Iraqi PM to appeal to U.S. for more firepower and support against Islamic State

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• GWEN IFILL:

  Over the last two days, U.S. warplanes conducted more than a dozen strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq. On the ground, Iraqi forces launched a counterattack against the group's strongholds in Anbar province.

  While the fight rages, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi heads to Washington. He will meet with President Obama tomorrow to ask for weapons and an increase in air support.

  For the latest on all this, I spoke earlier today with NewsHour special correspondent Jane Arraf, who's in Baghdad.

  Hi, Jane. Welcome.

  Haider al-Abadi is on his way to Washington. What is he coming here looking for?

• JANE ARRAF:

  Well, he's essentially, Gwen, looking for more of pretty much everything, more airstrikes, more intelligence support, more weapons, and possibly some help with financing those weapons.

  It's a rather long list. It's his first trip to the U.S. as prime minister. He's going to tell President Obama essentially that this isn't just an Iraqi fight; it is a fight against the I.S. group for the entire world, and they need more help, particularly more heavy weapons and more ammunition, pretty much more of everything — Gwen.

• GWEN IFILL:

  Is there any way to quantify the success so far of these anti-ISIS airstrikes, not only in Tikrit, but now apparently in Anbar?

• JANE ARRAF:

  Well, they have done wonders certainly in places where ISIS had been deeply entrenched. In Anbar, it's a very complicated dynamic.

  I mean, what we have seen in Tikrit essentially was Shia militias leading the fight, leading the Iraqi military. Now, that worked, to a certain extent, in Tikrit. It's not going to work in Anbar, where tribal leaders in the majority Sunni province have made clear that there are limits as to what they will put up.

  Now, we spoke this evening with the governor of Anbar. And he said that they're actually desperate for help. He said there really are no red lines that they will accept help, but essentially said there are militias, and then there are militias.

  Now, the militias, as you know, have been a part of this fight, an intrinsic part of the fight. And The Iraqi government turned to them when it said it didn't have any choice. But it's at a cost. And the cost is alleged human rights abuses. The cost is a deepening of the sectarian divide.

  So, essentially, the U.S. is wading into a very complicated conflict in Anbar. The airstrikes have helped so far, but they are wary of more airstrikes that could deepen that divide and wary of airstrikes that will launch without the proper intelligence support.

• GWEN IFILL:

  Are there any successes that the Iraqi government forces themselves can claim credit for, absent U.S. support?

• JANE ARRAF:

  That's a really tricky one. Everything here is so interwoven.

  So there are some successes on the ground, primarily in terms of the counterterrorism forces, the special forces, those elite forces that the U.S. had a large role in training, that retain the training, unlike Iraqi military units that collapsed when the I.S. fighters, ISIS fighters, came in.

  But, basically, they can't do it alone. They're very thinly stretched and they took a lot of casualties in Tikrit. So, what this is, is a really interesting, complicated and troublesome coalition. It's not just the U.S.-led coalition on that side. It is a coalition on the ground here, with more than 30 groups seemingly working together, but sometimes working at odds.

  Now, a lot of those are major Iranian-backed militias, but some of them are splinter groups. And some of them are fighting with each other. So it's a very complicated dynamic, a potentially very dangerous dynamic going forward, as the Iraqi military, which can't do it on its own, tries to push forward into Anbar and then eventually into Mosul.

• GWEN IFILL:

  Today, I gather the Iraqi government was trying — was boasting of the captives, the ISIS captives they have in custody.

• JANE ARRAF:

  Yes, they showed us 12 of them.

  Now, these were men who were in yellow-orange jumpsuits who were paraded in FlexiCuffs, those plastic handcuffs, blindfolded. They shuffled into a room. And then we were told that these were men who were captured in raids just south of — to the south and in some cases the west of Baghdad.

  Now, they also displayed bomb-making equipment, the Interior Ministry, but they said that these captives, accused ISIS members, had actually been found guilty and were waiting for sentencing. Now, being found guilty, they said, was the result of a long investigation, but the process is a secret one. What they really want to do in some respects is to show that they actually are taking prisoners, because having killed what they say amounts to thousands, several thousand fighters, they have come under criticism as well for violating the rules of war.

  Now, we know that the Islamic State group doesn't play by the rules of any kind of war or any kind of rules at all. But, by the same token, the Iraqi government is expected to. So it wanted to show that actually it doesn't just kill them; it takes them captive and puts them on trial. Of course, we have no way of knowing what these trials are like.

• GWEN IFILL:

  Jane Arraf, reporting for us from Baghdad, where the war never quite seems to end, thank you.

• JANE ARRAF:

  Thank you, Gwen.