Obama sends U.S. military advisers to Iraq

[tankdude]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/19/us-iraq-security-idUSKBN0EU0MS20140619

 

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Thursday he was sending up to 300 U.S. military advisers to Iraq but stressed the need for a political solution to the country's crisis as government forces battled Sunni rebels for control of the country's biggest refinery.

 

Speaking at a news conference after a meeting with his top national security advisers, Obama said he was prepared to take "targeted" military action later if deemed necessary, thus delaying but still keeping open the prospect of U.S. air strikes against a militant insurgency. But he insisted that U.S. troops would not return to combat in Iraq.

Obama urged the Shi'ite government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to take urgent steps to heal the sectarian rift, something U.S. officials say the Iraqi leader has failed to do so far and which an al Qaeda splinter group leading the Sunni insurgency has exploited.

 

"We do not have the ability to simply solve this problem by sending in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and treasure that has already been expended in Iraq," Obama told reporters. "Ultimately, this is something that is going to have to be solved by the Iraqis."

 

Obama, who withdrew U.S. troops from Iraq at the end of 2011, said the United States would significantly increase support for Iraq's beleaguered security forces, including sending up to 300 military advisers. But Obama stopped short of acceding to Baghdad's request for the use of U.S. air power.

 

Senior U.S. lawmakers have called for Maliki to step down, and Obama administration officials have also made clear their frustration with him.

 

While Obama did not join calls for Maliki to go, saying "it's not our job to choose Iraq's leaders," he avoided any expression of confidence in the embattled Iraqi prime minister when asked by a reporter whether he would do so.

 

In the meantime, the United States began flying F-18 attack aircraft from the carrier George H.W. Bush on missions over Iraq to conduct surveillance of the insurgents. The carrier was ordered into the Gulf several days ago.

 

The sprawling Baiji refinery, 200 km (130 miles) north of the capital near Tikrit, was a battlefield as troops loyal to the Shi'ite-led government held off insurgents from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and its allies who had stormed the perimeter a day earlier, threatening national energy supplies.

 

A government spokesman said around noon (0900 GMT) that its forces were in "complete control."

 

But a witness in Baiji said fighting was continuing. Two Iraqi helicopters tried to land in the refinery but were unable to because of insurgent gunfire, and most of the refinery remained under rebel control.

 

A day after the government publicly appealed for U.S. air power, there were indications Washington is skeptical of whether that would be effective, given the risk of civilian deaths that could further enrage Iraq's once-dominant Sunni minority.

 

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, a NATO ally, said the United States "does not view such attacks positively," given the risk to civilians. A Saudi source said that Western powers agreed with Riyadh, the main Sunni state in the region, that what was needed was political change, not outside intervention, to heal sectarian division that has widened under Maliki.

 

Video aired by Al-Arabiya television showed smoke billowing from the Baiji plant and the black flag used by ISIL flying from a building. Workers who had been inside the complex, which spreads for miles close to the Tigris River, said Sunni militants seemed to hold most of the compound in early morning and that security forces were concentrated around the refinery's control room.

 

The 250-300 remaining staff were evacuated early on Thursday, one of those workers said by telephone. Military helicopters had attacked militant positions overnight, he added

[calkid11]

Thank you

[skeetdog]

Thanks Tankdude...Give ya three guess who were in those birds and your first two don't count...There's covert written all over this and Ozombie better play his cards right or he'll be in Maliki's seat quicker than a cat can lick its....snowglobe you got any visuals to help me out on this one....

[sandfly]

THANKS

[k98nights]

Iraqi forces ready push after Obama offers advisers

By Isra' al-Rubei'i

BAGHDAD,  Fri Jun 20, 2014 4:53pm BST

 

 

 

Thu, Jun 19 2014

 

 

BAGHDAD, (Reuters) - Iraqi forces were massing north of Baghdad on Friday, aiming to strike back at Sunni Islamists whose drive toward the capital prompted the United States to send military advisers to stiffen government resistance.

President Barack Obama offered up to 300 Americans to help coordinate the fight. But he held off granting a request for air strikes from the Shi'ite-led government and renewed a call for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to do more to overcome sectarian divisions that have fuelled resentment among the Sunni minority.

Speculation that Maliki might be forced aside was heightened when the country's senior Shi'ite cleric urged a speedy formation of a new government following the ratification this week of the results of a parliamentary election held in April.

Maliki's Shi'ite bloc won the most seats but, with stalemate among Shi'ite, Sunni and ethnic Kurdish groups, the new assembly has yet to sit. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani wrote in a Friday sermon that a constitutional deadline for convening to choose a new prime minister and government should be respected.

In office since 2006, Maliki has irritated Washington by the way he has alienated Sunnis and there has been speculation he has also lost the confidence of allies in Iran as Tehran and the United States look to end decades of mutual hostility to prevent anti-Western, anti-Shi'ite zealots taking over Iraq.

