which is technically possible given the number of isis in the city. but as we saw with tikrit, which is a much smaller city to the northeast of baghdad that took over a month to take that back from isis. well, what is-so profoundly different that the iraqi forces, shia militia have now? because at one point they occupied ramadi, isis came in and they went flying out of there. they fled. and they were on the run. so what has changed where suddenly they think that they will be able to go back in and be all so powerful and get isis out of there? well, that certainly is the case that the iraqi army fled without putting up much of a fight in ramadi. we actually haven t seen this counter attack in action yet. so it s obviously important for abady to say that there is goings to be a major counter offensive. but it hasn t happened yet. the main difference, of course, is that the shia militia are now participating in the fight. before it was the iraqi
this was going to happen in ramadi is that the baghdad will take over. they will retake isis. they will throw isis out of are a made. what in the world does anyone think that shia militia maybe more involved. if that does happen, it just means that iran has a greater footprint in iraq. you wonder how permanent it can possibly be even at this stage we see these signals even from washington now and to see the defense secretary talk about the iraqis not having the will to fight on the field there are serious concerns about the streagd. the president has and i think john hits an important point there was a directive from the top to disengage from the iraq and not engage in ground troops. that has colored this debate throughout. clearly there was not an actual recognition of the true problem. if we re not going to at least win i mean, why are we even dropping the bombs? if the president want to let it go, why not let it go? what s the point in dropping 15 air strikes a day or whatever i
grm correspondent is in iraq. he joins us, campbell, where are they on trying to regain ramadi from isis? where are the iraqi forces on this? well, it appears they are planning a major counter attack shia militia and the iraqi army are still gathering at the military base that s between ramadi and fallujah, which is is also an n. isis hands. they are saying that they have got ramadi surrounded on three sides already with the plan being that they are going to cut off the supply line. in the meantime they are attacking with air strikes and artillery. so far we haven t seen much evidence of iraqi forces taking back much ground from isis in ramadi. so can they retake it? the stakes are high for baghdad. the chance of failure would would potentially result in even, you know, the dissolution of iraq. we have seen already the shia militia are going to be playing a big role. prime minister abady says it will be retaken within days,
republican guard in state media yesterday that was the americans who lacked the will to fight ramadi. we have seen iranian and shi a backed militia groups fighting and potentially what many of the isis fighters in ramadi have done too. it will be we don t know here and we know to the circle to the south south, west to east of ramadi ready to join the fight. thank you for that nick. you hear nick talking about the back and forth who is to blame for the fall of ramadi. the sharp break from what the defense secretary ash carter told cnn about the lack of will to fight of iraqis. now discord within the iraqi
ash carter blamed it on iraqi forces lack of will is why ramadi fell why isis took over ramadi. do you agree with that? i m hart-put to blame it on soldiers in trenches because i wasn t there with them and they faced a difficult foe. the challenge goes higher. government and military leadership and greater degree goes to the entire fabric of the region. partnerships and coalitions and alliances that are going to be necessary to take on things like isis. well, when you read your book and it also discusses the use of isis or aqi, al qaeda in iraq, use of technology it seems like ramadi what happened was that isis almost in many ways besides a lot of things outsmarted with technology, social media. they almost went black a little bit right before they did the takeover. yeah, we think we have technological edge because we have got aircraft and precision weapons. in reality they are leveraging technology really effectively. what they are doing is first they are terrifying the region