After five years in taliban captivity u. S. Army Sergeant Bowe bergdahl is back on american soil. Touching down overnight bergdahl arrived at Lackland Air Force base in san antonio and transported to a military medical facility with a room prepped for his arrival and a support Team Standing by along with his family. He just came out of five years of canptivity. Were going to get a chance to find out what was in his head there that day when he was taken captive. Reporter the daily beast with letters. They may give a glimpse into his disappearance in 2009, writing, leadership was lacking, if not nonexistent. The conditions were bad and looked to be getting worse for the man that were actually the ones risking their lives from attack. The letters are dated 2012 and 2013. Penned in two very different writing styles. One in cursive. The other in block print. The family confirmed the authenticity of the letters revealed by sources from the taliban. Held hostage in iraq for nearly a year, american roy hallems can relate. When i did mine they set a piece of paper in front of me and gave me a pen and one person sat on each side of me and told me what to write and they wanted me to print it and not write it in script because they couldnt read english in script. Reporter at times his thoughts seemed to wander, touching on mathematicses, god, and the universe. Several portions of the letter blocked out, words in letters oddly misspelled. In 2013 he wrote, if this letter makes it to the usa tell those involved in the investigation that there are more sides to the cittuwation. The reunion with his family, everybody wants to know when is that going to happen. If military says there is is no specific timeline. It will take place inside the hospital where Bowe Bergdahl currently is. It will take place in a room and it will be very carefully handled, first meeting only expected to last a few minutes. Martin savidge for us in texas. Now to iraq. Bloody chaos is taking over. Days after they seized mosul the countrys second largest city now theyre moving south near getting close to baghdad. Cnn is all over this story and were going to begin with Senior International correspondent arwa damon tracking developments from iraq. The situation for iraq could not be in the words of one iraqi politician, more catastrophic. Leaving no doubt about their reach video claiming to show the radical islamist terror group isis arriving to cheers in syria with an iraqi Army Military humvee. Isis gaining control, not just over land but armored vehicles, weapons, and am mu in addition, abandoned by the iraqi forces as they fled mosul. Iraqs second largest city. Parts of baji, oil refining town, area surrounding the oil city of kirkuk, prompting Kurdish Forces to send if their troops after the Iraqi Military fled there as well. And in this video from saddam husseins hometown of tikrit showing fighters parading hundreds of captured Iraqi Security forces. They have melted down unfortunately. Two Army Divisions in the city and their commanders escape to the north. And really the government needs to take serious action. Reporter with isis threatening baghdad is next, u. S. Contractors were evacuated from an Iraqi Military base and chartered out of the country. Still, some u. S. Commanders remain optimistic about the Iraqi Security forces they left behind. Theyve got a lot of equipment and they have some of their forces are pretty well strained, i believe, by our folks and nato, allies before we left. So i think they have the capabilities to do this. Reporter nearly three years after american boots left iraqi soil, a terrorist group more powerful than al qaeda is gaining greater control. Brianna, one of the main reasons that isis is able to gain territory so quickly is that other sunni insurgent groups have also emerged in the fight against the predominantly shia government of Nuri Al Maliki. They are not going to come under control by sheer of military might. There has to be true political reconciliation. Or a damon for us, thank you. The Iraqi Government is asking the u. S. For help. President obama says hes not ruling anything out. Lets bring in our senior White House Correspondent jim acosta. Not ruling anything out, what does that mean, jim . Brianna, that does mean the u. S. Is now considering air strikes. The president met with the National Security team to talk about options to cob tan the growing crisis in iraq. Here are some of the options the white house is talking about at this point. The president is considering drone or air strikes to contain the move ms made by isis in iraq. Hes also talking about ramping up military aid to iraqi fighters. At the same time, they are putting new humanitarian assistance in the pipeline. But keep in mind despite the president said he is not p ruling anything out there will be no boots on the ground. Official administration saying no boots on the ground. That is not being considered. Keep in mind at the same time with the sunni backed fighters making the advances in iraq and even some u. S. Contractors being evacuated from the country time is considered of the essence over here at the white house. That is why Senior Administration officials are indicating a strike could come as early as this weekend. Meanwhile, we should also point out white house officials are deeply frustrated with iraqi Prime MinisterNuri Al Maliki. They believe he has failed to lead the factions in iraq. White house officials are kaukszing would be short lived and keep in mind for a president who pledged back in 2008 to end the war in iraq and then did so in 2011 there is great Political Risk for this