in, kutz forces, it is contributing to the good. let s see if this works out. i think you re right that that s the plan and the iraqi government has made some good steps. they are going to retake mosul as we understand it. there are about 2,000 isil fighters there. the iraqis are going to put somewhere in the range of 20,000 troops up against them. kurdish peshmerga, and a small number of american advisers, but they will have american drones, american air support, and the idea is to launch a genuinely iraqi response. if that works, nothing succeeds like success in military. take a look at tikrit and tell us why it s so important. everyone has been focussing on mosul, the criticality of taking land away from isis,
over, we saw some early indications of that even when i was there. when we conducted operations in mosul, mr. maliki was beginning to replace his generals. and we were seeing the kinds of people he was replacing them with. cronies. cronies. they just didn t know how to lead. and the soldiers can feel that. if you go into a situation where you re not paid and people are threatening you and you have no leadership, you re going to quit your job too, especially if someone comes in and threatens to cut your head off. especially iffi your general has taken off. six months later, with renewed american interest in retraining the iraqi forces, there s going to be, why are they going to be able to take tikrit? there is more of a threat. i think they see an internal threat to their nationalism.
and they are beginning to see that the government in baghdad is now very interested in them. we re seeing mr. al bad di goin out, linking up with the tribal sheikhs and sunni tribes. that never happened when i was there with mr. maliki. but we were talking about this sunni/shia divide. and that plays into this as well, not just the makeup of the military, but you have the shia militias backed by iran which have made many of the advances that have taken place over the past couple months. anderson, it s worse than that. it s come out that head of the kutz force. elite iranian forces. this is the same group that blew up the marines in 83, kidnapped one of my bosses in beirut, is really a bad guy, is in tikrit today, sort of managing the assault on the city. so what message does that send? exactly, saying look, this