http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/06/poll-finds-criticism-of-obama-on-iraq-despite-agreement-on-ground-forces/

http://www.langerresearch.com/uploads/1144a40Iraq.pdf

A divided nation finally agrees on something overwhelmingly: the war in Iraq was simply not worth fighting.

Seventy-one percent of Americans now say that the war in Iraq “wasn’t worth it,” a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Annenberg poll shows, with skepticism about the lengthy war effort up substantially even in the last 18 months.

Just 22 percent now believe the 2003 war effort was worthwhile.

In a January 2013 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll asking the same question, 59 percent of Americans said the war wasn’t worth it, versus 35 percent who said the opposite.

Half of respondents also said that the United States does not have a responsibility to help the Iraqi government as the country descends into sectarian violence, while 43 percent said that America should intervene.

Americans are even more pessimistic about Iraq – where insurgent groups now threaten to overpower the government – than about the war in Afghanistan. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll earlier this month showed that 27 percent of respondents said the Afghan conflict was worth it, versus 65 percent who disagreed. Negativity about Iraq appears to rival that of the Vietnam War; three Gallup polls conducted from 1999-2000 found that about 7 in 10 Americans believe that 1970s war was a “mistake.”

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-turmoil/not-worth-it-huge-majority-regret-iraq-war-exclusive-poll-n139686

Syrian government aircraft bombed Sunni militant targets inside Iraq on Tuesday, further broadening the Middle Eastern crisis a day after Israeli warplanes and rockets struck targets inside Syria.

Iraqi state media initially reported that the attacks near Iraq’s western border with Syria were carried out by U.S. drones, a claim that was quickly and forcefully denied by the Pentagon.

Separately, the Pentagon said that 90 additional U.S. troops arrived in Iraq, part of up to 300 military advisers whom President Obama said last week he would deploy there to assess the situation before taking any further U.S. military action. A statement said that U.S. aircraft are now flying 30 to 35 manned and unmanned daily surveillance flights over Iraq.

The main U.S. effort Tuesday was on the diplomatic front, as Secretary of State John F. Kerry traveled to Irbil, the Kurdish regional capital, to urge leaders there to remain part of Iraq. As they met, fighters from local Sunni tribes, apparently working with militant fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), wrested control of at least part of Iraq’s largest oil refinery from government troops.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/syrian-aircraft-bomb-sunni-militant-targets-inside-iraq/2014/06/24/2ea61b70-fbdc-11e3-8176-f2c941cf35f1_story.html

As our live blog coverage continues, here's a summary of where things stand:

• The United States will provide "intense and sustained" support for Iraqi forces in their fight against insurgent militants, secretary of state John Kerry told a news conference in Baghdad. He said Iraqi forces must be armed and trained.

• Kerry said Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki had committed to convening a new government on 1 July and that new leaders would be chosen shortly thereafter. Kerry and Maliki met for 100 minutes Monday.

• In a CBSNews /NYTimes poll, 50% of respondents said the US had no responsibility to act on violence in Iraq, while 42% say the US did have a responsibility.

• Militants held border crossings into Syria and Jordan and appeared to win the battle for the northwestern Iraqi city of Tal Afar. The Iraqi military said "hundreds" of Iraqi soldiers had been killed fighting Isis.

• Before Isis militants took the border crossing into Jordan at Turaibil, Jordanian officials had said the border was under their control.

• Sixty-nine detainees of the state were killed in a militant attack on an Iraqi convoy south of Baghdad, AFP reported. The circumstances of the prisoners' deaths were unclear.

• The president of Iraqi Kurdistan said peshmerga fighters were in control of Kirkuk and "the time is now" for the Kurds to determine their own future.

While "American forces will not be returning to combat in Iraq," Obama said that the U.S. "will help Iraqis as they take the fight to terrorists who threaten the Iraqi people, the region and American interests as well."