president. Chris . All right, jim, speaking of failure there is plenty of it to go around in this situation. So lets get into it. For more on who isis is, how dangerous they are, whats going to happen next, lets bring in bobby goech. Its good to have you back here. One quick editorial point before we get into the particulars here, no boots on the ground. We need political reconciliation to make this stop. That sounds like almost magic talking about this point now. From what we understand about the situation, is there any way that air strikes would be enough . Is there any chance at any kind of political reconciliation right now . Not at the moment. You dont know who to strike. Air strikes involve intelligence. Intelligence means you have to trust the people giving it information. We talk about Iraqi Government whose own military doesnt trust it. They walked away. They walked away because they didnt feel they had a stake in the future of their country. The kurds dont trust their government. Many sunnis dont trust their government. How can the United States trust any intelligence that comes out of the government of Nuri Al Maliki. Air strikes, boots on the ground, these things are simply not part of the equation right now. Were dealing with really a threetiered problem. Even to keep it simple. Were focusing on isis. Isis is the militant group, the acronym isis is busy islamic straight in iraq and syria. You told us already they are different because they are not about chaos. They are about land grab and control. Explain. Well, most terrorist groups that were familiar with in modern times, all they want to do is mayhem. They want to kill a lot of people. They talk about going to paradise. They talk about the perfect Islamic State. But this is is a group that is actually seizing territory, holding on to it, appointing governors, appointing local administration. They seem like they want to rule. They want a nation on this earth, not the one in paradise. And that makes them very different. Thats a different level of ambition than weve seen from lets saby Osama Bin Laden or people from his group. We are impressed by the speed. Theyre over taking the country. Almost no resistance. But theyre being smart. Mosul, why do they want mosul . Second biggest city but huge cultural cache to it, historical importance. The metaphor is, if i control this i control what matters. True . Mosul is an ancient city. Its a very important business center. It has been for hundreds of years. It is the home of many of iraqs most famous military commanders. Mosul prides itself as a city that gave iraq the greatest military command. Theres a big political and propaganda message being sent when they take mosul. They just rolled through. They copy doame down this ro faster than the United States and its coalition went up in 2003. That speed is incredible. They travel very light, very fast. And they are traveling, lets not forget, a lot of this is sunni part of the country. So they are traveling in territory if not friendly is certainly not hostile towards them and their interest. Now we believe theyre heading toward baghdad. Getting very little resistance. Kirkuk is important because when they took that city it triggered second layer of problem now if its not just that they have to deal with isis in iraq but now the kurds who believe kirkuk should be theirs, so now you have this tribal movement. They come down. Now theyre controlling kirkuk. Isis is gone but you have a new set of not bad guys but people who are against the Iraqi Government in control. And as they move toward baghdad you have the sunni shia die dam mick coming into play where the shia military types. Three layers . Absolutely. With the kirkuk, the kurds, these are friends of ours. They fought alongside the American Military against saddam hussein. They are fabled fighters. Known for their fer ross city. The name peshmerga is known for death. They are not going to easily gave it back to the government in baghdad. They wanted kirkuk for a very, very long time. Kirkuk is an oil city. Giant it sits on a super lake of oil. At a teestrategic importance. What we start to see is this man at the center of isis and as we touched the center of the nose, here is a different picture of the guy. When you look at the precision, the speed, the acquiring of assets and cash because hes emptying the banks and the momentum hes getting among the people, how do we see this man and what his future is . He is now probably the most successful modern terrorist because he holds all of that territory. Thats the country the size of jordan. There are only three or four pictures of this guy and thats part of his power that nobody really knows him. There are no videos of him. They wanted to audiotapes out there that we think may be better known for his ambition. Everything that you see in dark now on your screen he believes should be under their control of one true Islamic State and it almost includes israel. Nobody can say these guys havent told us what they want. Its very clear what they want. They want all of this territory. And this includes, as you say, israel, all of iraqs oil, bordering on some incredibly, you know, ally here, arrival there. You mentioned to me before we came on, theres word that revolutionary guard from iran are on the ground in iraq to help the state but to the iraqis thats just more destabilizing because of the history with iran. Reports of that yesterday. If it was true it would be like throwing a grenade into an armory because iraq and iran fought eightyear bloody war. Half a million iraqis died. Even shiites are not particularly fond of