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In Iraq, social media insurrection
CNN's Christiane Amanpour speaks with Samuel Burke about ISIS's digital campaign of terror.
Click above to watch.
For U.S., ‘long road’ of mistakes in Iraq
By Mick Krever, CNN
The United States has travelled a “long road” of “numerous mistakes” in Iraq, Jay Garner, who led America’s post-war Iraq reconstruction efforts in 2003, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday.
“We did a good job getting in and we did a lousy job getting out,” he said. “This is a bed we've been making for the last 11 years.”
As U.S. President Barack Obama weighs how to respond to the Sunni extremist conquest across Iraq, the government in Baghdad formally requested air support from the United States.
That, Garner said, is something America should stay well away from.
“I think what we're seeing right now is an Arab-on-Arab war, we're seeing a religious war, and I don't think we need to get in the middle of that.”
Iraq Deputy PM, a Sunni, says he is being side-lined
By Mick Krever, CNN
The Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, Saleh al-Mutlak, a Sunni, says he is being side-lined by the Shiite-majority government.
“If you ask me did I take a real power-sharing during my presence in the government, I say definitely no,” al-Mutlak told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour from Baghdad on Wednesday. “We were almost isolated from the decisions, especially regarding the security issue.”
As large swaths of Iraq fall into the hands of Sunni extremists, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s record of allegedly stoking sectarian tension is coming under the spotlight.
Dual problems in Iraq: Extremism and ‘dysfunctional politics’
By Mick Krever, CNN
The United States faces two main problems right now in Iraq, Douglas Ollivant, former director for Iraq at the U.S. National Security Council.
The first, he said, are the Sunni extremists ISIS, who have poured in across the border from Syria, embroiled in civil war.
“Even if Iraq didn’t exist, this is still a problem for us,” Ollivant told CNN’s Hala Gorani, in for Christiane Amanpour.
The second is Iraq’s government itself.
“Closely related to this is the dysfunction of Iraqi politics, which has made Iraq uniquely vulnerable to ISIS right now. We need to deal with the first problem right away, as ISIS is moving south towards Baghdad.”
Spokesman defends Maliki against claims of sectarianism
By Mick Krever, CNN
With Sunni extremists grabbing up Iraqi territory and now just 40 miles from the capital, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, defended the leader against claims of irreversible polarization.
“Prime Minister Maliki has never been a sectarian,” Zuhair al-Naher, Spokesman for the Iraqi Prime Minister's Islamic Dawa Party, told CNN’s Hala Gorani – in for Christiane Amanpour – on Tuesday.
“I am not saying that Maliki is faultless. Iraq is a difficult country to run. It is difficult to include everyone perfectly and keep them happy.”
Why Iraq could be more dangerous than pre-9/11 Afghanistan
By Mick Krever, CNN
As Sunni extremists broaden their control of territory from Syria deep into Iraq, the Middle East may now be facing its greatest challenge in decades.
“This is the Talibanization of Iraq,” journalist and author Robin Wright told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday. “And there’s no question that the global Jihadi threat is greater today than it was at the height in the 1980s or even in 2001, when we saw the attacks in Washington and New York.”
The U.S. has started moving more military assets into the region as militants advance towards the Iraqi city of Baquba, just 60 kilometers from Baghdad. President Barack Obama has said that he will not send troops in on the ground.
The rise of ISIS, or the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, has been fuelled by civil war in Syria. The group is trying to carve out a Sunni statelet that straddles the nearly none-existent border between Iraq and Syria.
“Ultimately we can't solve Iraq with also dealing with Syria,” Wright said. “That's what makes this challenge arguably greater than any one we've faced in the Middle East, you could argue, in six or seven decades.”
Iraq warns of ‘a thousand’ bin Ladens
By Mick Krever and Dominique van Heerden, CNN
In appealing for more American help in fighting off Sunni Islamic extremists, the Iraqi Ambassador to the U.S. warned of a dire threat to the entire globe.
“What you have in Afghanistan, with one bin Laden – you will have a thousand of them,” Ambassador Lukman Faily told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday.
“That’s the situation in Iraq.”
The Obama Administration is scrambling to stave off the unthinkable: The end of Iraq as we know it, partitioned along sectarian lines with a rump al-Qaeda-like statelet in control of vast parts of the country, as well as Syria.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad: 'The reality of Iraq has changed after Mosul'
By Henry Hullah
Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, the U.N. and Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad has been a key voice in the relationship between the U.S. and the Middle East over the years. Amanpour asked what he thinks of the situation in Iraq right now as ISIS insurgents have gone from taking Mosul, Iraq's second city, to moving in around Baghdad.
“The speed with which things have moved have reminded me of Afghanistan in the nineties when the Taliban were on the scene and moved extremely rapidly to take over one city after another.”
The U.S. has spent a decade training the people of Iraq to fight this sort of insurgency, will they step back into the fray?
“The reality of Iraq has changed after Mosul”.
"The U.S. forces have to take into account not only the Iraqi forces; can they be helped? Can they be effective? But also the Kurdish forces, how to relate to them because they are perhaps in a better position”.
Former Prime Minister of Iraq Ayad Allawi told the program that the U.S. would make things worse if they entered the conflict. He said he would be going to Baghdad to attempt to create unity, could he achieve it?
Khalilzad stated, “He is a key figure but there are others who are important now too”.
“No single person can do the job, the Iraqis have to come together”.
Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi: 'The belt of Baghdad has fallen'
By Henry Hullah
As ISIS (the Islamic State for Iraq and Syria) militants carve their way through Iraq, currently trying to take a power plant in Baiji that powers much of Baghdad, the Iraq and the U.S. governments are reeling from the fall of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.
The first head of state following the fall of Saddam Hussein, Ayad Allawi, knows the lengths the country has gone in recent years to prevent events such as the current crisis. The military has been trained for years by the U.S., but many soldiers have laid down their weapons and fled in the face of the insurgents.
“They have nothing to fight for. Absolutely”, says Allawi. “They [Sunnis] have been disenfranchised, they have been oppressed, the situation has been getting out of control gradually. The forces of extremes have been thriving in Iraq, they [militants] have frankly been killing one thousand people, on average, a month and the government was unable and is still unable to do anything about it".
Amanpour asked if we are seeing the end of Iraq as we know it.
"Probably", replied Allawi. "It depends how it's going to be handled. But I think we are moving to a Syrianization kind of situation".
Are we moving in the direction of partition?
"Very possibly", said Allawi.
Is Baghdad, Iraq's capital, at risk?
"The belt of Baghdad has fallen". Allawi stated. "The outskirts are under the control of the armed people, the militants, the Sunni militants… The government of Baghdad is unable to challenge this, the government is unable to prevent explosions inside Baghdad."
When child marriage is law of the land
Imagine a world where nine-year-old girls can't go to school but they can become wives.
As Iraq holds elections, the council of leaders have approved a draft law that would cut the age at which a woman can marry in half – to nine.
Christiane Amanpour reports. Click above to watch.
@camanpour on Twitter
