OLLIVANT:

Well, I think some more reliable troops have been brought from the south, troops that are very devoted to the Iraqi state. But part of this, I think, is the army that we built for the Iraqi army. This was an army that was built to be a police garrison force. And that's what we built it for. And then when it faced this Islamic State army that came in and pushed through it, this was an opponent for which they were not prepared.

Now, we don't want to downplay the very real problems with the Iraqi army — the corruption, the lack of training, the siphoning off of money. There are very real problems with the Iraqi army that we don't want to downplay. But there is some thought that if we focus this new Iraqi army on this new problem set that they're facing, that we could have some different results in the not-too-distant future.

Now, we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. They're not going to beat the Islamic State next month. This is still a 12 to 30-month endeavor. But the signs right now are good.