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Carter: Iraqis Showed 'No Will To Fight' In Ramadi !


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CNN. Broadcasting A 2 1/2 Minute Video Interview With The US Defense Secretary In The Link !

 

 

 

 

Carter: Iraqis showed 'no will to fight' in Ramadi

 

 

By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent

Updated 3:14 PM ET, Sun May 24, 2015

 

 

Washington (CNN) - Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in his first comments since the key town of Ramadi fell to ISIS, blamed the weak state of Iraq's military as one major reason for the city's fall, in an exclusive interview on CNN's "State of the Union" aired Sunday.

"What apparently happened was that the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight," Carter told CNN's Barbara Starr. "They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force, and yet they failed to fight, they withdrew from the site, and that says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend themselves."

Carter's remarks are the strongest yet from any Obama administration official speaking on the record since the last week's events when Ramadi fell. The U.S. has sped up the shipment of some arms to help boost Iraqi forces as ISIS has recently taken more territory, but the U.S. defense chief said Iraq's military needs to step up.

"We can give them training, we can give them equipment -- we obviously can't give them the will to fight," Carter said. "But if we give them training, we give them equipment, and give them support, and give them some time, I hope they will develop the will to fight, because only if they fight can ISIL remain defeated."

Carter said it was "very concerning" the local forces showed little willingness to fight, as they are the ones who will be charged with fighting, winning and holding the territory against ISIS.

In the wake of ISIS advances, some -- including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain --have called for more American forces on the ground in Iraq. Currently, there are about 3,000 U.S. military personnel training Iraqi forces, but they are not near combat areas.

Some experts have called for putting some American forward air controllers who would be near the fighting to help better pinpoint the targets for coalition airstrikes. Carter told CNN he has not forwarded a recommendation for them to the White House.

"If there comes a time when we need to change the kinds of support we're giving to the Iraqi forces, we'll make that recommendation. But what happened in Ramadi was a failure of the Iraqi forces to fight," Carter repeated.

"So our efforts now are devoted to providing their ground forces with the equipment, the training and to try to encourage their will to fight, so that our campaign enabling them can be successful both in defeating ISIL and keeping ISIL defeated in a sustained way," he said.

Carter said the U.S. will continue efforts to provide equipment and training so Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and his government can wage an effective battle against ISIS, but the U.S. support alone would be no guarantee of success.

"That is why I think we need to redouble our efforts to get -- hasten this delivery of equipment to them, their training to support Prime Minister Abadi," he said. "We can't make this happen by ourselves, but we can assist it to happen, and we are counting on the Iraqi people to come behind a multi-sectarian government in Baghdad."

"But again, we can't make that happen. We can only help create the conditions in which it will happen," Carter said.

Carter's full interview will air on CNN's "State of the Union" at 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. on Sunday.

 

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDUQqQIwBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2015%2F05%2F24%2Fpolitics%2Fashton-carter-isis-ramadi%2F&ei=Lk9jVafoEoWdyATB4ICwAw&usg=AFQjCNEM5ZTOujoGUNZH_zZc28QUmWLflw&sig2=hyIlzaKOj1sc1XSzfsc4uQ

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 there comes a time you just give up, your beat by the people that should have given you the strength and will to fight, These people have been let down by there country, and government with false hopes and empty promises . They fight and give there life just to be lied to time and time again.

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Biden tries to smooth Iraq ties after Pentagon outburst
 
AFP | 25 May, 2015 20:10
 
2015-04-13T172239Z_01_WAS807_RTRIDSP_3_U
Biden "recognized the enormous sacrifice and bravery of Iraqi forces over the past eighteen months in Ramadi and elsewhere," the White House said. File photo
Image by: YURI GRIPAS / REUTERS
 
US Vice President Joe Biden on Monday sought to end an embarrassing rift between Washington and Baghdad after Pentagon boss Ash Carter blamed Iraqi forces for the fall of Ramadi.

