we saw that in tikrit. >> host: is a former and retired colonel was it a t.acification of the state? >> guest: it's a cheap shot. i know that general gardner and others, people have said we never should have disbanded the iraqi army but let me clarify that. it disbanded itself. i mean it literally melted away. we made contact with some of the last fighting elements around april 26 to may 1 in the north tikrit where the republican guard corp. was. they completely faded away. many of the fights we had at that late stage of the game were spotty meaning that they were in civilian clothes trying to steal armory weaponry and get it out of there and we had a couple of clashes that were related to republican guard soldiers trying to make off with weapons from the area. the army disbanded it so this notion somehow that there was going to be formal surrenders and lines of german troops and the conference and they would have big surrenders that was never even a remote possibility to begin with. >> host: how long were you in iraq's? >> guest: i was in iraq for a year fro

sunni have returned to their homes in tikrit, something that only a few months ago seemed unimaginable. our cooperation is a major reason that we've been able to see significant progress in halting daishs momentum and in some places, reversing it. we recognize that no amount of military force will terminate daish's horrific violence if it is not also matched by a broader political and economic effort that addresses the underlying conditions that have allowed this group to gain traction. that includes addressing the dire humanitarian situation. today, i'm pleased to announce that the united states will contribute an additional $62 million in assistance to those iraqis who are displaced and in need. with this new funding the united states has now provided more than $475 million in

we saw that in tikrit. >> host: is a former and retired colonel was it a t.acification of the state? >> guest: it's a cheap shot. i know that general gardner and others, people have said we never should have disbanded the iraqi army but let me clarify that. it disbanded itself. i mean it literally melted away. we made contact with some of the last fighting elements around april 26 to may 1 in the north tikrit where the republican guard corp. was. they completely faded away. many of the fights we had at that late stage of the game were spotty meaning that they were in civilian clothes trying to steal armory weaponry and get it out of there and we had a couple of clashes that were related to republican guard soldiers trying to make off with weapons from the area. the army disbanded it so this notion somehow that there was going to be formal surrenders and lines of german troops and the conference and they would have big surrenders that was never even a remote possibility to begin with. >> host: how long were you in iraq's? >> guest: i was in iraq

tikrit, the u.s. made a critical decision to withhold air support until such time as the iraqi security forces were leading the fight and it is that kind of movement and posture and policy that we need to constantly reinforce in order to make sure that the central government is sort of driving the show and that those populations where combat is being undertaken have confidence they are representing them. syria remains the hardest part of the puzzle and there is no doubt about this. the coalition itself is divided. and i know general allen made comments about this but he is walking a delicate type right in -- tight rope in holding all of this together. the strategy has hinged on this program to train and equip 15,000 anti-isis fighters. if we are still at a number of about 60 a year in there is a need for review and the general focused on what we need to do to get that going. and one of the things we are arguing for the report, once we can get the program online it is necessary for the u.s. government

in tikrit our fires permitted iraqi security forces to push daesh out of tikrit and recover the city. today, less than three months later, hundreds of displaced families have now made a peaceful return to the city. this process gives us reason to be cautiously optimistic about the iraqi led efforts for stabilization and the stabilized support to liberate populations and communities as they seek prevent sectarian reprisal. the coalition has played a vital role in improving their cape abilities as well. 15 partners are helping to build the iraqi forces at six training camps eight nations have participated in air strikes over iraq and five over syria. among the more than 8,000 iraqi fighters that the coalition has trained, many are helping to secure the attack in the effort to recover ramadi. in a short period of time since ramadi's fall, president obama's decision to locate our troops at a fifth training center in the takata habania complex, has produced 1300 tribal fighters who are engaged in supporting the iraqi security forces in attacks on ramadi at the moment. to make no mistake, i

