were taken by surprise on

most of us are in debt and life is very expensive. >> hoping to sell this year's harvest to iraq.ility in kurdish areas the border crossings have been closed. he's now looking for buyers in istanbul. >> it's not my job to find alternative markets. it's the governments or traders. fruits cannot wait long in refrigerators. this product cannot wait forever, and we have commitments towards workers an that we have to meet. >> the turkish government has promised to compensate those who have been affected by russian sanctions. but until this dispute comes to an end citrus farmers will continue to worry about their future. hashem ahelbarra, al jazeera. in southern turkey. >> one of taiwan's presidential candidates said that the island needs to stop living in fear of confrontation with china. facing off with two others in the debates. china was a major focus with the debates and china views taiwan as a breakaway province. >>> he senegal in response to november's deadly attack in neighboring mali, they want border controls reinstated in all west african countries to prevent any further atta

will iraq be able to build on the momentum they have now and push the islamic state out of iraq?hen you have on the syrian side, you have the u.s. assisting syrian opposition fighters, who in the east are fighting against isis. if you can shrink that territory, isis is different because it derives much of its income through its territory. if isis holds firm, that will pp

>> we got it right with respect to iraq. when we left iraq was in good shape.er we left and barack obama pulled out it was leaving the no stay behind force and it created a vacuum. i think that was a significant problem. >> was going into iraq in 2003 the original? >> no. >> was the world in more power with hussein? >> no. >> gi dhe was threatened with w the united states saw. he did the deal. should we have worked to keep him in place or should we -- >> i think the most important thing was he get rid of the nuclear materials. imagine what had happened if he hasn't done that. >> my question is did barack obama make a mistake by pushing out and creating another void? >> i can't say he did. i don't know how long he would have survived. we came close to have a radical group acquire capabilities. same thing in eastern syria. when the north koreans build. they took it out in 2007. >> what are we doing moving forward with the challenges we have? to find out the pentagon has been exaggerating claims against isis. >> i think one of the things we want to make sure we ge

making it impossible to enrich uranium at the iraq nuclear reactor. that includes moving all of its enriched uranium except for 300 kilograms out of the country. that includes reorganizing the functions of the newell reactor so that it can only produce nuclear materials for peaceful purposes. not for potential nuclear weapons. once the i.a.e.a. has issued it's report to the members of the p5+1 to the e.u. and u.n. security council, that is when implementation day actually takes effect. >> assuming everything goes according to plan how quickly could everything change for iran? >> well, one of the things that was done in the u.n. security couple by the e.u. and by the u.s. government was that back in on october 18th, which was adoption day, all of these various entities started issuing regulations and orders to basically move forward to implementation day. basically going ahead and authorizing certain moves such as the lifting of sanctions against iran related to its respected nuclear weapons program as well as travel bans and sanctions on persons who m

iraq is a unique situation that we're facing. we are calling it a forgotten crisis because we are surrounded by other countries with much higher profile, but let me state a few facts. we have 322 million displaced population. we have nearly 250,000 refugees that are also in iraq. out of the 3.2 million based in iraq the majority majority of them are children. those children are going through a difficult situation, getting them to school is hard and the majority of them, at least 700,000 of them, miss at least one year of their schooling. there is no proper hygiene, there is no water, there is no proper health care system. the entire life of the children is affected and their future is crashing on their head and we are actually watching a situation that we will see a quite large number of children that lost their future. so we are dealing with a situation that is so dire that getting sources to support children, put them in school, put them in protection, put them into a life with dignity where they get proper water, hygiene and a

he is indonesian with alleged links to the islamic state of iraq and the levant in syria.jazeera's step vaessen is in indonesia. >> reporter: police are trying to find out who was involved in thursd thursday's attack. they say they have evidence that an exconvict may have planned the attack. >> he gave the order from syria, but he has also the chief in -- in -- in this mission. he is the one basically, you know, prepare this operation in jakarta. >> reporter: the alleged leader is still on the run. three other men were arrested suspected of plotting an attack. police have not confirmed if they very involved in thursday's attacks. analysts say an estimated 120 people have been trained to execute isil-inspired attacks >> translator: we have information that they have received money from isil through uyghur people in china. >> reporter: analysts say authorities were taken by surprise on thursday in what has been described as an intelligence failure. stricter laws are being discussed in parliament. but the government says it wants to take what is called a soft approach. >> you

eric: there has been some success in ramadi in iraq. i was wondering if you could take this opportunity to assess the state of isis not only in iraq and syria but in europe and the united states, and the threat it poses? rasmussen: you're right to talk about recent successes. but we do live in a heightened threat environment that is either tied to isil directed or isil inspired plotting. a lot of what we see gives us concern about isil's ability to inspire individuals in their own locations to carry out activities. we also see indication that isis is looking to organize direct plotting aimed at western targets as well. focusing narrowly and specifically on iraq and syria, the effort by iraqi syria security forces is an important step forward in the effort to degrade and push back and shrink the size of the territory that that isis controls inside iraq. as we've said all along, from an analytical perspective, there is no single action that is going to result in the degradation of the isis threat. this is something that will take time. da

the group faces losses across iraq and syria. >> i'm david foster. you're watching al jazeera live from london. also coming up, syriaens burning anything they can find to keep war. >>> pakistani taliban condemns an attack on an university that kil killed 20 people and wounded dozens of others. >>> and the reality show where the name of the game is to become president. >> the fight against the islamic state in iraq and the levant, one of the areas on which they focused was the need to capitalize on recent gains against the group. isil has lost about a quarter of its territory in iraq and syria, and defense ministers from the u.s. and france hosted the meeting. the australian, british, dutch were part of the talks. russia was not part of the talks. they are also bombing isil, but they were not invited to paris. secretary of state john kerry broached the idea when he met his russian counterpart. >> this was the highest level of meetings. their objective to accelerate and intensify the campaign in iraq and syria. the u.s. navy launches bombing raids from

also iraq's second largest city of mosul is still under occupation by isil. be seeing a -- perhaps a liberation of that city or at least an operation against that city at some point this year. according to iraqi sources, that will spark another humanitarian crisis and the u.n. will have to reassess their figures as will the iraqi government. >>> palestinian police officer has been killed off he opened fire on an israeli checkpoint. he wounded three israelis during the attack in the occupied west bank near the illegal settlement there. palestinian officials say the man had worked as a body guard for a palestinian prosecutor. our correspondent stefanie dekker is in west jerusalem. >> reporter: this is the second time that a palestinian authority security officer opens fire on israeli soldiers when it comes to the latest wave in violence, lets me just read what was paste odd his facebook page just before he carried out this a being at that. he said unfortunately i don't see anything worth living for as long as the on occupation will remain and is muscling our br