Are strained relations with Iraq hurting the fight against Islamic State?

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• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  We turn now to the fight for Iraq and the growing tensions the rise of the Islamic State has roiled up.

  Joining me is Douglas Ollivant. He's a former military planner in Iraq who served on the National Security Council under President Obama and President George W. Bush. He's now a senior national security fellow at the New America Foundation and partner at Mantid International.

  Doug Ollivant, welcome back to the NewsHour.

• DOUGLAS OLLIVANT, New America Foundation:

  Good evening.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  So, we have these comments from the secretary of defense over the weekend saying that the Iraqi troops ran away, that they didn't have the will to fight. But then you had today the vice president, Biden, calling the Iraqi prime minister to say, no, Iraqi troops are doing a great job.

  Which is it?

• DOUGLAS OLLIVANT:

  Well, and just a few weeks ago, we had Secretary Kerry saying that he was sure that Ramadi was going to be reclaimed.

  So, clearly, we have Secretary Carter as an outlier in the U.S. government position, which of course sometimes just means you're saying inconvenient things that people don't want to hear. There are clearly problems with the Iraqi army. They need to be addressed, but the counterpoint is also true.

  The Iraqi army was in Ramadi for a year-and-a-half and did fight off the Islamic State there for a year-and-a-half, and, if we're to believe the accounts, really were at the receiving end of a well-planned, well-executed attack by the Islamic State that involved a number of very, very large explosive car bombs, some of which were said to be the sides of those in the Oklahoma City bombing, literally kind of leveling blocks or at least large buildings, an assault that any military force would have a hard time with.

  So there is some truth to what the secretary is saying, but at the same time, the indignation on the part of the Iraqis is very valid. Some of these soldiers have fought very well.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  But in terms of whether they were well-supplied, whether they had the training they needed, where is the answer to that? Because we have looked at — the U.S. has been providing support and yet these troops still are not able to do the job.

• DOUGLAS OLLIVANT:

  That's undeniably true.

  There has been a lot of support given. These troops in Ramadi had not been trained by the United States, but you would hope the Iraqis would be able to generate their own training devices at some point. But there are clearly problems with leadership. We're hearing rumors that these soldiers had not been paid. There are systematic problems still with the Iraqi government.

  We have to remember, this is still a relatively new government. It's only been around for a decade or so, only truly sovereign for really the last three years since we have departed, and they're still learning how to do this.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Well, we know there is now criticism coming up from all quarters in terms of whether the administration approach is the correct one and whether the administration ought to doing more, ought to be doing something different. How do you read all this?

• DOUGLAS OLLIVANT:

  Well, certainly, there's a lot of criticism. And any time you have a setback, criticism is inevitable.

  It is very clear the Islamic State had a very good weekend last weekend in the retaking of Ramadi. And, of course, that does call for you to reflect. But I think, in general, the administration is on the right path. We need to be training, we need to be arming, we need to be supporting. We may need to do a little more of all of that, but, in general, we need to continue to work through the Iraqis to get the Islamic State out of Iraq.

  Having us do it might be more efficient, but there are so many negative second-order effects of that. That is just undesirable.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  So, Douglas Ollivant, is it just a matter of being patient?

• DOUGLAS OLLIVANT:

  I think, in some ways, that's exactly it.

  It's going to take time to get the Islamic State pushback out of Iraq. Prime Minister Abadi says that he's going to have — take Ramadi back in days. I think that's an exaggeration, but it wouldn't surprise me if they take it back in four to six to eight weeks, the type of timeline that they used for the Tikrit attack.

  And we have to remember they have had a series of successes in Tikrit, before that in Amirli, before that in Jurf Al Sakhar. You have had the various Iraqi security forces and/or the militias pushing back the Islamic State out of these key urban areas.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  I think it's hard for many people to keep track of where things stand with regard to the Sunni-Shia split that still exists in Iraq, but do you have the sense that the prime minister, Prime Minister Abadi, is doing the best he can to get the Sunnis engaged with this fight, or is there still this sort of unbridgeable divide between the two?

• LT. COL. DOUGLAS OLLIVANT:

  Well, I think Prime Minister Abadi is very much reaching out to the Sunni, trying to reach across the aisle, trying to make the deal, so much so that he's often accused by his Shia Arab base of abandoning them and their concerns and being more concerned about the 20 percent minority of Arab Sunni than about the 60, 65 percent that are Arab Shia.

  But he is reaching across. The question is, does he have the political capital to continue to do that and can he really hold his own base while reaching across the aisle?

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Just quick final question. What's the thinking in terms of what more the U.S. could do to help these Iraqi troops?

• DOUGLAS OLLIVANT:

  I think continuing to provide weapons, continue to get more missiles.

  The Iraqi forces that were in Ramadi didn't have the anti-tank missiles that they needed to stop these vehicle-borne, these explosive car bombs from attacking their positions. It wouldn't hurt to have more unarmed surveillance drones. If we were to push those, then the Iranians wouldn't have to provide them. That's a way for us to kind of use a chess move against the Iranian influence in Iraq, which we do need to be concerned about.

  So there are a series of things we can do, but essentially it's more of what we're doing, more training, more equipping, more intelligence support.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Douglas Ollivant, we thank you.

• DOUGLAS OLLIVANT:

  Thank you, Judy.