RBP
11-08-2014, 06:23 AM
President Barack Obama yesterday approved almost doubling the number of U.S. military advisers, trainers and support personnel in Iraq, a move military and intelligence officials had been urging for months.
The increase to as many as 3,100 personnel from the current ceiling of 1,600 -- accompanied by a request for Congress to approve $5.6 billion to pay for the expansion -- is an acknowledgment that more needs to be done to help rebuild and advise Iraq’s battered security forces as they take on Islamic State militants.
It is “the kind of sure sign of American resolve that is needed to keep the Iraqis moving forward,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a national security analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “They’ve been stuck a bit since the summer in making any real headway on rebuilding their army, creating their new national guard, and otherwise preparing to take back” territory from the Sunni extremists.
The move will allow American troops to venture beyond the relative safety of the headquarters already established in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, and Erbil, the Kurdish regional capital.
Yesterday’s announcement, three days after the U.S. midterm elections, will involve U.S. military personnel more deeply in the fight against Islamic State, even as the administration reasserted it has no intention of putting American forces into ground combat.
‘Same Mission’
Administration officials said the planned deployments are consistent with Obama’s commitment to train and provide other assistance to help Iraqi forces confront Islamic State. There now are 1,400 U.S. troops in Iraq protecting U.S. facilities and assisting the Iraqi military in Baghdad and Erbil.
“Same mission -- this isn’t mission creep,” said White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, in an interview with Bloomberg View columnist Al Hunt for a segment on “Charlie Rose,” the PBS program that also airs on Bloomberg Television.
More U.S. advice and training alone won’t resolve questions about the Iraqis’ determination to fight, particularly among the Sunni minority that looks at the country’s Shiite leadership with distrust. The breakdown of Iraqi security forces in the face of Islamic State’s advance has shown that the issues are deeper than equipment and training.
“It’s not simply about capacity,” Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at Center for American Progress, a Washington research group, said in an interview. “It’s about political will and allegiance to the state.”
Awaiting Congress
The announcement won’t immediately ease pressure on Iraqi forces from the Islamic State fighters that have seized a swath of Iraq and Syria.
No expansion will take place until Congress approves the funding Obama requested yesterday, and after that it will take nine months or more for all of the additional U.S. troops to be deployed and train Iraqi forces, Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, told reporters yesterday.
The administration anticipates that the funding request will be handled as part of general spending legislation to be taken up during the lame-duck session of Congress, which faces the Dec. 11 expiration of the current spending authorization.
U.S. personnel assigned to advising and assisting Iraqi troops at brigade headquarters levels under the expansion will include operations in Anbar province, the location of the most intense fighting in Iraq, according to administration officials who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity under White House rules.
Dempsey’s Urging
U.S. personnel will be assigned to training as many as 12 Iraqi and Kurdish brigades in Anbar, Diyala, Erbil and Baghdad provinces, the officials said.
Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Lloyd Austin, who heads the U.S. Central Command, asked Obama to ease restrictions on the locations of U.S. military personnel for the advising and training operations, according to one of the officials.
“U.S. troops will not be in combat, but they will be better positioned to support Iraqi security forces as they take the fight” to the Sunni extremists, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement yesterday.
The training will focus on improving unit command and control, leadership, logistics and maneuver warfare, Kirby said at the Pentagon. He said the training would take place in parallel with combat operations.
‘Mixed Skills’
“There’s going to be mixed skills and capabilities among those” brigades, Kirby said. “They have demonstrated the willingness and the skill to go after” Islamic State, Kirby said. “So they’ve reached a point where they need additional help and guidance, particularly in areas like Anbar.”
Obama’s funding request to Congress calls for $3.4 billion for U.S. operations against Islamic State, according to a White House statement. An additional $1.6 billion is being sought to train and equip Iraqi and Kurdish security forces, while $520 million is being requested for State Department operations against the extremist group.
The added funding would be part of a pending war operations budget request that now will total $64.2 billion for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
The cost of U.S. air operations over Iraq and Syria as of Oct. 16 averaged $8.3 million a day, or $580 million since they began Aug. 8. The U.S and allies have flown more than 8,000 missions through Nov. 3, including combat strikes that have dropped or launched 2,178 munitions, according to Central Command.
Seeking Authorization
The request for more funds and troops was disclosed as Obama met at the White House with congressional leaders after Republican victories in this week’s midterm elections. Obama said on Nov. 5 that he wants to discuss cooperation on issues, including his new request for a vote to authorize the U.S. airstrikes that began in September in Iraq and Syria.
While welcoming Obama’s decision to seek authorization, Republican House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement yesterday that presidents traditionally have written such a proposed resolution, sent it to Congress and “worked to build bipartisan support for its passage.”
If Obama takes that approach, the Ohio Republican said, “House Republicans will be ready to work with him to get it approved.”
Increasing Friction
The commitment of U.S. forces to the war against Islamic State has been a growing source of friction between the White House and the Pentagon, according to defense and intelligence officials.
Three officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters and internal policy debates, said that military officials, backed by U.S. intelligence assessments, have argued for months that more American troops are needed to train, support and assist the Iraqi military in the fight to halt the extremists’ advances, defend strategic targets such as the Baiji oil refinery and the Haditha Dam, and in time begin retaking areas such as Mosul that have fallen.
While airstrikes alone have been helpful, the officials said, they are insufficient. One of them compared the president’s order to “degrade and ultimately defeat” Islamic State while not committing U.S. combat forces to being ordered to pound in a nail without being given a hammer.
The Iraqi security forces, the officials said, are demoralized and poorly led. They said there’s no quick fix to the dilemma, and the only answer to stemming Islamic State’s advances is sending more American and allied forces to advise and assist the Iraqis.
