american troops into war. minutes from now the senate foreign relations committee opens its hearing on the white house s strategy to defeat isis. there are skeptics on both sides of the aisle and a surprising reversal of roles. some republicans believe the proposal is too limiting and many fellow democrats believe it s too open-ended. top obama people will make their pitch. john kerry, ashton carter and the joint chiefs chairman general martin dempsey will testify. in a bit of sad irony, while the senate decides whether to authorize war, the actual war has long been underway. thanks to american guidance on the ground and oddly iran iraqi forces have proved they can fight. earlier today iraqi soldiers took control of a hospital in tikrit a sign of military might against isis. that hospital just a few blocks of the presidential palaces. let s bring in cnn s senior international correspondent arwa damon live from istanbul.
if you have a classified briefing i think you ll get a very good grounding in the progress made to date. we continue to see progress in governance in iraq. they are purging incompetent or corrupt officers and more extensive inclusion of sunni fighters. in tikrit right now, there are nearly 1,000 sunni taking part. there s a cross section of engagement. so mr. chairman just to respond to the move rapidly here we re not moving that rapidly actually. that s why i m going to cut to the chase. responding to the threat posed by isil is just not a partisan issue. at least it shouldn t be. it s not even a bipartisan issue. it s really a test that transcends political
authorization of use of force that was passed in 2001 in the bush administration for example, whether the old one would be superseded if a new one is passed. the white house says that is something that will have to be worked out at another time. if that s true then the president would seemingly have both resolutions to justify use of force at his disposal at any given time for the rest of his administration. the administration appears in this to be threading a needle between those on the left who are weary of war and don t want any more of it and those on the right who say the administration needs to be able to threaten the full use of the military against isis, carol. okay. and on hand to testify is the secretary of state john kerry, ashton b. carter who s the secretary of defense now and general martin dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. they will be grilled after opening statements from the chairman of this committee, senator bob corker a republican and the ranking
parts of the city for quite some time now and has previously launched failed attempts to capture the city center. this most certainly seeming though at least according to the deputy head of the pro vinceal council, an attempt by isis to bolster its credentials to prove it is still a very solid fighting force despite those preliminary losses in tikrit. how much influence did american personnel on the ground have as far as advising these iraqi troops to fight for tikrit? reporter: look the u.s. assistance at this stage has been quite critical in the form of air support. those airstrikes perhaps not pushing isis as far back as many would have liked, but the u.s. does say that because of the airstrikes that took place in beijing, this has allowed the iraqi security forces to move forward to move towards tikrit. interestingly the security force sz and militias say the u.s.
metastasizing outside of syria and iraq and the proposal provides flexibility with one exception. the proposed aumf does not authorize long-term large scale offensive ground combat operations like those we conducted in iraq and afghanistan. because our strategy does not call for them. instead local forces must provide the enduring presence needed for an enduring victory against isil. and fourth and finally, the proposed aumf expires in three years. i cannot tell you that our campaign to defeat isil would be completed in three years. i understand the reason for the proposed sunset provision. it derives from the important principle stemming from the constitution that makes the grave matter of enacting an authorization for use of military force a shared