if you take isis and if we see something happening with isis that we don t like, we can hit them so fast and so hard. is that how it worked general? we re in iraq under very shaky diplomatic standing. we don t have a standing of forces agreement with diplomatic notes that allegedly don t subject our troops to iraqi law. the iraqi parliament has pushed back in a major way in the last 24 hours about this whole notion. we were not granted a unilateral military base to conduct operations. most these things have to be done in a covert manner. but the syrian withdraw itself, the reason secretary mattis resigned, you know, he can make a rationale argument. most of our combat power was air power, u.s. navy and air force
they have no status agreement. they are then subject to iraqi law. so you have got people in grave danger, if you put them up in the air and they get shot down. so anything we do is a bad move. how about, sir, your sense of america s national security interest with respect to iraq? do you think those who say it is serious or being alarmist, or do you think isis could prove to be a big threat to the homeland? i think the isis has their own agenda of a caliphate of muslims sunni muslims in the middle east. i think they re not so interested in what they do with us. there were no al qaeda in iraq when we started. we got them in there by creating this chaos. and my belief is that people who are now yelling and screaming about oh, we re in danger because of what s going on over there, simply don t understand that we re going to have to have intelligence. that s how we re going to handle this. we re not going to handle it
make it happen. but one of the major issues was would u.s. military personnel on the ground here be subject to iraqi law if something went wrong, if there was some sort of an incident, they come come to an agreement with that. the question is with these forces, these s.e.a.l.s, special operators in these forward positions, i m curious to know what sort of agreement has been reached with the iraqi government concerning who exactly is overseeing them and whether or not they are subject to iraqi law. so a lot of questions to be answered. we re not sure exactly what the president is going to be saying, but it s going to be interesting. yeah. you know, none of these special forces ever signs up for the safety of the job. colonel francona, i m going to get you to weigh in in just a moment. we re under the gun. anderson, thank you for your work. be careful where you are. we re all worried about you every day. so you and your crew be safe. keeping a live eye on the microphone, expecting the
of iraqi forces losing on the battlefield, engaging with enemy fighters. they left in the advance of before enemy fighters got to the battlefield, taking off their weapons, taking dropping their weapons, taking off their uniforms and disappearing. their officers disappearing. so so now investigations, according to the iraqi government, into 59 high-level officials, high-level officers, who are said to have abandoned their post. if found guilty, could get the death penalty and could be executed under iraqi law. but it is just the latest sign of the really sort of pandemonium, especially in the early days that we saw among iraqi security forces. and we continue to hear reports of fighting still going on up in baiji for control of that oil refinery. the most important, the largest oil refinery up in the north of iraq. and, again, if that fell to the hands of isis and isis forces were said to control parts
i have to put a small number of forces in to make that happen. he s already done that with a vanguard of troops that will protect the physical compound and facilitate the exit of american diplomats if necessary, but he could take it a bit further. one of the problems is to send u.s. troops in there, you need immunity from prosecution under iraqi law. that s the same agreement we failed to get in 2011 that necessitated the withdrawal of u.s. troops. it doesn t look like prime minister maliki is any closer to granting that to the u.s. this time around even as he asks for help. and that s the question that i guess a lot of people are asking, what about al maliki, is he the guy to make a difference politically in this region that s going to get to the root of the problem. what s your take? well, he won the last election. he managed to cobble together a government. so this is the guy that the u.s.