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The Struggle for Iraq's Future; Unlikely Story of British Adviser to U.S. Military; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET
Aired May 29, 2015 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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FRED PLEITGEN, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: a critical moment for Iraq. Does Baghdad have what it takes to beat ISIS? The country's deputy
prime minister tells me even he was surprised by how quickly Iraqi forces folded in Ramadi.
And learning from the past: the former top-level adviser to the U.S. military tells me it will take more than weapons to defeat the Islamic
State.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMMA SKY, FORMER ADVISER TO GENERAL RAY ODIERNO: You can give this army as much training and equipment as you like. But its psychology, its
morale, its willingness to fight is very much reflected by this lack of political agreement at the center.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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PLEITGEN: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to a special weekend edition of the program. I'm Fred Pleitgen, in for Christiane Amanpour.
Trying to stand up to ISIS: Iraqi forces are desperately fighting to push back the Islamic State after the extremist group boldly and fairly
easily captured the key city of Ramadi last week. The defeat was humiliating for Baghdad and the U.S. Defense Secretary couldn't hide his
frustration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ASH CARTER, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: The Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight. They were not outnumbered; in fact, they vastly
outnumbered the opposing force and yet they failed to fight. They withdrew from the site and that says to me -- and I think to most of us -- that we
have an issue with the will of the Iraqis.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PLEITGEN: Now not surprisingly, Iraqi leaders were not happy with Carter's remarks. They've repeated asked for additional American
assistance -- and now that may be coming.
Top U.S. military leaders are meeting in an effort to speed up the arming and training of Iraqi forces. They're also work on ways to get the
country's Sunnis on board, many of whom have felt so alienated by the Shia- led leadership in Baghdad that they won't join the fight against ISIS.
It's been a critical week for Iraq. Earlier I spoke with the country's Sunni vice prime minister, Saleh al-Mutlaq. He paints an
alarming picture of the country's security forces and the country's future.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN: Deputy Prime Minister al-Mutlaq, thank you for joining the program.
SALEH AL-MUTLAQ, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER OF IRAQ: Thank you.
PLEITGEN: First of all, I have to get your reaction to the comments that Ash Carter made, questioning whether the Iraqi military has the will
to fight against ISIS.
AL-MUTLAQ: Well, the Iraqi military, they pulled out of Ramadi in a way which I'm not accustomed to it, which did not see before with the
experience of the Iraqi army. It was an action that surprised all of us, that an army with all this power would withdraw against such a small enemy
that attacked them.
PLEITGEN: But isn't one of the problems, sir, that we have seen similar retreats before?
We've seen them in Mosul. We've seen them in Fallujah.
Isn't the problem that the Iraqi military needs to get together, needs to organize itself and finally get rid of ISIS?
AL-MUTLAQ: Yes. Well, that was what we've been saying since 2003. First, you should not dissolve the Iraqi army and the Americans did
dissolve the Iraqi army. And then we said since you have already decided to dissolve the Iraqi army, now you have to build a national army which is
not sectarian, which is a professional army.
But unfortunately, the army was built in a way that the militias was entered in it and also it was not built on a national basis but on a
sectarian one.
And that army did huge mistakes in Mosul, which meant the people worked against them and they did not stand against ISIS when ISIS entered
Mosul. And the army scared from Mosul.
Now we have another experience in Ramadi. Actually, it's not clear for us why such a unit, which supposed to be trained by the Americans for
years and supposed to be one of the best units in the army, would withdraw from Ramadi in such a way and left the weapons behind them.
PLEITGEN: Well, now Prime Minister al-Abadi has called in Shiite militias to help liberate Ramadi, to get ISIS out of Ramadi; at the same
time Sunni fighters, who were inside Ramadi, complained that they did not get enough ammunition to hold off ISIS. And now Shiite fighters are being
called in to try and liberate the city.
How is that supposed to work?
AL-MUTLAQ: That was the problem from the beginning. We've been saying, please arm the people who are from Ramadi and from the Sunni areas
to fight ISIS, because they are the one who are capable of fighting ISIS, as they fight -- as they fought Al Qaeda in 2007 and 2008.
It was unfortunate. It's neither the Iraqi government supplies those people, I mean, the people from Ramadi. to defend themselves, nor the Arab
countries. And also the Americans did not supply those people with the weapons, equivalent to the weapons ISIS have.