they hope it will work -- to conquer tikrit last april. laura: forces loyal to the president recapture the largest military base this friday. dozens of fighters were killed or captures. it is another blow to the rebels who captured the southern port of aden last month. to israel, for the hunt for those behind a deadly arson attack continues. citizens suspected of violence against palestinians -- the head of one extremist group arrested in northern israel today is not accused of involvement in friday's attacked that left an 18-month-old baby dead. reporter: israel will fight extremism in any way it can and whoever the perpetrator. after last week's attack by suspected jewish extremists on a palestinian home that killed one toddler and a knife attack by an orthodox jew that killed one woman, the israeli prime minister was unequivocal. >> in the past days, we have witnessed to despicable crimes. our policy toward these crimes is zero tolerance. i have instructed security services and law enforcement authorities to act with all the legal means

tikrit did not have been cleared.ity.not an insignificant the coalition is definitely supporting and that regard. we are beginning to press on ramadi. falluja is in circle. we have a number of training -- to bringave been them back up online. and the air campaign has been very effective to this point as well, as well as the kurds in both iraq and of course the kurds in syria have been successful. if you were to look at a map of where daesh was this time, let's face of zimmer of last year and where they are today, the surface area and the amount of the population that is under their direct control has shrunk significantly, and it is going to continue to shrink. most of the turkish border, 2/3 or so, is back in the hands of what i would call friendly's. there is a portion that remains to be taken, but it will be taken, and as we continue to close is aspects of the turkish order, then we can have a fact. i'm always reticent to take issue with senator mccain in public, and i can understand how there would be some that fee

he is able to provide air support to forces -- you can't controls -- he was put in charge of the tikrit operation, using to designated terrorist organizations to expel .unnis from the area that -- thehe ought fight against sunnis is a bigger deal than isis. this was a clear and whole strategy. blanket is simply because .here is no iraqi security he has not built a forced to take back ramadi and falluja. >> he has made baghdad more dependent on tehran and they were a year ago. , working in the open with designated terrorists, and the bank that funded his organization was delisted. so he is winning and now we just gave him more money, and now we just gave him the ability to buy advanced weapons. he can't help but smile. >> this may, in fact, prolong the syrian campaign. coffersinto the arabian because they have provided tremendous financial support. the captain has directed and coordinated across the region, orchestrating involvement from hezbollah and syria, sponsoring iraqi shia militias. he is directly behind the aerial bombings of centers, the destruction of bakeries and food centers

drive i was put in charge of the tikrit operations. using to designated terrorist organizations to conduct operations, expelling sudanese on these areas. of sanctions violations. suleimani espouse those able to travel, leading designated terrorist organizations in the fight against isis. let me caveat that. the fight against sunnis opposed to the iraqi government, that's a bigger deal than isis. so this was a clear and hold strategy. clear this is outcome hold the area so they can come back and. and then this blanket labeling of the sunnis as collaborators simply because there's no iraqis to get a forces to to protect them. this is a qassem suleimani in iraq has not built a force to take back mosul. has not built a force to get back ramadi or fallujah. no, he is winning. is made baghdad morgue depend on tehran than they were a year and half ago. he's out in the open working directly with designated terrorists and t the bank that directly funds his organization was also be listed. not to mention what is doing in syria and these other pl

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 president obama's critics including many of the republicans who seek to replace him, insist that i.s.i.l. could be defeated swiftly if u.s. changed its approach. >> to destroy i.s.i.s. it is necessary. >> we've got a president who instead says we're going to change hearts and minds. sometimes you win a war by killing murderous evil terrorists. >> if you are running for president of the united states and you don't understand that we need more american ground forces in iraq, and that america has to be part of a regional ground force that will go into syria and destroyed i.s.i.l. in syria then you're not ready to be commander in chief and you're not serious about the destroying i.s.i.l. >> reporter: there are now about 3500 american personnel in iraq but only providing advice and support. the pentagon concedes that the full fo

