welcome back. isis wreaking havoc on iraq and leading the country into bloody chaos. i m joined now by folks who know a lot about it, retired colonel peter mansour, a former aid to general david petraeus and author of baghdad at sun rise a brigadier commander s war in iraq. also with me is jessica lewis, a research director at the institute for the study of war. she was stationed in iraq. and joe reider is a former undersecretary of the army. thanks for coming on tonight. jessica lewis, you were army intelligence officer in iraq for three years. what can you tell viewers about isis? was the group born out of the iraq war? yes. this is the group that we used to call al qaeda in iraq. it had renamed itself the islamic state of iraq in 2006
so colonel mansoor, you were on the ground for the commander of the first brigade, the first armored division, the ready first combat team. are you surprised about what is happening there right now? well, i was also there during the surge as executive officer to general david petraeus. you know, after the surge we had significantly tamped down ethnosectarian violence in iraq and the person that brought it back, quite frankly, is prime minister nouri al maliki. he has succeeded with his authoritarian and sectarian policies to alienate large swaths of the iraqi people, including most of the sunnis. so, no, i m really not surprised given what has transpired since the withdrawal of u.s. forces at the end of 2011. you were there for the beginning of the invasion and also for the surge, maybe you can tell us about what options you heard our jim acosta at the white house talking about the president weighing some options. what do you think the president should do? i think the president
the whole story. first of all how an e-mail matter becomes an fbi matter, how it was investigated so many months and it wasn t until election night the fbi suddenly realized it involved david petraeus? if they were investigating three or four months, that would have been the first thing they found out. then should have brought it to the president s attention so none of it adds up. the challenging thing for gen. petraeus, with his new position he s not allowed to communicate with the press. he s known about it. they have had correspondents with the cia in libya within 24 hours they knew what was happening. petraeus wags telling her things. she said there was a failure in the system. she said petraeus knew all of this. but that he wasn t allowed to talk to the press because of his position. she s telling people this. now that s pretty serious, since petraeus did brief congressmen soon appear the a tack in a closeddor session and he doesn t seem to have told them any of this.
the whole story. first of all how an e-mail matter becomes an fbi matter, how it was investigated so many months and it wasn t until election night the fbi suddenly realized it involved david petraeus? if they were investigating three or four months, that would have been the first thing they found out. then should have brought it to the president s attention so none of it adds up. the challenging thing for gen. petraeus, with his new position he s not allowed to communicate with the press. he s known about it. they have had correspondents with the cia in libya within 24 hours they knew what was happening. petraeus wags telling her things. she said there was a failure in the system. she said petraeus knew all of this. but that he wasn t allowed to talk to the press because of his position. she s telling people this. now that s pretty serious, since petraeus did brief congressmen soon appear the a tack in a closeddor session and he doesn t seem to have told them any of this.
maynard and economist martin bailey. woodruff: david brooks and ruth marcus, sitting in for mark shields, present their analysis of the week s news. lehrer: and sting with strings. jeffrey brown talks to rock star sting about his newest musical challenge performing with a 45 piece orchestra. the royal if i ma mar: philharmonic is a serious orchestra. so in a way it does flatter my ego but also i have to step up to the plate and. and you know, so it s a big challenge for me. lehrer: that s all ahead on tonight s newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: this is the engine that connects abundant grain from the american heartland to haran s best selling whole wheat, while keeping 60 billion pounds of carbon out of the atmosphere every year. bnsf, the engine that connects us. and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy productive life. and with the ongoing suppo