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US Accuses Iraq Army Of Cowardice, Says “More Firepower Support” Needed Against ISIS
On Saturday, we discussed a possible shift in US policy as it relates to boots on the ground in Iraq. Recapping, ISIS has recently launched what the media is billing as an “offensive”, seizing the Syrian city of Palmyra (an archaeological treasure) and Ramadi in Iraq. The group also claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in a Saudi mosque that killed 21 on Friday.
Against this backdrop the calls for a more aggressive US military response have begun and it now appears that one possibility under consideration is the deployment of so-called “spotters” to help ensure that US airstrikes are maximally effective. Of course, as we noted over the weekend, once the “spotting” starts, mission creep will set in quickly and it won’t be long before the Syrian incursion aimed at ousting Bashar al-Assad is on, with the destruction of ISIS as the excuse.
Two days and one supposed ISIS nuclear attack plot later and the calls for a change in strategy have gotten a lot louder with Defense Secretary Ash Carter questioning the Iraqi army’s resolve and uber-hawk John McCain calling for the deployment of special forces. WSJ has more:
Defense Secretary Ash Carter held open the possibility of a strategy shift by the White House on Iraq, a few days after recent setbacks in Iraq and Syria revived sharp criticism of the Obama administration’s approach in combating extremist groups there.
Islamic State forces last week captured the key Iraqi city of Ramadi and also expanded their reach in Syria. Critics and even allies of the administration took to Sunday television talk shows to call for a strategy change by the administration to stem the advance of Islamic State forces…
House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry (R., Texas) said on ABC’s “This Week” that the battle in Ramadi was among the many reasons why he doubted the Obama administration’s claim that U.S. efforts have succeeded in degrading the strength of ISIS.
“I don’t see evidence of that,” said Mr. Thornberry. “I see ISIS gaining territory in Iraq and Syria.” What is more, he said, “their ideology, their approach, their brand is growing faster than their territory.”
Mr. Carter offered a withering critique of the will of Iraqi defense forces in the fall of Ramadi to Islamic State.
“The Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight,” he said. “They were not outnumbered. In fact they vastly outnumbered the opposing force and yet they failed to fight and withdrew from the site…We can give them training, we can give them equipment. We obviously can’t give them the will to fight.”
John McCain, (R., Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, on CBS’s “Face the Nation” called for U.S. special forces in Iraq, in addition to forward air controllers who help direct bombing missions from the air. Right now, he said, the U.S. has “no strategy” for halting the advance of the Islamic State. “Anybody that says there is, I’d like to hear what it is,” Mr. McCain added.
Michele Flournoy, who served as undersecretary of defense under Mr. Obama from 2009 to 2012, and was in the running for the top job, said the administration needs to do more to turn the tide in Iraq.
“We have under-resourced the strategy,” she said on CNN. “We need to provide more firepower support.”
For their part, the Iraqis denied Carter’s assessment — which amounted to calling Ramadi’s defenders cowards — blaming poor strategy and, ironically, inadequate air support for the defeat.
Via AP:
A spokesman for the Iraqi government said Monday that Carter’s remarks were surprising and that the U.S. defense chief had been given “incorrect information.” In a statement, Saad al-Hadithi said the fall of Ramadi was due to mismanagement and poor planning by some senior military commanders in charge of Ramadi.
Iraqi lawmaker Hakim al-Zamili, the head of the parliamentary defense and security committee, called Carter’s comments “unrealistic and baseless,” in an interview Sunday with The Associated Press.
“The Iraqi army and police did have the will to fight IS group in Ramadi, but these forces lack good equipment, weapons and aerial support,” said al-Zamili, a member of the political party headed by radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is stridently anti-American.
American officials say they are sending anti-tank weapons to the Iraqi military. But they also noted that Iraqi forces were not routed from Ramadi— they left of their own accord, frightened in part by a powerful wave of Islamic State group suicide truck bombs, some the size of the one that destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City two decades ago, said a senior State Department official who spoke to reporters last week under ground rules he not be named.
A senior defense official said that the troops who fled Ramadi had not been trained by the U.S. or its coalition partners. The official was not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Apparently, the possible destruction of a UNESCO world heritage site, the seizure of a key Iraqi city, and a suicide bombing in a Saudi mosque weren’t deemed effective enough when it comes to rallying supoort for a ground incursion, so we promptly got a US Defense Secretary telling the world that the Iraqi army is not only incapable of heading off the ISIS advance but in fact lacks the will to defend itself and because that still wasn’t enough, the group has now promised to turn one lucky US city into a mushroom cloud.
But all of that is nothing a little stepped up “firepower support” can’t remedy which is why we say again that we would not be at all surprised if sometime in the next thirty days President Obama announces the deployment of a ‘small’ tactical force to ‘stabilize’ the situation in Iraq, a force which will then grow and cross the border into Syria where ISIS will quickly discover what happens when the CIA decides it’s time to issue a burn notice on a former ‘asset’.
Source: http://silveristhenew.com/2015/05/25/us-accuses-iraq-army-of-cowardice-says-more-firepower-support-needed-against-isis/