whether it is fighting in tikrit for visiting the wounded were at walter reed, ray has been the leader, their kids lead with the quick mine, palestinians and a serving spirit. while the army has been his profession for more than 39 years serving this great nation and its people, protecting his beloved army has always been his career. but there are so many of you here today, so many senior leaders, both active and retired and civilians, declared a true test of a legacy of ray odierno. as the secretary said there truly no earthly way to fully capture the breath that death of raise 39 years of service to the army, into the nation, at least not in this ceremony. -- breadth and depth. rate has made a difference edward he served in each post leading in which and lasting legacy to his army. his grandfather and his father also named ray hot in that life lesson and he should with his own family and soldiers. do the right thing, regardless of what is swirling around you. george marshall once famously said, all right straight down the road, do what's best and do it frankly without aviation. to ou

i'm going to put a sack over your head like a camera crew in tikrit and going in the back of a van to amish country. wouldn't that be awesome to life a life that you never knew. >> jimmy: he might know now how many books have you written. >> 4 1/2. dr. drew and i wrote the first one. >> jimmy: you are like a regular danielle steel. unbelievable. i'm nervous when i read your books because there are nuggets about me and sometimes there are things i didn't want shared. >> there are more soul search gems about you. >> jimmy: i'm in this one a few times. >> when i met jimmy, i was telling him just over lunch one day -- i think when we first met i said i have one of my buddies ray. ray comes from one of these a-hole families where they get give everyone the first initial in the family, ron, rich, ron, ray. and i look at jimmy and go isn't that obnoxious. what kind of -- would do that. and jimmy goes, okay i will tell my dad james and my mom and my brother john and my sister jill. what are the chances? you really got to announce that stuff early on, jimmy. >> jimmy: you also forgot my kids k

in iraq, the group lost territory around the sinjar mountains and mosul dam, as well as tikrit, which is on the road to baghdad. in neighboring syria, isil lost control of the border towns kobane after intense battles with kurdish fighters, but despite losses, isil still controls large areas of both countries, including raqqa in syria and mosul in iraq. >> a research sort at the massachusetts institute of technology in the u.s. joins us now. thanks very much for being with us. we've got activists saying that the u.s. strategy is failing to make significant gains against isil. why is isil proven to be so resilient? >> well, i think there are a couple of things. it's really a mixed bag here. on one side of the ledger, isil has made a series of really bad strategic decisions. they're trying to fight everyone at the same time, normally that's a losing strategy, but what's been in their favor is their adversaries are divided and weak. despite pronouncements from sawed and turkey that they would take the fight to isil, that really hasn't happened. saudi is focused on yemen, turkey has divid

. >> reporter: that's those camden county cops happy to give back and build bonds that come tikrit cal time with so much unrest between police and minority communities. >> we have officers out partaking of what the residents as far as eating, hanging out. as far as even just breaking bread. communicating, getting to know each other. >> reporter: police captain says national night out is about celebrating the progress. >> i'm officer gabe. which is huge. because now you're not seen as just the officer you're actually scene as part of the community. >> reporter: all the while breaking down barriers. >> some of those barriers can be getting out of the car and interact. staying in that area get to know the community. getting to know who lives there, who doesn't live there and know who they are by name. >> reporter: the best part the kids see the difference, too. >> there's no drugs over here or nothing. >> reporter: it's a good thing if the kids can see the difference too. five national night out events across camden and brought together members of the various town watch organizations. luc

blood and treasure that literally poured into the grounds of iraq, only to give mosul and ramadi and tikritback to isis? and we don't stop it even as these americans died? they get a lot of money from the oilfields. >> they have, and to the extent they can control the area around baiji, which is in the northwest corner of iraq, they have the access to the oil. but a couple of things that are important, oil is a fraction today than it was when they started. and the obama game plan has produced nothing but refugees, 2 and a half million of them from area to iraq, entire christian villages have been annihilated. it's a genocide. >> what would you add to that strategy? >> okay, number one, recognize the enemy for what it is. the enemy is radical islam. any presidential candidate who can't say that ought not to be commander in chief of the united states. very seriously. isis is gaining daily, and if we want to defeat isis, here's what any presidential candidate ought to do. directly arm the kurds, the christian brigades of the peshmerga and work with the sunni front, through jordan. and number t

