to damascus. they were in damascus about a month ago in the palestinian refugee camp and expelled. i would expect to see their presence return to the capital in syria now. quick final word to you, paul as we are talking today about defense secretary ash carter s comments that when it comes to ramadi the iraqi military essentially gave up who was his audience in your view when he said that? well i think he was just sort of stating facts. obviously perhaps not particularly diplomatic in a certain amount of fence mending going on today from the white house, the vice president, but clearly the iraqi army basically gave up in ramadi and one of the reasons for that is what michael was talking about is the fact that isis are massacring people putting out all these brutal horrific videos well the iraqi soldiers in ramadi don t want to be on the receiving end of that and so it s not, perhaps,
no will to fight. i m surprised why he said that. i mean he was very supportive of iraq. i m sure as he was fed the wrong information. the white house says vice president biden called the iraqi prime minister today. they say, quote the vice president recognized the enormous sacrifice and bravery of iraqi forces over the past 18 months in ramadi and elsewhere. meanwhile, an iranian newspaper reported the head of the elite qods forces accused the u.s. of having no will to stop isis and failing to stop the fall of the iraqi city of ramadi. general sul he moaneny said this mr. obama, how far are your bases from all ramadi. you established a presence in iraq on the pretense of supporting that nation but did not do a thing. that is a quote. let s get perspective. i m joined by military analyst, major general james spider
to change the kinds of support we re giving to the iraqi forces we ll make that recommendation. but what happened at ramadi was a failure of the iraqi forces to fight and so our efforts now are devoted to providing their ground forces with the equipment, the training and to try to encourage their will to fight, so that our campaign enabling them can be successful both in defeating isil and keeping isil defeated in a sustained way. these things we need to they can sure understand you. you are not at forward air controllers on the ground? we have not made that recommendation. iraqi prime minister haider al abadi told the bbc ramadi may be taken back in days and disagreeing with those statements made by secretary carter iraq s military showed
city there, what happens? what happens there especially when you look at the situation in palmyra and that could affect the iraqi forces to gain ramadi. both of these cities isis now has a convenient launch pad or staging platform in syria and iraq through which they can attack the capitals of both those countries. you had in the previous seg isn t spider marks saying baghdad is pretty well fortified. i don t think baghdad will fall. baghdad doesn t have to fall. isis is within 70 miles striking distance now that they have ramadi. they ve begun to do, in fact, you ve seen an uptick in the opportunistic vehicle born suicide bombing attacks inside the capital, so what isis does very well is if they can t conquer terrain, they try to wage a campaign of terror and discomboblation to keep the enemy on the backfoot. in syria as paul pointed out, palmyra will lead them to homs
allow ramadi to fall that quickly it demonstrates there isn t sufficient professionalism and leadership at all those tlaefls are necessary within fighting units to be effective. at the tactical level that s what we re talking about. clearly the iraqi will to fight has to extend up to the strategic level at the national level as well and i would suggest that they ve written that off as well and that this caliphate that s been created is going to be okay as long as it doesn t expand and threaten baghdad. we ve heard from military officials, bob, you provide the equipment for iraqi troops you provide the training but then there s this psychological element of wanting to defeat the enemy. we heard ash carter say that isis had an under whelming force compared to the iraqi forces. what i do think of whether you can hope that someone gains the will to fight? well, you know, aagree with