Obama Sending More Troops to Iraq to Fight ISIS
The Nobel Peace Prize winner moves more troops into the Middle East.
President Barack Obama, who promised less fighting in the Middle East, has decided to send 560 more troops to Iraq to help battle against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Mosul.
Secretary of Defense Ash Carter visited Baghdad on Monday:
“With the retaking of Qayara West airfield, the Iraqi Security Forces have once again demonstrated a serious will to fight,” Mr. Carter said. “I congratulate them on their recent successes and reaffirm that the United States, along with our coalition partners, will continue to do all we can to support Iraq’s effort to serve ISIL a lasting defeat,” he said, using an acronym for Islamic State.
Qayara West airfield, which Iraqi forces reclaimed from ISIS on Saturday, is located around 40 miles from Mosul. ISIS has held Mosul, the country’s second largest city, since June 2014.
The additional troops means the U.S. has 4,647 “military personnel on official assignment in Iraq.” Obama recently said the U.S. will keep 8,400 forces in Afghanistan when he leaves next January.
Speaking to reporters at the weekend, Mr Carter said that the use of the air base would help create a “pincer movement” on Mosul, with Iraqi forces moving from the south and Kurdish peshmerga from the north and east.
“At every step in this campaign, we have generated and seized additional opportunities to hasten Isil’s lasting defeat,” Mr Carter said during his visit to Baghdad. “These additional US forces will bring unique capabilities to the campaign and provide critical enabler support to Iraqi forces at a key moment in the fight.”
ISIS has lost territory, about the size of Ireland, in the past year after controlling large parts of Syria and Iraq. However, ISIS has shown strength in some areas, including their defeat of a unit of the New Syrian Army, formed by the U.S., “to penetrate the border town of Albu Kamal.” If they succeeded, the coalition would have cut the group’s “last main route between Iraq and Syria.”
Iraqi forces have taken back Ramadi, Fallujah, Hit, and Tikrit. This has led to the group attacking popular places in Baghdad, including one that killed almost 300 people in Karrada.
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Comments
OK…. 560 transsexuals with M-16’s and attitude. I can see that working.
I mean, what do you say as a way of introduction to your 76 virgins about how you got there.
Victory has never been his goal, his rules of engagement are designed for maximum casualties. He is a thoroughly evil man.
Ash Carter :
Ashes ashes all fall down,
amongst the peanut shells on the ground.
Another Carter the question be,
am I talking about Barry, or Jimmy.
Or instead about Sec. Def. Ashton Carter III.
Ashes ashes all fall down,
amongst sterile peanuts all around.
Wiping out ISIS is the right thing to do. The folly here is that Obama pulled every last person out in December 2011. That’s why we have ISIS today. In WWII we pushed the German army from France all the way back to Berlin. At the same time we smoked out Japanese soldiers out of every single hole on every single Pacific island they were on all the way back to the Japanese mainland. And yet after 2 years there isn’t much to show for in our fight against ISIS. Pathetic that the US military has their hands tied from the top.