In the area around Samarra, on the main highway 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, which has become a frontline of the battle with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the provincial governor, a rare Sunni supporter of Maliki, told cheering troops they would now force ISIL and its allies back.

A source close to Maliki told Reuters that the government planned to hit back now that it had halted the advance which saw ISIL seize the main northern city of Mosul, capital of Nineveh province, 10 days ago and sweep down along the Sunni-populated Tigris valley toward Baghdad as the U.S.-trained army crumbled.

Governor Abdullah al-Jibouri, whose provincial capital Tikrit was overrun last week, was shown on television on Friday telling soldiers in Ishaqi, just south of Samarra: "Today we are coming in the direction of Tikrit, Sharqat and Nineveh.

"These troops will not stop," he added, saying government forces around Samarra numbered more than 50,000.

This week, the militants' lightning pace has slowed in the area north of the capital, home to Sunnis but also to Shi'ites fearful of ISIL, which views them as heretics to be wiped out. Samarra has a major Shi'ite shrine.

Maliki had former dictator Saddam Hussein, overthrown by a 2003 U.S.-led invasion, hanged three years later for killings of Shi'ites in nearby Dujail.

The participation of Shi'ite militias and tens of thousands of new Shi'ite army volunteers has allowed the Iraqi military to rebound after mass desertions by soldiers last week allowed ISIL to carve out territory where it aims to found an Islamic caliphate straddling the Iraqi-Syrian border.

"The strategy has been for the last few days to have a new defence line to stop the advance of ISIL," a close ally of Maliki told Reuters. "We succeeded in blunting the advance and now are trying to get back areas unnecessarily lost."

Pockets of fighting continue. Government forces appeared to be still holding out in the sprawling Baiji oil refinery, the country's largest, 100 km north of Samarra, residents said.

At Duluiya, between Samarra and Baghdad, residents said a helicopter strafed and rocketed a number of houses in the early morning, killing a woman. Police said they had been told by the military that the pilot had been given the wrong coordinates.

 

"TARGETED" U.S. ACTION

While a new reality is emerging with the key cities of Mosul and Tikrit for now out of reach for the government, Obama has put U.S. military power back at Baghdad's disposal, while insisting he will not send ground troops back, two and half years after he ended the occupation that began in 2003.

Announcing the despatch of advisers, the president said he was prepared to take "targeted" military action later if deemed necessary, thus delaying but still keeping open the prospect of air strikes to fend off a militant insurgency.

Obama also delivered a stern message to Maliki on the need to take urgent steps to heal Iraq's sectarian rift, something U.S. officials say the Shi'ite leader has failed to do and which ISIL has exploited to win broader support among the Sunnis.

"We do not have the ability to simply solve this problem by sending in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and treasure that has already been expended in Iraq," Obama told reporters. "Ultimately, this is something that is going to have to be solved by the Iraqis."

The contingent of up to 300 military advisers will be made up of special forces and will staff joint operations centres for intelligence sharing and planning, U.S. officials said.

Leading U.S. lawmakers have called for Maliki to step down, and Obama aides have also made clear their frustration with him.

While Obama did not join calls for Maliki to go, saying "it's not our job to choose Iraq's leaders", he avoided any expression of confidence in the embattled Iraqi prime minister.

Warning that Iraq's fate "hangs in the balance", Obama said: "Only leaders with an inclusive agenda are going to be able to truly bring the Iraqi people together."

Iraqis appeared content with Obama's decision. The Maliki ally said Obama's offer of aid was appropriate and included the establishment of an intelligence liaison centre that would allow for future U.S. air strikes on ISIL and other groups.

Obama's decision to hold off for now on such strikes underscored scepticism in Washington, and among its regional allies, over whether they would be effective, given the risk of civilian deaths that could further enrage Iraqi Sunnis.

"We will be prepared to take targeted and precise military action if we conclude the situation on the ground requires it," Obama said. But he insisted that any U.S. military response would not be in support of one Iraqi sect over another.

Maliki's Shi'ite alliance won the most votes in the elections, and U.S. officials said the Obama administration was pressing Iraqi authorities to accelerate the process of forging a new governing coalition and for it to be broad-based, including Sunnis and Kurds.

Anthony Cordesman, an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank in Washington, said Obama's decision guaranteed that the United States, not just Maliki's other key foreign allies in Shi'ite Iran, will have a presence on the ground during the Iraq crisis.

"It gives the United States the kind of direct contact with Iraqi forces that allows them to judge their strengths and weaknesses and act as a check on sectarian abuses," he wrote. "It keeps up the right kind of pressure on Maliki and any successor."

