jane arraf, thank you very much for talking with us. is the government in baghdad dealing with all this? we see reports that a large number of government troops are simply laying down their arms in the face of these insurgents. >> it's absolutely scrambling. one of the things that prime minister nouri al-maliki tried to do alook with forming a new government because it's now a government in the making is essentially he has tried to get parliament to agree to declare a state of emergency across the country. parliament has declined to do that. they feel he was using all of this for political gain to further expand his powers. so it's really a political crisis on top of a huge security crisis. he's reaching out to the united states, as you've seen, and reaching out to kurdish leaders to try to solve this but this is such an intractable problem, and the sail, the impones of it, the potential repercussions of losing iraq's second biggest city are absolutely huge ivment is there any question there, jane, about how serious a threat this insurg

first, jane arraf has the latest from baghdad. >> that tension we saw befohalff the last civil war which dragged this country into brutality and chaos is emerging again. we have been seen images and see seen here on the ground those fighters from the army. the army are followers of shia clerics. a lot of people will remember them because he sent people, particularly young men out into the streets in 2004/2005 to fight american soldiers. in 2004, they were fighting a bitter battle against the u.s. army and nejev as well as other places. they are back. suter has basically reorganized them in the show of force that we saw today to send the message that they are here and they will defend iraq. the really big development, though, michael, as you mentioned, is at the syrian border quite far from baghdad but extremely worrying. it's the main border point with syria. >> crossing, we understand from security sources, has fallen to the islamic state of iraq and the lavant, the isil. when they moved in, that means to back up a tiny bit, that means there are fighters from that group, the al-qaeda of

>> jane arraf, live from baghdad.hank you. >>> here in the u.s., protesters took to the streets in a donations cities across the country after a decade of intervention and extremely high costs. they don't want america to go ba back into iraq in terms of the war. john terrett was there in washingdz. john, what exactly are these people saying at these demonstrations? >> good afternoon, michael. well, they are citing previous infamous wars that the u.s. has been involved in, including the vietnam war, the korean war, the first gulf war back in the '90s and the iraq war of 11 years ago. they say it's always the same story. the u.s. begins in a low-key fashion, but then things ramp up as the country gets sucked deeper and deeper into the conflict. they worry that that's what's going to happen this time. their message is: no new war in iraq and that's what the want the president to hear. >> anti-war protests outside the whi white house, the president sending u.s. forces back to iraq and these people fear boots on the ground