New Delay in Offensive to Retake ISIS-Held City
BLITZER: Breaking now, we're getting word of another delay in plans for the Iraqi army to start an offensive to try to retake a major city held by ISIS. Our chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto, is here in THE SITUATION ROOM, together with our panel of experts. What are you learning about this effort to liberate Mosul?</s>SCIUTTO: Well, you remember all the talk about a spring offensive even with the Pentagon coming out with some of the details of that plan just a few weeks ago. But I'm told now it is more likely to begin in the fall, and that's at the earliest. And there are a number of things going on. One, you have Ramadan starting in June. That's 30 days. Then you have the intense heat of the summertime. Mark and I were speaking about this earlier, having been to Mosul in the summer. You're talking about 130 degrees. That makes it very difficult. In addition to that, when I was in Iraq in December, meeting with American commanders there, they were talking about the preparation of Iraqi forces, raising a lot of questions, saying not just months but it could be a year before they are ready to carry out an operation of this intensity, and difficulty. So now, listen, all this can change, their operations. But at the earliest in the fall is the best assessment I'm getting right now from the Pentagon.</s>BLITZER: And what we're seeing now, these mass graves that have been unearthed in Tikrit. Yes, Tikrit has been liberated from ISIS. It was a joint operation, the Iraqi military backed by Shiite militias backed by Iran with some U.S. air power in the process. Tikrit is -- but there are literally hundreds if not thousands of Iraqi soldiers and other Shiites who have been massacred there. These graves are awful. Arwa Damon was there on the scene. It's a brutal picture.</s>HERTLING: Some of the film that Arwa showed, old stomping ground of mine and truthfully, Wolf, the mass graves are just a part of the problem. When ISIS killed a lot of the security forces in that city, they would either put them in mass graves or in many cases just shot them and tossed them into the river. And that's unfortunate. I mean, there are thousands of this -- of people who have been buried or tossed aside.</s>BLITZER: So what's the lesson here, Bob Baer? The battle for Tikrit, as far as a much bigger battle that would be necessary to liberate Mosul, a city of nearly two million people, the second largest city in Iraq.</s>BAER: Well, Wolf, it didn't go all that well, the taking of Tikrit. It was mainly militia, Shia militias that went in. They wreaked havoc on the remaining population. They were shooting prisoners. They were dragging them around in cars. The Sunnis in al Anbar and Nineveh provinces have taken this very badly. They -- you know, ISIS saying, "Look, if you don't help, this is what's going to happen to you." So what we're seeing here is truly a civil war where there's no -- there's no good guys from either side. I think ISIS is much worse, of course, but the Shia militias and even the Iraqi army is not up to snuff at this point. So taking Mosul, whether it happens in the fall or not, we'll wait, have to see, but it's going to be a very, very messy battle.</s>BLITZER: And speaking of bad guys, al-Shabaab, Tom Fuentes, we know what happened at that university in Kenya, nearly 150 students who had been separated, Muslims, Christians, they took the Christians, slaughtered the Christians, and they now say, they're saying this is just the beginning. Kenyan cities, they say, will run red with blood. Are they really capable of doing this inside Kenya?</s>FUENTES: Absolutely. Only takes a couple of guys. They just did this with four people and killed 150 students at that university. I mean, here in our country, Virginia Tech, one guy with two pistols kills 32 people. So doesn't take much to go in and create a slaughter.</s>BLITZER: What are you hearing about what's going on in Kenya right now? Because it sounds awful.</s>SCIUTTO: No question. I mean, the irony here is that al-Shabaab has actually been losing ground and territory and power in its power base of Somalia, but it's maintained this ability to strike out outside the country and that's become more public. This was an internally focused group until a couple of years ago. Attacks in Uganda, of course, the Westgate Mall and now this. This is their new aspiration.</s>BLITZER: All right. Guys, stand by because we have much more coming up on this story. Also another important story we're following, feminism, North Korean style. Kim Jong-Un apparently will allow a visit by some international feminists including America's perhaps best known feminist. He's bringing back his country's at the same time demeaning so-called pleasure squads. Stay with us.