PLEITGEN: But, sir, all the problems that you just outlined have been known for a very long time. It was the middle of last year that ISIS
overran large parts of Iraq.
Since then, it was clear what needed to be done. There needed to be a government of national unity; the Iraqi security forces needed to be
reformed so that they would be inclusive of all people. And yet nine months later, here we are in a situation where once again the military has
been overrun.
What's been done in that time?
AL-MUTLAQ: Without having a political, you know, solution to the problems in Iraq, without having a reconciliation in the country, the
military side of the battle cannot work alone.
That is, we have to go ahead and do the reconciliation between people and give the people the demands they wanted. They stood on the street for
more than a year, asking for small demands and nobody gave them anything. So now they need hope in order to get the people involved in the battle.
PLEITGEN: Sir, you yourself are from the city of Fallujah, which is still under ISIS' control.
And the big question right now is where do these people, the Sunnis of Iraq, feel they belong?
Do they feel that they have a future in Iraq?
Do they feel that things are truly changing with the Abadi government?
Do they feel that things will get better for them if, in fact, ISIS is ousted?
AL-MUTLAQ: Yes, actually at the beginning they had some hope. But then with time, they see -- they see nothing from the agreement between the
Shiite coalition and the Sunnis' part about the items that they agreed to do by, you know, being in the government.
But there are very minor things that had been done since the formation of the government. This meant the people, they are losing hope. This is
why I think we need the international help also.
ISIS is not from Iraq. ISIS came to us from outside. And we have to remember that Iraq become in such a way because of the occupation and
because of the withdrawal and -- from Iraq in a way which was not responsible.
PLEITGEN: Do you think at this point -- and this is a question many people ask -- that many of the Sunni in Iraq, they don't support ISIS?
They don't want to be with ISIS. They're not radical.
But at the same time, they're also very much afraid of the central government in Baghdad and of a lot of the sectarian policies that have come
out of it over the years.
AL-MUTLAQ: I do agree 100 percent that the Sunni people, they are not with ISIS. And this is for sure. But they did not have the courage to
fight ISIS as they should be because they are not certain that, after ISIS, their future is going to be much better than what they have now.
What they have with daish is a very bad thing. But they are not certain that is what is going to come after that is different.
PLEITGEN: Sir, in many ways, you are their representative in the Iraqi government.
Do you feel that you're being taken seriously in the Abadi administration?
Do you feel that you can voice those concerns and that those concerns are acted on?
AL-MUTLAQ: No, actually I don't feel that we are participating in a way as we wanted. Without involving the other section, the other people in
the government, in the leadership of the security issue, I don't think there will be a real contribution.
Also we feel that the intention of Mr. Abadi is good, is OK. But what we see on the ground until now is not enough to convince us that things are
going to be working in a proper way.
PLEITGEN: Vice Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq, thank you very much for joining the program.
AL-MUTLAQ: Thank you, indeed. Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN: So how did Iraq get to this sad state? When we return, we'll take a step back with a British civilian who had the unlikely job of
advising the top U.S. general. She'll tell us where it all went wrong and how she thinks it can all be made right.
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PLEITGEN: Welcome back to the program. Now with so much going wrong in Iraq, it's important for us to talk to those who appear to be getting it
right -- at least for a little while.
Between 2006 and 2009, the so-called surge appeared to be making a difference. Violence was down and the country's Sunnis slowly gained trust
in the Shia-led government.
The military architects of the turnaround were U.S. generals David Petraeus and Ray Odierno. Odierno's main adviser was a British woman named
Emma Sky. She's just written a book about Iraq, called "The Unravelling." And she joined me earlier to talk about how Iraq got to its current sad
state and what can be done about it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN: Emma Sky, thank you for joining the program.
SKY: Thank you.
PLEITGEN: First of all, we need to talk about how you got involved with the U.S. military because you and General Odierno are kind of an odd
couple and you used to be a peace activist; you even volunteered to be a human shield. And he is obviously the epitome of the American soldier.
And I just want to read a quick quote from your book, where it says, "What I valued most about Western society was the freedom to take to the
streets to protest our policies. What General O" -- so, General Odierno -- "valued most was the willingness of soldiers to go around the world to
defend what he saw as freedom."
How did you guys mesh?
SKY: Well, it is an unlikely story. Back in 2003, after the invasion, the British government asked for volunteers to go out to Iraq for
three months to administer the country before it was handed back to the Iraqis.
