Is the U.S. doing enough to help Iraq fight ISIS?

We're in the
Nivenah Province Joint Operations Command Center
where Iraqi and American military officers are
watching a drone feed closely. On screen, ISIS
militants can be seen lined up, evenly spaced,
against a bank.
This isn't the first time the Iraqi army has tried to
retake the village of al-Nasr. Close to the Tigris river,
the village is a vital step in the first phase of the
operation to recapture Mosul from ISIS.
"Look he's firing!" shouts General Najim al-Jobori,
commander of the Nineveh operation, pointing to an
ISIS fighter on the screen before barking orders in to
his cell phone to the men on the frontline.
Seconds later, an airstrike hits close to the berm and
the room erupts in cheers.
As the smoke clears, the fighters appear immobile.
But when the drone camera zooms out, dozens of
suspected ISIS militants can be seen running around
the village, darting in and out of buildings.
"You came in maybe three hours into the battle,"
explains Colonel Scott Naumann, of the U.S. 10th
Mountain Division, which is partnered with the
Nineveh command. "What we initially saw was Daesh
flowing out," he says, using the Arabic acronym for
ISIS. "So what we're seeing really is just kind of the
remnants of the force that was in the town.
"Predominantly, they are fighting conventionally right
now -- there are a lot of trenches a lot of individual
fighting positions. But, he adds, "the enemy is using
a lot of VBIEDs and IEDs," referring to Improvised
Explosive Devices, vehicle-borne or otherwise.
Naumann also says, "as they move into urban areas
out of some of the trenches ... they are also ...
putting booby traps in some of the homes. As they
fall back -- and it's really inevitable as the ISF (Iraqi
Security Forces) push them -- they're trying to leave
traps behind so they can get the Iraqis as they move
in."
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Suicide truck bombs
The roads to the frontline are littered with flattened
buildings.
The Kurdish Peshmerga moved in here to fight ISIS
after the Iraqi army humiliatingly fled the region two
years ago. The Peshmerga have been holding a long
defensive berm since then, and it's from this that the
Iraqis -- the 15th Division of the Iraqi Army -- pushed
forward towards al-Nasr.
Coalition fighter jets continuously roar overhead,
plumes of smoke rise from the direction of al-Nasr as
senior Iraqi commanders huddle in a sandbagged
watch position on top of one of the few buildings still
standing.
They are in constant radio contact with their forces
further forward; the commanders are also receiving
regular updates from the joint operations center, and
watching the live drone footage.
If they can capture al-Nasr they'll have a decisive
advantage out here. The village is on high ground but
it's flanked by ISIS-controlled villages on either side.
Shortly before we arrived, we were told a suicide
bomber in a truck had managed to maneuver around
those troops on the frontline and barrel down
towards the berm, but an airstrike destroyed the
vehicle just a few hundred meters before it reached
its target.
Still it appears that the Iraqis are bogged down; ISIS
is sending in suicide car bombs from all sides, and
snipers from the surrounding villages are a constant
danger.
The commanders' faces are looking increasingly
drawn.
"If I have the liberty to make a decision about this
operation I wouldn't make a move only on al-Nasr
village, because my forces will be at risk of enemy's
fire from both sides," a senior Iraqi military officer
says.
"I would mobilize my forces on all three fronts at the
same time and smash the enemy."
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Battlefield confusion
But the Iraqis lack the forces, one of the Iraqi
commanders says, to attack all three villages at the
same time.
"It's got to be their plan," Naumann told us. "This is
their fight. We are here to enable them, but it is their
fight. We offer up come considerations as they come
up with plans on their timeline -- we offer them