and of course the very amenable governors around tikrit and areas of the north.he city of the generals historically and allying them with the previous al qaeda aligned jihadist movement that freed itself from al qaeda. meant that you have a very strong and kind of shocking grouping there that was very coordinated. believed in what it was doing and had religious kind of unity which at least meant everyone was a lands fundamentally about what they were doing. that's helped them no end. and i think in ramadi especially, they turned really good tactical abilities took advantage of the sand storm to clear out the city. i know the operations commander was condemned for at the time for allowing the city to fall. some blame, given to the americans and british for not helping enough. gun, the use i've sand storm for provide shield from their cover helped the militants take the final blocks of the city. allowed the footage of the iraqis fleeing again a year after mosul. very dramatic. >> justin, thank you. >> thank you very much. >>> still to come on this al jazerra news h

past year 10 major population centers have been retaken from isil, including kobane in syria and tikrit. >> instead of masked isil forces waving black flags and that versioning the country sides of iraq and sear request in big convoys like we saw last year capturing large swaths of new territory, you see an adversary that's losing ground steadily on nearly every front. >> reporter: but president obama's critic including many of the republicans who seek to replace him insist isil could be defeated quickly if the president would do an about face on his refusal to put american combat boots. >> i would not place one american life at risk unless it was absolutely necessary. but to destroy isis is it necessary. >> we have a president that says we are going to change hearts and minds. sometimes you win a war by killing, murderous evil terror iterrorists. we will take the political handcuffs off the military. >> if you are running for president of the united states and you don't understand that we need more american ground forces in iraq, and that america has to be part of a regional ground for

whether it is fighting in tikrit or visiting a wounded warrior at a hospital bed in walter reed, rayd, calloused hands and a servant's spirit. and while the army has been his profession for more than 39 years, serving this great nation and it is people, protecting his beloved army has always been his career. that there are so many of you here today, so many senior leaders, both active and retired and civilians, it is a clear and true testament to the legacy of ray odierno. as a secretary said, there is really no earthly way to fully capture the breadth and depth of ray's 39 years of service to the army and to the nation, at least not in this ceremony. but to put it most broadly ray has made a difference everywhere he served in each post, leaving a rich and lasting legacy to his army. his grandfather, silvio, and his father, also named ray, taught him the life lesson and shared it with his own family and soldiers, do the right thing regardless what is swirling around you. as george marshall once famously said, go right straight down the road. what's best and do it frankly without evas

they did clear to create -- tikrit. what we would call the regular forces, where the shia volunteers who answered to the fatwa, they prevented that from reinforcing or from daesh from escaping. it is going to have to be a combination of our training the regular forces, empowering the tribes, managing the role of popular mobilization force in combination to achieve our military objectives. many of those elements are scheduled with the intent of the prime minister to be the base elements for the national guard brigades. the tribal elements that are , those will be the base elements of their as they come along. there will be a purpose for them over the long term. eric: isis continues to draw 1000 foreign fighters a month. many have come through turkey. what will this new deal emerging today change of this? or will they come in another way? mr. allen: they are always going to try to get in. it is no secret the principal avenue approach into the region, not just to syria, has been through the turkish border. the turks in the

what is iran doing in saddam's town of tikrit? are questions being raised by arab youth, by average people who do not understand the number of centrifuges or enrichment but are concerned that this deal would play out badly in iranian behavior. i brought with me some cartoons -- sorry, my ink color cartridges ran out. this is of an iranian or rouhani standing on bodies of syrians, yeminis, and holding up that says agreement. this is uncle sam and an iranian mullah running over the corpse of a middle east nuclear agreement. this is another one that gets to the issue of why -- what arabs are seeing. this is a nuclear agreement, the nuclear agreement generating money to terrorism. this is the perception today in the arab world. there's a big question over where is the hundred billion dollars that iran will get from sanctions relief. is it going to go to iranian students? nobody seems to have the answer to that. in may, an arab official, a high-level official who met the people at the white house was told that the iranian sanctions rel