Asked if assisting could extend to combat situations, one of the officials said that it inevitably will, regardless of Obama’s vow not to send combat troops back to Iraq.
The increase to as many as 3,100 personnel from the current ceiling of 1,600 -- accompanied by a request for Congress to approve $5.6 billion to pay for the expansion -- is an acknowledgment that more needs to be done to help rebuild and advise Iraq’s battered security forces as they take on Islamic State militants.
It is “the kind of sure sign of American resolve that is needed to keep the Iraqis moving forward,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a national security analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “They’ve been stuck a bit since the summer in making any real headway on rebuilding their army, creating their new national guard, and otherwise preparing to take back” territory from the Sunni extremists.
The move will allow American troops to venture beyond the relative safety of the headquarters already established in Baghdad, Iraq’s capital, and Erbil, the Kurdish regional capital.
Yesterday’s announcement, three days after the U.S. midterm elections, will involve U.S. military personnel more deeply in the fight against Islamic State, even as the administration reasserted it has no intention of putting American forces into ground combat.
‘Same Mission’
Administration officials said the planned deployments are consistent with Obama’s commitment to train and provide other assistance to help Iraqi forces confront Islamic State. There now are 1,400 U.S. troops in Iraq protecting U.S. facilities and assisting the Iraqi military in Baghdad and Erbil.
“Same mission -- this isn’t mission creep,” said White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, in an interview with Bloomberg View columnist Al Hunt for a segment on “Charlie Rose,” the PBS program that also airs on Bloomberg Television.
More U.S. advice and training alone won’t resolve questions about the Iraqis’ determination to fight, particularly among the Sunni minority that looks at the country’s Shiite leadership with distrust. The breakdown of Iraqi security forces in the face of Islamic State’s advance has shown that the issues are deeper than equipment and training.
“It’s not simply about capacity,” Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at Center for American Progress, a Washington research group, said in an interview. “It’s about political will and allegiance to the state.”
Awaiting Congress
The announcement won’t immediately ease pressure on Iraqi forces from the Islamic State fighters that have seized a swath of Iraq and Syria.
No expansion will take place until Congress approves the funding Obama requested yesterday, and after that it will take nine months or more for all of the additional U.S. troops to be deployed and train Iraqi forces, Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, told reporters yesterday.
The administration anticipates that the funding request will be handled as part of general spending legislation to be taken up during the lame-duck session of Congress, which faces the Dec. 11 expiration of the current spending authorization.
U.S. personnel assigned to advising and assisting Iraqi troops at brigade headquarters levels under the expansion will include operations in Anbar province, the location of the most intense fighting in Iraq, according to administration officials who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity under White House rules.
Dempsey’s Urging
U.S. personnel will be assigned to training as many as 12 Iraqi and Kurdish brigades in Anbar, Diyala, Erbil and Baghdad provinces, the officials said.
Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General Lloyd Austin, who heads the U.S. Central Command, asked Obama to ease restrictions on the locations of U.S. military personnel for the advising and training operations, according to one of the officials.
“U.S. troops will not be in combat, but they will be better positioned to support Iraqi security forces as they take the fight” to the Sunni extremists, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said in a statement yesterday.
The training will focus on improving unit command and control, leadership, logistics and maneuver warfare, Kirby said at the Pentagon. He said the training would take place in parallel with combat operations.
‘Mixed Skills’
“There’s going to be mixed skills and capabilities among those” brigades, Kirby said. “They have demonstrated the willingness and the skill to go after” Islamic State, Kirby said. “So they’ve reached a point where they need additional help and guidance, particularly in areas like Anbar.”
Obama’s funding request to Congress calls for $3.4 billion for U.S. operations against Islamic State, according to a White House statement. An additional $1.6 billion is being sought to train and equip Iraqi and Kurdish security forces, while $520 million is being requested for State Department operations against the extremist group.
The added funding would be part of a pending war operations budget request that now will total $64.2 billion for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
The cost of U.S. air operations over Iraq and Syria as of Oct. 16 averaged $8.3 million a day, or $580 million since they began Aug. 8. The U.S and allies have flown more than 8,000 missions through Nov. 3, including combat strikes that have dropped or launched 2,178 munitions, according to Central Command.
Seeking Authorization
The request for more funds and troops was disclosed as Obama met at the White House with congressional leaders after Republican victories in this week’s midterm elections. Obama said on Nov. 5 that he wants to discuss cooperation on issues, including his new request for a vote to authorize the U.S. airstrikes that began in September in Iraq and Syria.
While welcoming Obama’s decision to seek authorization, Republican House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement yesterday that presidents traditionally have written such a proposed resolution, sent it to Congress and “worked to build bipartisan support for its passage.”
If Obama takes that approach, the Ohio Republican said, “House Republicans will be ready to work with him to get it approved.”
Increasing Friction
The commitment of U.S. forces to the war against Islamic State has been a growing source of friction between the White House and the Pentagon, according to defense and intelligence officials.
Three officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters and internal policy debates, said that military officials, backed by U.S. intelligence assessments, have argued for months that more American troops are needed to train, support and assist the Iraqi military in the fight to halt the extremists’ advances, defend strategic targets such as the Baiji oil refinery and the Haditha Dam, and in time begin retaking areas such as Mosul that have fallen.
While airstrikes alone have been helpful, the officials said, they are insufficient. One of them compared the president’s order to “degrade and ultimately defeat” Islamic State while not committing U.S. combat forces to being ordered to pound in a nail without being given a hammer.
The Iraqi security forces, the officials said, are demoralized and poorly led. They said there’s no quick fix to the dilemma, and the only answer to stemming Islamic State’s advances is sending more American and allied forces to advise and assist the Iraqis.
Asked if assisting could extend to combat situations, one of the officials said that it inevitably will, regardless of Obama’s vow not to send combat troops back to Iraq.