jamie mcintyre has been covering the pentagon for decades and has done plenty of these article 32 hearings. what do you think of the charges the army is bringing today? >> according to what colonel king said, he's not facing the death penalty which under the uniform code of military justice can be one of the penalties for desertion and shirking has hazardous duty. it carries a five-year imprisonment sentence for that charge and the shirking dutyies carries potential life imprisonment. when he left the manhunt put many of in danger. and the next step is this article 32 hearing compared to a civilian grand jury, one interesting difference between the military article 32 hearing and the civilian grand jury in case of a civilian grand jury, just the prosecution presents evidence to make the case if there is enough evidence to go to trial. in the military system both sides get to present evidence and call witnesses as they determine if there is enough to proceed to the general court-martial. you get more of a full day in court before the--before you decide whether it's going to go to a full tri

troops >>> jamie mcintyre at the pentagon. thank you >>> the trial of a u.s. marine charged with murder is under way in the philippines. joseph scott pendleton is charged with gillkilling a transgender changed woman. >>> ted cruz announced his candidacy, no exploratory committee or thinking about it. he jumped in. the freshman republican put his credentials on display. >> it is a time to reclaim the constitution of the united states. >> staged at the nation's biggest christian school. the conservative liberty university, the speech took advantage of the optics of thousands of students at the mandatory event. >> i believe in the power of millions of courageous conservatives rising up to reignite the promise of america. that is why today, i am announcing that i'm running for president of the united states. [ cheering and applause ] >> reporter: the speech spinning a narrative of the son of a cuban immigrant, who got through princeton and harvard law school by taking a job and student loans. he called for religious conservatives and g.o.p. values. in his two year

jamie mcintyre joins us from washington to tell us about the isil. >> reporter: the evidence is anecdotal and it paints a picture of a group losing some cohesion. the signs are things like tensions rising between some indigenous fighters and some of the foreign fighters that have come to join them. and the difficulty isil has recrews new rekrutcruitrecruits. they have crediting the u.s.-led coalition air strikes putting a squeeze on isil. >> the amount of pressure we placed on isil over the past several months we know for a fact has generated internal pressures that continue to contribute to their inability to maneuver effective and their inability to make new ground so the air campaign is having an effect. >> one of the anecdotal pieces is that they're starting to fray, the public executions, recently members of isil fighters themselves have that be executed accused of spying by a british human rights group believes is some fighters were simply disenhas noted and wanted to leave. that's why they were killed. >> given this enormous international investment in fighting isil how important i

jamie mcintyre explains why. >> iraq's prime minister announced the offensive and offered i.s.i.l.hters what he called one last chance to lay down arms or face the punishment they deserve because they stood with terrorism. tikrit is a sunni city, 80 miles north of the baghdad as they fell to fighters as they marched across last summer. several attempts to retake the city last summer fail. this time the iraqi army has the help of tens of thousands of irani backed shia militia men, improving the odds of success much the u.s. fears the assault could ipp flame tensions with -- inflame tensions with the sunni minority especially if it destroys part of the city. one told al jazeera we can't have a kobane referring to the city taken in january, but only after leaving the the city in ruin. the coalition strikes targets, the pentagon made a point of saying it did not provide cover to the tikrit offensive. while the u.s. supports operations to push i.s.i.l. out of iraq it's not supporting this operation, playing that iraq is not that country. it is been said that it is an iranian backed oper

jamie mcintyre explains. >> reporter: tony, it was a week ago that the top generals said that the iraqi forces would take the city of tikrit. but this week, general martin dempsey downgraded his prediction saying that it now appears that the iraqi forces are not having that kind of success that they initially reported. 20,000 iraqi troops are taking part in the offensive and most of those are shia militia but they are joined by a small number of sunni fighters from tikrit. they have been making rapid progress in the initial parts of this operation, quickly getting to the city and encircling it, and now they seem to have bogged down at that location. the pentagon today offered a more sober assessment of how they're going and there appear to be very hard urban combat ahead. and the initial battlefield reports say that it's somewhat overrated. if the iraqi government continues to mount this offensive without the assistance of u.s. air power and the pentagon today said again that they have had no request from iraq for airstrikes to support the offensive in tikrit. but they did however relea

. >> admiral jamie mcintyre. you mentioned in your opening comments that north korea claimed to have miniaturized elements of its program. you made refers to that in your testimony about. can you help us understand what is -- does north korea have a nuclear warhead it can put on a missile at this point? what's your best knowledge about that? >> well, as you have mentioned and as i stated, they claim they have miniaturized a nuclear warhead. just that statement in itself is very important and cannot be ignored. at the same time they have demonstrated by launching various associated rockets as well as their space launch vehicle during the time frame here. and they've paraded this missile called the kno8 around clearly put that on demonstration. as of yet i don't see any tests yet associated with this miniaturized claim. but as a combatant commander, it's a threat that we cannot ignore as a country. >> does deterrence have any effect on north korea? >> absolutely. the fact that we have a safe, secure and credible st