And I was against the war. I thought, this is my opportunity to go out to Iraq. I will apologize to Iraqis for the war and I will do my bit in
helping them rebuild their country. I'd spent a decade in Israel- Palestine.
So I had some skills in institutional development, conflict mediation. So I thought, I've got, you know, I'll go and be useful.
And I wandered around the country, looking for a job. I ended up through sort of bizarre series of events, ended up in Kirkuk when I was
told, OK, you are now the person responsible for the province. And Kirkuk was one of the provinces that came under the authority of General Odierno.
So that's how I met him.
PLEITGEN: You are very different personalities, presumably.
SKY: Well, we are very different. So the first time I saw him, I was in shock because I'd never seen such a large human being in real life. I
mean, he is very, very, very large.
PLEITGEN: I think they refer to him as Genghis Khan, some did, didn't they?
(LAUGHTER)
SKY: He was the boss of the colonel. So in all the meetings I was in the meetings. And the general kept asking me questions. And I thought,
oh, you know, this guy's intellectually curious. He really wants to understand what's going on. So that's how we first met.
Then a few years later, when he was put in charge of the operational plan for the surge, I got this email from him out of the blue, asking me
will I come back to Iraq to be his political adviser.
PLEITGEN: Now what we have is a situation where we're looking at Ramadi, for instance, where the Iraqi military was ousted because clearly
they didn't have a foothold there to begin with, because they didn't have the trust of the population and now Iran-backed Shiite militias are being
sent in to liberate the place.
That can't be a long-term strategy, can it?
SKY: It is really difficult. When you look at how contested the politics are in Iraq today, this has an effect on the army. You can't have
a national army when you don't have the politicians agreeing what the nation is. So you can give this army as much training and equipment as you
like.
But its psychology, its morale, its willingness to fight is very much reflected by this lack of political agreement at the center. So at the end
of the day, it's only the Sunnis of Iraq that can really defeat ISIS. But they're only going to turn against ISIS; they looked at Maliki, they looked
at ISIS and they thought maybe ISIS is the lesser of two evils.
(CROSSTALK)
PLEITGEN: This is very interesting that you say that.
If you say that, then does Iraq, the way it's currently going, have a future as a state?
If it doesn't manage to bring the Sunnis into the boat because clearly, I mean, we're nine months on from the U.S. beginning its
airstrikes, from the coalition coming together. And clearly there hasn't been very much political movement.
Do you think this -- that Iraq as a country has a future then?
SKY: I don't think Iraq is going to go back to a centralized system, try this and it's failed. I think the prime minister, Haider Abadi, wants
to do the right thing but he doesn't have the capacity to do the right thing. He's up against Shia militias and Shia politicians, who are scared
that if they give weapons to the Sunnis they won't just use it against the Islamic State, they'll then use it against the Shia.
You've also got Iran as the strongest player in Iraq today. And that makes reconciliation very difficult.
So when you look at this situation, you think, what can be done?
We can't keep using the same old methods and expecting different results. It's not going to happen. So I think the best hope we have is
that America, Iran, Saudi, Turkey actually come together to hammer out some agreement on how to defeat the Islamic State and what a post-Islamic State
Iraq could look like.
And that's going to have to be confederation with Kurdistan, decentralization down to provincial level and Sunnis recruited on a
provincial level to fight against the Islamic State.
PLEITGEN: It looks as though when you talk about these things, it's obviously very emotional for you because it was a very pivotal time in the
history of Iraq, where it could have gone either way.
How angry are you or how bitter are you about the U.S. decision to leave Iraq and to support Nouri al-Maliki?
Because it seems as though what you're saying is we almost got it right. We almost made it to the finish line. When we were conducting the
surge, when so many people were sacrificed.
SKY: I think it is very difficult for anyone who served in Iraq during this period, particularly when we saw all the progress being made
during the surge. And when I left Iraq, I'd seen what had gone wrong in 2010, when we hadn't upheld the election results.
We had decided it would be easier to just keep Maliki in power and then we'd not succeeded in doing it. Iran had done it. So I saw
Americans' influence go down. I saw Iran's influence go up.
And when I left, I was very angry and I really struggled, what it had all been for.
All that loss of life, all that investment, what had it been for?
And that's really where I started writing because I think we honor those people who sacrificed their lives. We honor that. It's 4.5 thousand
Americans, almost 200 Brits, 150,000 Iraqis. We honor the sacrifice by trying to learn the right lessons from this war.
