From the New York Times, I'm Caitlin Dickerson. This is The Daily.

Today, the battle for Mosul is entering its final and most challenging phase.

As the US leads airstrikes on Mosul's old city, it's Iraqi forces that are on the ground there,

engaged in the most intensive urban warfare since World War II. The Times embeds with one

Iraqi unit, and the Supreme Court makes a rare decision to get involved in politics.

It's Tuesday, June 20th.

We're going to take the slow. This is both new for us.

Yeah, okay. Ben Solomon, we've been reporting on the battle for Mosul for months,

and usually we talk about airstrikes that are led by the United States military.

But you recently embedded with the Iraqi army. So what's their role in this battle?

Well, the Iraqi army is leading the fight right now. So much of the past was more

of the Americans leading a fight and trying to make the Iraqis a better army to bolster them.

The battle there has been a real test for the Iraqi army in both running their own combat

missions and also what it means for the Americans to support them without actually having a force

on the ground. And who are these soldiers? They are regular young kids. I mean, I kind of think

most people would expect these guys to be very devout. The reality is a lot of them have tattoos,

a lot of them smoke and drink, a lot of them are just young, 20-something kids, and it's a really

easy career for them to kind of jump in because a lot of the Iraqi needs is just young men to fight.

And in Iraq, for the past 30, 40 years, the biggest constant has been war. And the biggest thing

that a lot of these kids see and the biggest path they see to success is kind of being a part of

that. And the reality is the mechanism for trying to teach these guys to turn into soldiers as

quickly as possible is probably not up to the standards that Americans might want.

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