 

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/20/uk-iraq-security-idUKKBN0EU0N420140620?rpc=401&feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=401

[yota691]

Iraq crisis: First of 300 American military 'advisors' expected on the ground by tomorrow

 

 

 

 

 

 

KIM SENGUPTA 

 

DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT

 

Friday 20 June 2014

     

         

The first contingent of the 300 American military advisors being sent to Iraq are expected on the ground tomorrow, with the rest arriving in the next 48 hours.

• 
  

Most will be drawn, according to defence sources, from the Green Berets, Army Rangers and Navy Seals, who have extensive experience in Iraq and Afghanistan both in training and fighting alongside local forces. They will be joined by Air Force ground support teams for the possible eventuality of Barack Obama deciding to go ahead with air strikes. CIA intelligence teams, who are already in the country, will be augmented by extra personnel.

The US President has stressed that those being sent will not take part in combat, but charges are certain to follow of the danger of "mission creep" - the American military being sucked into a sectarian conflict between Iraqi forces whose higher ranks have been filled with Shias by the government of Nour al-Maliki and the Sunni fighters of Isis [islamic State of Iraq and Syria] and its allies.

Lieutenant General Jay Garner, who was head of the US-British civil administration after the invasion, said: “When you send 300 there, that’s not enough; you have to send a few more, then a few more”. The general, who was replaced by Paul Bremer, the man responsible for carrying out the de-Baathification process which had such catastrophic results, added: “That is how you get mission creep.”

 

 

The arrival of the Americans also raise intriguing questions about just how much they will cooperate with the commander of the Iranian al-Quds force, General Qassim Suleimani, who is in Iraq with his own team of advisors. Dozens of officers from Tehran have already set up operation centres in Baghdad and other cities, organising Iraqi forces as well as the Shia militias.

General David Petraeus, who led the surge which countered the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), the predecessor of Isis, described General Suleimani, who wielded great control over the Shia insurgency against American and British forces in Iraq following the US-led invasion as a “truly evil figure”.

While in a de facto alliance in Iraq, the Iranian commander has been organizing "volunteers" from his country and Hezbullah fighters from Lebanon fighting for Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, while the Americans train the opposition Free Syrian Army in Jordan.

General Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was a commander in Baghdad in 2003 and 2004 when the insurgency first erupted, has taken charge of planning for the operation. Special focus, it is claimed, are to avoid collateral damage amd civilian casualties, with evidence that Isis fighters have based themselves among civilian residents in cities like Mosul.

Senior American officers, including former ones with experience in Iraq will, it is believed, be consulted as the mission evolves. In particular General Petraeus, who helped organize the "Sunni Awakening" to combat ISI seven years ago, is likely to be asked to advise on tribal leaders, some of whom have switched sides in the current uprising after the Maliki government failed to fulfill pledges made to them over payments and integrating their fighters into the country’s armed forces.

The American teams will be initially based in two operational centres, one in Baghdad, the other in Kurdistan in the north. A third, the Balad airbase, may be used in the future as a logistical hub; Washington is not, for the time being, planning to base warplanes there.

The US has, meanwhile, stepped up reconnaissance flights over Iraq in preparation for the deployment. Yesterday, 34 manned and unmanned aircraft flew over the conflict zones, including F-18s from an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf and P-3 surveillance planes from bases in the region.

[yota691]

U.S. officials: Special Forces will be deployed in all parts of Iraq

- JUNE 20, 2014

Washington - East June 20: U.S. officials said U.S. advisers would be special forces operating in teams, each twelve personnel deployed across different from Iraq to carry out the roles of non-combat Reuters quoted U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel that the task of the special forces is to assess the situation on the ground and assess the the case of the Iraqi security forces are expected to be deployed Special Forces teams in the headquarters of Iraqi military or perhaps join the small units such as brigades usually consist of a few thousand troops, according to Reuters and the deployment of U.S. advisers in Iraq will strengthen the capacity of the army to gather intelligence necessary to carry out air strikes aimed at militants Officials had said that without better information to the intelligence the United States will find it difficult to launch an effective air campaign.

 

 

[yota691]

 

Petraeus: military action is necessary to confront militants in Iraq

 

      Friday   20   June   2014 | 18:56

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Take care not aligned to any side if we provided military support"

 

 

 

Petraeus is considered that the organization Daash seems much larger than a terrorist group

 

Supported David Petraeus, the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq strikes specific against the militants in Iraq, saying that the militants pose a threat to countries outside the region. said Petraeus told the newspaper "Daily Telegraph": "We must be careful not aligned to any side if we made military support, but the growing threat posed by the organization of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant mean that military action would be necessary. " and pointed out that the organization "seems much larger than a terrorist group, and it seems that it turns into an army of terrorists, accounted for sources of significant financial by looting banks and other criminal organizations. 

[sandfly]

THANKS