reporter: fredricka, it s growing. al anbar province, they have over 70% control, they ve just, we re told, taken control of a tribe supporting isis, of taking control of the tiny little border outpost right next to the jordanian border. talking about the syrian board, we re talking about the jordanian border. they ve taken a large town, about 70 miles from the jordanian border and the saudi border, a town i ve passed through many times. they are able to link up by a highway their strong holds inside syria with the outskirts of baghdad. this is an important, strategic gain for them. this has happened in the last 24 hours. the army s put down its weapons and run away, though the government says the army is merely making a tactical withdrawal so they can be redeployed and refocus on other
movement or troops that are c coalescing in those areas perhaps potentially to get to baghdad at some point? reporter: there are certainly a mass of troops in baghdad. baghdad has a lot of security checkpoints, probably the most loyal of security forces to the government here in baghdad, so baghdad itself has a lot of checkpoints and is secure. the army does not control al anbar province. the euphrates river valley runs through al anbar provincprovinc. they haven t been able to retake them. lost the whole town of fallujah and lost parts of the town of ramadi. now taking the euphrates river valley and driving out and overrunning the iraqi army in that strategic valley and highway from syria, the government does not have a chance to reinforce any of those
Transcripts for CNN Anderson Cooper 360 20140620 03:20:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
the al anbar awakening. you don t think there s been any reawakening to that with those individuals with training maybe not being so necessarily aligned with us? i don t. i think when we go to war, at least notionally, we go to war as a coalition. and the fact of the matter is the people we re often fighting are also a coalition. and what we often fail to do is ask who is fighting us and why are they fighting us? so there are very radical elements in northern and western iraq that have taken over that part of the country. but they are largely supported by elements of the population that are much more moderate. and i think that the way you win in a fight like this is by disaggregating those two. and that s what we did very, very successfully in al anbar earlier in the war is we fountain that there was reconcilable folks who often had legitimate grievances for fighting with us and people not reconcilable. and those are the ones you have
situation? a stark question, but what do you think the best option is. thank you for giving me that very easy question. it s so simple. the fact of the matter is the american public needs to get comfortable with the fact there are no easy answers to any of these situations that we re finding ourselves in. especially when it escalates into hot conflicts. in terms of the options the president has on his table, the number one thing that we have lost over the last ten years we ve been at war, over ten years we ve been at war is credibility with our allies. and i think that extends, you know, beyond iraq but in iraq. there s a lot that we should be doing with groups within that country that do like america. and are supportive of america. the kurds. there are that you mentioned earlier in the segment, tribes in al anbar province that worked very closely with the marines in 2006, 2007.