it's up to the tikrit the relationships and i'm coming to senior leadership with complex solutions rather than constantly requesting permission. >> you obviously are a student of military history, general. you go back to admiral nelson. you have a great example their of the chips. you have drawn on a lot of business, the entire manufacturing process and how that was revolutionized. and then you find yourself, take a sort of agile is get brought up and you about the revolution work and the minutemen, the guys lined up with the red coats and hanging out entries in going after them and they are lined up sitting ducks. you sort of felt like we were sitting ducks. the working, if you will, had changed, and we were not ahead. now we have more technology, better this, but at the end of this. but boy, there's a heck of a peace in your what it catches you deadly, we are not what we need to be the can you expand on that? >> if you go back to military history the challenge was to get a group of people trained and outfitted correctly to the right place at the right time and you needed mass because ea

administration is aware of this and they refused to provide air cover when they attacked the city of tikrit which was a smart move so how they will cooperate on the ground in iraq is not clear yet only if they are willing to feed the authority of the militia i think would then have a greater margin of maneuver. that's the good news. the bad news is the regime is now losing and i was just talking before we started the opposition is closing in on the homeland but there's no sign that they are backing off their support. just last week the minister was visiting and he said the promise that they would stand by and then they said it's up to other countries in the region to change their policies. there is however some diplomatic frequent flyer mileage with visits being treated and there is a report dot confirm that one of the most important secret intelligence service officials visited which would be a remarkable visit if it occurred. there are reports they were about to put forward a peace proposal which would include. it would include a change to the constitution to better protect the rights of

close combat air support when the shia militias attacked sunni-arab, predominantly sunni area of tikritin the spring which in my opinion is a very smart move. how they will cooperate with the iranian allies in iraq in the future is not clear yet. only in the iranians are willing to cede authority of these militias to the baghdad government of prime minister abadi, i think would we then have a greater margin of manuever with the iranians in iraq. that's the good news. the bad news in syria is that the war is no longer really a stalemate. actually the outside -- assad regime is now clearly losing. i was talking to gonul and tom, the syrian opposition is closing on the homeland. assad's holm town. that is how close they're getting. but there is no sign, no sign that iranians are backing off their support for the assad regime in syria. just last week the iranian foreign minister was visiting kuwait and qatar and in kuwait, he said, promised that iran would stand by his friends in the region, clearly indicating syria among them and then took a shot at the saudis and said it is up to other co

in tikrit, prime minister abadi asked for coalition support, and security forces were able to recover the city, and today less than three months later hundreds of displaced families have now made a peaceful return to the city. this process gives us reason to be cautiously optimistic about the iraqi led efforts for stabilization and the stabilized support, deliberated populations and communities as they seek to prevent sectarian reprisals. while these important gains are a credit to our partners on the ground, the coalition has play add vital role in proving their capabilities as well. 15 partners are helping to build the iraqi security force capabilities at five training camps, and six partners are contributing to the coalitions advise and assist mission, and eight nations participated in air strikes over iraq and five over syria. among them, more than 8,000 iraqi fighters that the coalition trained and many are now helping to secure borders and are in the attack to recover ramadi, and in the short period of time since ramadi's fall, president obama's decision to locate our troops at

april 26 to may 1 in the north tikrit where the republican guard corp. was. they completely faded away. many of the fights we had at that late stage of the game were spotty meaning that they were in civilian clothes trying to steal armory weaponry and get it out of there and we had a couple of clashes that were related to republican guard soldiers trying to make off with weapons from the area. the army disbanded it so this notion somehow that there was going to be formal surrenders and lines of german troops and the conference and they would have big surrenders that was never even a remote possibility to begin with. >> host: how long were you in iraq's? >> guest: i was in iraq for a year from 2003 to 2004. >> host: what month of 2003? >> guest: i got there in may and i left in april. >> host: why do you refer to to the special ops guys as -- >> guest: many of these guys are still serving and i don't want to give away their identities. some i was able to on the conventional side. the folks on the unconventional side have been respectful to them and they have b