Obama administration nearing decision on improving Iraqi training

[webfact]

Administration nearing decision on improving Iraqi training
ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press
LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Obama administration is nearing a decision on how to improve and accelerate the training of Iraqi security forces in light of recent setbacks against the Islamic State, including the possibility of setting up new training camps in Anbar Province, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

U.S. officials said the administration was considering sending up to 500 additional U.S. troops. The changes are aimed at bolstering the participation of Sunni tribes in the fight, but the plan is not likely to include the deployment of U.S. forces closer to the front lines to either call in airstrikes or advise smaller Iraqi units in battle, officials said.

The White House said it was considering "a range of options" to accelerate the training and equipping of Iraq's military, suggesting no final decisions have been made on the details of the plan.

"Those options include sending additional trainers to Iraq," said Alistair Baskey, a spokesman for the White House's National Security Council.

Other officials said earlier Tuesday that the number could be end up as high as 1,000, depending on training requirements and the ability of the Iraqis to identify trainees. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the planning discussions.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters traveling with him in Israel that it's not clear yet whether opening new training sites would require additional American forces.

"To be determined," Dempsey said. He added that Gen. Lloyd Austin, the U.S. Central Command chief who is responsible for U.S. military operations across the Middle East, had not yet given Dempsey his assessment of whether more resources would be required to implement the proposed changes.

"And that's appropriate, because I want to first understand that we have a concept that could actually improve (Iraqi military) capability," he said.

There are currently slightly fewer than 3,100 U.S. troops in Iraq, including trainers, advisers, security and other logistical personnel.

Dempsey said he has recommended changes to President Barack Obama but he offered no assessment of when decisions would be made. He suggested the president was considering a number of questions, including what adjustments to U.S. military activities in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world might be needed if the U.S. does more in Iraq.

Dempsey said the Pentagon also is reviewing ways to improve its air power in Iraq, which is a central pillar of Obama's strategy for enabling Iraqi ground forces to recapture territory held by the Islamic State.

Obama said Monday that the United States still lacks a "complete strategy" for training Iraqi forces. Obama also urged Iraq's Shiite-dominated government to allow more of the nation's Sunnis to join the campaign against the violent militant group.

Dempsey said Obama recently asked his national security team to examine the train-and-equip program and determine ways to make it more effective. Critics have questioned the U.S. approach, and even Defense Secretary Ash Carter has raised doubts by saying the collapse of Iraqi forces in Ramadi last month suggested the Iraqis lack a "will to fight."

Carter, during a recent trip to Asia, also said it's crucial to better involve Sunnis in the fight, and that will mean training and equipping them.

The viability of the U.S. strategy is hotly debated in Washington, with some calling for U.S. ground combat troops or at least the embedding of U.S. air controllers with Iraqi ground forces to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of U.S. and coalition airstrikes. Dempsey was not specifically asked about that but gave no indication that Obama has dropped his resistance to putting U.S. troops into combat in Iraq.

"What he's asked us to do is to take a look back at what we've learned over the last eight months of the train-and-equip program, and make recommendations to him on whether there are capabilities that we may want to provide to the Iraqis to actually make them more capable, ... whether there are other locations where we might establish training sites," and look for ways to develop Iraqi military leaders, he said.

Dempsey said there will be no radical change to the U.S. approach in Iraq, he said. Rather, it is a recognition that the effort has either been too slow or has allowed setbacks where "certain units have not stood and fought." He did not mention the Ramadi rout specifically, but Dempsey previously has said the Iraqis drove out of the city on their own.

"Are there ways to give them more confidence?" This, he said, is among the questions Obama wanted Dempsey and others to answer.

Dempsey said recommendations on how to improve and accelerate the Iraq training efforts were discussed at a White House meeting last week and said follow-up questions were asked about how the proposed changes would be implemented and what risks they would pose to U.S. troops and to U.S. commitments elsewhere in the world.

He stressed that the U.S. military is deeply involved across the globe, even as its budget is shrinking.

"You know our capabilities are in high demand to reassure European allies," he said. "We've got additional issues in the Gulf related to reassuring allies against Iranian threats."

Dempsey added that the U.S. is "still hard at it in Afghanistan," doing more in South Korea and accounting for the fact that some U.S. allies in Asia are "unsettled" by China's building of artificial islands in the South China Sea.
___

Baldor reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Josh Lederman contributed to this report.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-06-10

[ezzra]

How do you train cowards? soldiers with no motivation to fight for their homeland? scared shitless,

in short, you can't, if not in your heart, It's no where,

[elgordo38]

They have been training this bunch of cowards for 10 years now and give them new suffisticated armament to only have them cut and run leaving all this hardware behind for ISIS to use. American boots on the ground is the only answer. Jeb will see to that as the next president. Its in his blood.