The White House said Biden called Iraqi's prime minister Haider al-Abadi, just hours after the US Defense Secretary's suggested the Islamic State group won control of the city because "Iraqi forces showed no will to fight."

Biden "recognized the enormous sacrifice and bravery of Iraqi forces over the past eighteen months in Ramadi and elsewhere," the White House said.

As well as rowing back Carter's comments, Biden called to "reaffirm US support for the Iraqi government's fight against" Islamic State jihadists.

Carter's comments were seen as undercutting a US-Iraqi collective front in the fight against the radical militants.

They were also seen as humiliating for Iraq's prime minister, as he desperately tries to hold his country together with a thinly stretched army and assorted ethnic and sectarian militias whose loyalties lie outside Baghdad.

Abadi himself expressed surprise at Carter's remarks and suggested the head of the Pentagon "was fed with the wrong information."

Iraqi troops had held out in Ramadi for more than a year before succumbing to the highly-motivated highly-armed force a week ago.

Iranian hardliners were quick to seize on Carter's remarks, as they continued to to build influence with Iraq's Shiite majority.

"How can you be in that country under the pretext of protecting the Iraqis and do nothing? This is no more than being an accomplice in a plot," said Qassem Suleimani, the Revolutionary Guards' commander of foreign operations.

It was not immediately clear what repercussions there may be for Carter, who took office in February.

The nuclear expert caused angst in the White House even before being formally sworn in, by publicly supporting the US supply of weapons to Ukraine, a position the White House has been reluctant to embrace.

At that time the White House pointedly noted that any decision would be for Obama, not the secretary of defence, to make.

 

http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/2015/05/25/Biden-tries-to-smooth-Iraq-ties-after-Pentagon-outburst?

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America has lost what small amount of creditability we once had in the Middle East!

 

Iraq is waiting for another country to come in and save them. At a cost of billions of dollars, lost lives of their soldiers, and nothing to gain!

The news outlets finally started discussion pointing out that Iraqi's do not have a will to fight!

You can train & equip their people but you can not instill the will to risk your life for your country. They only fight for religion or tribe.

 

How else can 30 thousand fighters defeat a population of 50 million?

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  • Criticism of Iraqi forces based on ‘incorrect information’ says Baghdad
  •  
  • Iranian military commander says US has ‘no will’ to fight Isis

 

 

Kareem Shaheen in Beirut

 

Tuesday 26 May 2015 07.37 BST

 

 

Vice-President Joe Biden on Monday spoke to the Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, to reassure him of US support, a day after controversial remarks by the defense secretary, Ash Carter, sparked a war of words over the recent military successes of Islamic State.

 

Carter told CNN on Saturday Iraqi forces had shown “no will to fight” Isis and had fled in Ramadi despite outnumbering the militants. Isis also captured Palmyra, in Syria, last week.

 

A spokesman for Abadi subsequently told the Associated Press Carter had been given “incorrect information”, and said: “We should not judge the whole army based on one incident.”

 

A White House statement on Monday said Biden recognised “the enormous sacrifice and bravery” that Iraqi forces had displayed over the past 18 months in Ramadi and elsewhere, and welcomed an Iraqi decision to mobilise additional troops and prepare for counter-attack operations.

 

Nonetheless, rival powers and allies traded barbs and accusations over the recent successes of Islamic State, amid warnings that it may execute hundreds of hostages captured in its latest battles.

 

In Iran Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, the external operations arm of the Revolutionary Guards, said the US had “no will” to fight Isis.

 

“Today, there is nobody in confrontation with [isis] except the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as nations who are next to Iran or supported by Iran,” Soleimani told a daily newspaper, Javan, on Monday.

 

Soleimani said US fighter jets had done nothing to halt the Isis advance on Ramadi, and said the US was complicit in the group’s expansion.

 

On Monday, the most senior British military officer to be involved in postwar planning in Iraq, Major General Tim Cross, said the Iraqi army lacked the necessary “moral cohesion” to fight against Isis.