them. And so the idea that iranian boots are on the ground in iraq, even if to protect baghdad, that would be very humiliating to a lot of iraqis. Remember this, right now were hearing from u. S. Authorities, no boots on the ground. Were going to do some drone strikes, help with the military. It doesnt even end in iraq, even if the drone strikes were effective and whats the real chance of that and no boots on the ground it emanates from syria so you would have to be involved there as well. Its moving very lick quickly. Im sure to have you back to help me understand this as we move forward. Next up on new day, new video of Bowe Bergdahl back in the u. S. As just published letters cast new light on why he may have disappeared. Were talking to the reporter who obtained those letters. And new Jersey Governor Chris Christie is noticeably slimmer and also busting a move on late night tv. Talking trash as well, not about Hillary Clintons politics but her dancing skills. [announcer] play closegood and close. Help keep teeth clean and breath fresh with beneful healthy smile snacks. 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Now, of course, the big question isnt where he is, its why he left his post in the first place. And we may be getting some information that pushes us toward an answer there. Newly published letters written by bergdahl. We believe joining us this morning is kimberly dozer, contributing as the writer of the daily beast article about this. She obtained the letters. Kim, its good to see you. This is important here because this question is plaguing the analysis of the deal to bring bergdahl home. Lets start with the letters. The authenticity is the obvious question. What can you tell us about authorship and whether they were under duress. There are two letter one from 2012 and one from 2013. I have to say the first time i saw them i thought, this is a joke. These cant really have been written by Bowe Bergdahl himself. Then i showed them to u. S. Officials, western i was officials who had been part of this whole process to try to get him back. They said, no, those are the real things that the red cross delivered to bergdahls family. And that the family had examined the letters and saw things in both of them that only could have been written by bowe p. Things like a little paw print on the first one which used to be one of his traditional ways of signing off on letters and references to things that the family would talk about. Now, they do start logically talking about things like im being fed, im okay, but the first one in particular devolves into the long dietribe on god, faith, the weather, its hard to follow. That is probably the best indication that we have that bergdahl was under a tough situation when he wrote them. Maybe somebody was watching him. Maybe this was one of the only times that he got a moment out of his cell to write and he was taking advantage of that, to write as much as he could for as long as he could. The taliban sources ive spoken to have said that he was held in a cage after his second escape a tempt. Though he was also moved around. So sometimes it was a cage, sometimes it was a basement. He has told some of the people debriefing him that he had a hood over his head much of the time as well, except when he was eating or drinking. So, yes, he probably wrote these letters but people were watching him and his state of mind cant have been good. Wow. We had heard about one escape. Now theyre saying two attempted escape, kept in a cage. Harsh conditions. How do you explain some is in cursive, some is in block letters. That may be an indication of monitoring. It can be. If his captors were trying to read what he was writing and they often are able to read block print but not cursive. Its like, im okay in spoken arab b arabic, i cant read it. It also indicates that maybe hes trying to send a message. The second letter there does seem to be aware that there was an investigation into his departure from the base and he seems he is defending himself. Hes telling his family, tell those doing the investigation in d. C. Wait until all the evidence comes in. He talks about the conditions being bad, not having confidence in his leadership, and the situation being very unsafe. Does it sound whats the take . Is it like its propaganda driven or do you think this comes across as specific i sight . Throw up the pictures we have of the letters so people can see for themselves the difference in writing and these different excerpts. Kim, whats your answer to that question . It can be one of two things. He could be defending himself saying i walked off that base for a reason because the conditions werent acceptable. But it was also good message that the taliban would want out, that the morale was bad, that the soldiers on the ground didnt have the confidence of their leadership. The investigation into bergdahls disappearance from the base did conclude that leadership at his platoon was lacking. Two of his leaders were replaced during the time he was there. Theres a lot of speculation about that to be sure. That will be part of any eventual investigation. The pentagon has been very strong on telling people to wait on making any type of conclusion about desertion versus walking off and doing something stupid. Lets pull up one part of one of the letters where its saying if this letter makes it to the usa tell those involved in the investigation there are more sides to the situation, he adds, please tell d. C. To wait for evidence. Why cant he spell and, two, what duke that suggests about his motivation when he walked off . Well, he was homeschooled. And i