jamie mcintire, the pentagon. >>> a study that shows americans just don't know when to take time off. jennifer london reports. >> americans are taking off less vacation time than ever. there's a cost to all that unused vacation time and it's huge. according to a travel industry trade group, u.s. companies owe their employees the equivalent of 224 billion dollars in time off. to put it into perspective, that's nearly half the size of the current federal deficit. it's almost as much as the gross domestic product of portugal and 24 times the annual revenue of the nfl. but there's more. $52.4 billion, that's what employees like you are forfeiting each year in earned benefits. about a third of paid vacation days simply disappear, they can't be rolled over because of use it or lose it company policies, hard at work on a beautiful warm saturday morning but looking for time off next month. >> why do americans leave so much unused vacation time on the table? >> first off they are accused of back stabbing. if i take a vacation day oh my gosh what's going to happen? they may be up for a promotio

jamie mcintire, al jazeera the pentagon. >> almost a quarter of a million people have been killed in syria' conflict. according to the u.n. bhaised among the 70,000 civilians killed. it then firearmed into civil war as president bin laden bashar al-assad. >> huge step towards justice for the victims. >> now the government wants to know who. >> those in favor of the draft solution, thank you. no wrp has a joint investigative mechanism to final lids point the finger of blame. first time blame could be assigned to the perpetrators. >> this sends a clear message to all those if you gas people it will identify you. it brairs repeating as well that we need to bring the same unit urgently find opolitical solution to the syrian crisis. >> the opcw concluded that chlorine has quote systematically and repeatedly been used as a weapon in syria but never had the mandate to assign blame. view with skepticism u.s. and its allies allegation that syrian president bashar al-assad was responsible. >> the question of who used chlorine is still unanswered, primarily the mechanism of the u.n. and opcw do

jamie mcintire has the story. >> u.s. drones apply the area on a daily basis. they are extremely accurate killing machines but drones are only as good as the targeting information fed to them. this year u.s. officials say that information has been stunningly on target. monday a drone took out jeneaid hussain who the pentagon said was the prime cyber-hacker. hussain was traveling in a vehicle in the i.s.i.s. held stronghold of raqqa. he was standing alone. a missile killed him and no one else. hussain is believed to be the brains behind a lack, that developed a kill list, against u.s. military and government employees, many whose names and photos were posted online. he is suspected of communicating with the gunman in the may attack in garland texas in a contest to draw the prophet muhammed. he claimed responsibility on his twitter account. >> this individual is very dangerous. he had significant technical skills and had expressed a strong desire to kill americans and recruit others to kill americans. and you know so he was working to inspire lone wolf attacks he

but as jamie mcintire reports there are plenty of questions about the effectiveness of the air campaign in its first anniversary. >> reporter: when the u.s. started bombing last summer i.s.i.l. was estimated to have between 20,000 and 30,000 fighters. now one year and 6,000 air strikes later that estimate is unchanged essentially. while the u.s. has claimed to kill 10,000 fighters they have been replaced. still the obama administration argues one year later i.s.i.l. is losing. >> in iraq, i.s.i.l. has lost the freedom to operate in some 30% of the territory they held last summer. overall i.s.i.l. has lost more than 17,000 square kilometers of territory in northern syria over the course of last year and now cut off from all but 68 miles of the more than 500 mile long border between syria and turkey. >> reporter: the u.s. central demand says over the past ten months kobani and tikrit in iraq. >> instead of waving black flags and traversing big swaths of the country, capturing large swaths of new territory you see an adversary that is losing ground steadily on nearly every front. >> but pr

jamie mcintire is at the pentagon for us. jamie what does the pentagon say about these allegations? >> they are taking it very seriously even if they can't confirm what agent was used in the attacks. they were aware the reports had come from kurdish soldiers, through germany, some of the germans were advising the kurds. chemical burns prompting speculation that they might have encountered mustard gas or chlorine or some other agent. the u.s. is taking these reports seriously because it's considering i.s.i.l. as the kind of force that would deploy these means, and tests are being done to confirm what these troops might have been exposed to. but nevertheless the pentagon says fit turns out to be true, it shows the kind of adversary they're up against in iraq. >> reporter: jamie, the u.s. central command say iraqi troops are in the second week of a multiweek campaign to get i.s.i.l. out of ramadi. what is the latest there? >> reporter: well, you may recall that there was a great fanfare when they announced iraqi effort to liberate ramadi in neas neashanbar profnls. i.s.i.lanbar provinc