 

In Washington, Republican attacks on the Obama administration over its policy against Isis have grown louder. On Sunday John McCain, the chair of the Senate armed services committee, mocked President Obama for saying climate change was a threat to US national security when advances by Isis had not been checked.

 

The international war of words highlighted disagreements between the US, Iraq and Iran over how to combat Isis. Months of air strikes have failed to check its advances.

 

Last week, the militant group seized the capital of the predominantly Sunni Anbar province, its greatest victory in Iraq since its conquest of Mosul last summer and its declaration of a caliphate spanning swaths of Iraq and Syria.

 

Isis advances have not been limited to Iraq. Last week, the group took control of the historic Syrian city of Palmyra and strategic gas fields nearby after a week-long siege that routed forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. The victory has triggered a humanitarian crisis, due to the flight of thousands of residents.

 

Isis has so far executed more than 200 people in the city and nearby villages, including civilians as well as pro-Assad fighters, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group with wide contacts in Syria.

 

The group also holds some 600 captives from its battles in the east of the city of Homs and Palmyra, including pro-government fighters and civilians it accuses of aiding Assad. They are likely to face the same fate.

 

The Assad regime said Isis had killed 400 civilians in Palmyra over the weekend, a claim both unsupported and contradictory to the regime’s own declaration when it withdrew from Palmyra that it had evacuated most of the civilians in the city.

 

Assad’s air force launched more than a dozen air strikes on Palmyra on Monday, including raids near the ancient ruins of the city, which many fear Isis may damage or destroy.

 

 

1000.jpg
Iraqi government soldiers stand at a checkpoint in the Jurf al-Sakher area, 50 kilometres south of Baghdad.
Photograph: Haidar Hamdani/AFP/Getty Images
 
 
 

 

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Thanks DT...This aint all that bad...it's a ME thang...The Kurds were in the news for the past 6 months getting their respect and independence ands even the old Hometown of Tikrit...Now it's time to reestablish the Sunni...Ramadi was blown to Hell and back the last time I saw it in 2010 and needs to be Bulldozed and rebuilt...As long as there's fighting in that war-torn part of Iraq there will be a need for weapons, National Guards, Amnesty Bills and that all important weapons deals with the Kurds...Things will get back to normal after everyone gets over their temper tantrums and gets their little military toys to play with the enemy...There's nothing really in Ramadi worth fighting for...yet... 

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This guy is as clueless as his commander-in-chief...This's Anbar providence...Sunni Country...Sunnis that use to run everything and control Iraq...The Shiite do not want to let the Sunnis get their power back through the National Guard Bill...As soon as the Sunnis are allowed to be placed back at their respectable place of authority with the Shiites and Kurds will be the end of the ISIS threat...As long as the Shiite Iraqi Army is allowed to rule over Sunni territory there'll be a conflict...These are century old problems that the US think they can solve in a decade...it aint gonna happen...We need to learn from History...There has to be a balance...This time last year the Kurdish Peshmerga were not even thought to be equal to the Iraqi Army...now they're the only fighting force Iraq has...The Sunni have proven their will to fight and their ability to run a nation and the Shiite know they'll have to preform to the standards of a superior force once the Sunnis are allowed to run their own part of the country...The Kurds are out performing the Shiites in production now and carrying the Shiites weight...Just think of the possibilities Iraq has when someone that knows something can get in charge.... 

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Well put skeet. But I don't believe either are clueless. I think the the guy needs a lesson in diplomacy. It is not advantageous to be so direct sometimes. You have to maintain good relations for all of us investors and not make heads of state angry. Yeah, he probably right. Shia fighters don't want to die in sunni country. But you can't just say it. I got money sitting over there! Lol

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Iraqi PM: Ramadi recapture 'in days' BBC News
Published on May 25, 2015

Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said that Ramadi would be recaptured "within days". The Iraqi government has now deployed Shia militias to the area to try to halt the advance of IS. The BBC's world affairs editor John Simpson reports.

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