And I wanted to acknowledge the huge efforts that had gone into trying to make Iraq a better place. And I wanted to pay tribute to Iraq as a
country I came very much to love.
PLEITGEN: What about the Obama administration's policy?
I mean, it seems to many people that that -- and this is something that Obama said as he was on the campaign trail, that he wanted to get
Americans out of Iraq.
Do you think that there was much beyond that?
SKY: I believe the drawdown was the right decision. But I really felt that we should have done more to try and broker an inclusive agreement
among the elites in 2010 that would have created a better balance in Iraq and a better balance in the region and might have allowed us to keep a
small contingent of U.S. forces in Iraq.
But it wasn't so much the troop numbers that were important to me. It was the political agreement between the elites. It was all the violence
that we see. It's all about politics.
PLEITGEN: Do you think that the Iraqi people, in spite of their politicians, the Sunni, the Shia, the Kurds, want to live peacefully side
by side with each other in a state?
Or are they now at a point where the Kurds say we want Kurdistan, where the Sunnis say we don't want to have anything to do with the Shia
anymore and where the Shia say we want this rump state that we have, which is sort of the southern portion of Iraq?
SKY: When you look back through the centuries, the people living in this land have mostly lived in peaceful coexistence.
So what we see today is abnormal, this level of violence, this level of fighting is really abnormal. But we are where we are. Iraq today is in
a very, very different place. But there are still a large number of people in Iraq who are intermarried, Sunni and Shia. And so something needs to be
done to try and bring the violence down and to allow people to live peacefully.
PLEITGEN: You've outlined what you think needs to happen, confederation, a loose confederation.
Do you think it will happen?
Do you think this state does have a future?
SKY: I think the state has a future if these regional powers, including America, come together to hammer out some agreement because if
they can reach an agreement on how to fight ISIS and what a post-ISIS Iraq looks like, then they can cajole and pressure the Iraqi politicians to
agree to this.
PLEITGEN: Right now Iraq is in so much turmoil and there's many people who feel or there are some people who feel that the Islamic State,
for as brutal as it is, gives them at least a measure of stability. And people always say that the Islamic State is neither Islamic nor a state.
And certainly they aren't Islamic.
But are they less of a state than the Iraqi state at this point?
SKY: I don't think the Islamic State is here to stay. When you look at the vision Islamic State gives for the future, it's apocalyptic. That's
not a vision that people want to live under.
If you speak to young Iraqis, they want to live in a country that looks like Dubai, not daish, not the Islamic State. So I don't think it's
got a future. It's a symptom of a problem in the Middle East.
And the problem in the Middle East is the change in the balance of power and bad governance. And until the balance of power is improved
between Iran and the Gulf states, and until governance is improved in the Arab states, the Islamic State has -- you know, it can gain supporters.
PLEITGEN: Emma Sky, thank you for joining the program.
SKY: Thank you very much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PLEITGEN: And after a break, imagine a world where people seeking refuge are given a second chance. It's the world of one remarkable hotel.
And we'll check I after this.
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PLEITGEN: And finally tonight, imagine what it would be like to be a refugee. Many of them come from the places we report on: Iraq, Syria,
Africa, Afghanistan -- tens of thousands flee their home, their cultures, on a dangerous journey.
But instead of comfort, they often find animosity in the places they arrive. Now imagine a world where it is refugees that make you feel
comfortable and at home on your travels.
That's the extraordinary world of the Hotel Magdas in Vienna. Management has hired around 20 refugees from crisis zones across the globe
to help run the hotel.
This is Denis (ph), the receptionist. He welcomes guests at the lobby that features a poster appealing for help in the Mediterranean crisis, the
journey he knows all too well. He fled persecution in Guinea Bissau, smuggled across the sea in a ship. His story is just one amongst the many
that now decorate the walls of the hotel.
Others include a Yazidi who fled Iraq, an Algerian escaping violence and one woman running from homophobic attacks. They all help run this
business; Chef Sameer told a CNN affiliate about his new life in Austria's capital after fleeing Afghanistan.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAMEER, CHEF, HOTEL MAGDAS (through translator): It's very good. I'm so happy in Austria. This is not like my country. My country is a
catastrophe. There are such great people here. I have so many friends here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PLEITGEN: And now in a safe haven, the refugee staff can make visitors feel welcome in a sanctuary of their own making.
That's it for our program. Thanks for watching. And remember you can always see the whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Twitter
@FPleitgenCNN. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.
END