antonio. >> jamie mcintire, in washington. i.s.i.l. was on the minds of russia's president vladimir putin and egyptian president abdel fatah al-sisi. the two met in moscow for the second time in three months. the kremlin hopes to have more influence in egypt. rory challands has more. >> reporter: according to vladimir putin, russia and egypt have agreed on what they call a broad intelligence front, in the region including syria to fight i.s.i.l. that's an interesting development because the saudis have said specifically there can be no future for president assad in syria. and the saudis hold the purse strings in a large extent for egypt at the moment. they are giving egypt a lot of financial aid. so if the saudis don't like the sound of this then there's a specific pressure point that they have to change egypt's mind. we'll have to seize what happens on that. and there was talk of the gift of a warship which was donated to egypt by russia, egypt said thank you very, very much for that. >> al jazeera's rory challands in moscow. >> a pea

jamie mcintire has the story. >> they say they're taking the allegations very seriously, even at this they cannot confirm whether a chemical agent, possibly mustard gas was used in the attacks. nevertheless, they say it is the thing i.s.i.l. would do if it had the capability. these reports originally came to the german defense ministry, some germans are advising the kurdish peshmerga in iraq. they believed they were exposed to something, some of them had trouble breathing and exhibited chemical burns. kurdish authorities and iraqi authorities are endeavoring to take samples if in fact i.s.i.l. has introduced chemical weapons to the battlefield. david. >> iraqi forces are now in a second half of a multiweek campaign to get i.s.i.l. out of the crucial city of ramadi. what is the latest in the fight? >> reporter: david, you may remember, they were beginning an offense to retake ramadi in nawranbar province. isolation phase of the campaign, there is one central command spokesman put it, putting a noose around i.s.i.l.'s neck. the idea is to completely encircle ramadi before they take the

jamie mcintire joins us from the penta goodeon. i know this ruling gets pretty technical.o be clear, it does not specifically address the constitutionalty of the program. is that right? >> reporter: that's right, erica. this case at this level was at a federal appeals court was decided on what you might call a technicality. at procedural ruling. the case overall is about the nsa's authority to collect meta data on u.s. telephone customers to create a database to look for pattern as they search for terrorists. in this case, the plaintiff, the person suing the nsa, was larry claimant, a public interest lawyer, and what the court ruled essentially was that he didn't actually have legal standing to bring the case because he couldn't prove that his phone number was among those collected by the nsa. he is going to go back in the case then remanded to a lower court but the constitutional question about whether this is legal or not was not decided at all by this court. the plaintiff -- claimant is going to refile the case using the verizon business customers whose numbers are in t

national security correspondent jamie mcintire has more from washington. >> the question is when president obama makes upbeat pronouncements like this is he really working off the best intelligence? >> in short i.s.i.l.'s recent losses in both syria and iraq prove that i.s.i.l. can and will be defeated. >> the new york times reports an internal inquiry, citing unnamed officials, the pentagon's unnamed general is looking into whether central command is improperly reworking intelligence assessments to provide a more optimistic assessment of progress. weapons of mass destruction used to support the u.s. invasion of iraq in 2003. no such weapons were ever found. touring the vietnam war, u.s. military commanders often discounted pessimistic intelligence assessments arguing for the escalation of military force. more recently u.s. central command briefers have provided optimistic reports of assessments defense i.s.i.l. which have quickly been proven wrong. on cent com, the offensive to retake mosul could begin as early as april or may of this year. it now seems to be more than a year away at best

jamie mcintire is at the pentagon with more. >> libby, two major cases out of the pentagon, stories that islamic state may have used chemical weapons on kurdish fighters, through german authorities who are working with the kurds. believe they have encountered a chemical agent they were having trouble breathing and some suffered what looked like chemical burns. the u.s. is investigating whether mustard gas may have been university by soldiers in the north or chlorine gas. they can't confirm that but are taking these reports very seriously because they believe it is the kind of thing i.s.i.l. would do if they had that ability. the pentagon is updating us of the efforts to retake ramadi in the anbar province. it's been very slow going since then, today the central command said that the iraqi forces are in the second phase of the isolation portion of the mission, which is a mission to completely encircle ramadi or in the words of the central command today put a noose around the neck of i.s.i.l. they say that is still going on and it's very slow because the iraqi forces have to clear explosiv

jamie mcintire is at the pentagon. jamie. >> the slow progress against i.s.i.l. clearly has the pentagon on the offensive especially this week with the embarrassing revelation that the initial attempt to deploy anti-i.s.i.l. forces in syria turned out to be a complete failure. nonetheless, military personnel say that a methodic approach will eventually defeat i.s.i.l. >> one year and 6,000 air strikes later, the estimate of troop strength is essentially unchanged. while the fight has essentially destroyed 10,000 i.s.i.l. fighters, they feel i.s.i.l. is losing. >> 30% of the territory they held last summer, overall, i.s.i.l. has lost more than 17,000 square clo kilometers of territory in northern syria that's over the course of the last year and they are now cult off from -- cut off from all but 68 miles of the 500 mile long border between syria and turkey. >> the u.s. central command says over the last ten months centers have been retain from i.s.i.l, including kobani in syria and in iraq. >> like we saw last year capturing large swaths of new territory. you see