[EnglishJohn]

The world is trying to shield it's people from what ISIS are doing. It's hard to go to war when the press do not report things fairly. ISIS can behead 100 innocent civilians in a barbaric manner and not even make the news, but a soldier who shoots an injured enemy combatant in the heat of battle get's charged with murder and it is all over the front pages.

So we are stuck with airstrikes and cowards on the ground who run away and abandon their equipment for the enemy if they think the planes aren't coming.

[arjunadawn]

As noted previously, there is no intention to defeat DAESH. There never has been. Perhaps IS usefulness will expire, but not before its aims are achieved. There is no resolve to address IS because it is all fodder for the public. The real aim is consistently to further jihadi ambitions- period! If someone looks at the same data and reaches a different conclusion, they live in a different world.

[Thaidream]

Billions of dollars wasted on a country that appears to have no will to fight. The US should have never gone into Iraq. A huge mistake by a petulant President Bush. President Obama is worse- he continues to support policies that are favouring the wealthy and increasing poverty in the United States. Now, we have a situation where ISIS is a threat to the Middle East in general and their radical ideology to the rest of the World. As much as I hate to see it happen, only a massive intervention by America and the British will stop the ISIS advance. More billions wasted because of the poor strategy of American leadership. Is there no one out there who can balance America's internal needs with its World agenda. Politicians continue to destroy societies and yet it is called democracy. Is it no wonder I left for Thailand.

[h90]

How do you train cowards? soldiers with no motivation to fight for their homeland? scared shitless,

in short, you can't, if not in your heart, It's no where,

I wouldn't call the cowards. They have their country destroyed, they should fight against an enemy from which they are not sure if it is the enemy or their rescue and die for a government which they feel is selected by an occupation force.

They just don't know to fight for what. That the ISIS has often better American weapons don't motivate them as well.

[h90]

Billions of dollars wasted on a country that appears to have no will to fight. The US should have never gone into Iraq. A huge mistake by a petulant President Bush. President Obama is worse- he continues to support policies that are favouring the wealthy and increasing poverty in the United States. Now, we have a situation where ISIS is a threat to the Middle East in general and their radical ideology to the rest of the World. As much as I hate to see it happen, only a massive intervention by America and the British will stop the ISIS advance. More billions wasted because of the poor strategy of American leadership. Is there no one out there who can balance America's internal needs with its World agenda. Politicians continue to destroy societies and yet it is called democracy. Is it no wonder I left for Thailand.

No it wasn't a mistake......Everyone knew that the Iraq wasn't into any terrorism and has no weapons of mass destruction. Everyone knew it will destabilize the region.

Someone wanted that. Either for oil, or for the weapons sale, or they want the region destabilized......And sure they have paid their "fee" to the decision makers.

[impulse]

American boots on the ground is the only answer. Jeb will see to that as the next president. Its in his blood.

Because it worked out so well last time? And in Afghanistan? And in Vietnam? And in Somalia?

[IAMHERE]

no amount of training or money is going to get these people to fight for an idea.

[arjunadawn]

As the army continues to degrade with sunnis returning home, refusing to align or serve the shia, and the shia militias and even shia iran taking ever active roles in the military defense, the sunnis are turning to the only source that is the lesser of two evils, other sunnis. Iraqi military is not a melting pot of Iraq First loyalists. Many of them are keenly aware their commanders now move against the imposters, the traitors, the Iraqi shia leading the country and the military. The Iraqi soldiers were mediocre, at best, when the world was all promise and money and training and toys. Now that they actually have to fight, alone, against an enemy that is largely representative of their tribal affiliations, there is no will. With each passing day the military is increasingly a reflection of shia alone. The use of hybrid shia militia iraqi army operations testify not to solidarity but bankruptcy of the military. Increasingly, what is happening in Iraq, is exactly what was intended to happen in Iraq- leverage sunni against shia to establish a regional bipolar world sharing peace through mutual assured destruction. Of course, building the military capacity of each side is required.

This is the most f---d up Machiavellian crap imaginable. Besides it having zero military benefit, marginal geopolitical benefit, it simply serves none of the interests of an America first policy, and hardly the same for the EU. What it does do is Balkanize. Fractured peoples are more easily managed and leveraged.

[EnglishJohn]

American boots on the ground is the only answer. Jeb will see to that as the next president. Its in his blood.

Because it worked out so well last time? And in Afghanistan? And in Vietnam? And in Somalia?

The press lost the war for the USA in Vietnam and are doing the same in every other conflict.

The bottom line is that the West needs oil and everything is done in the 'National Interest'. The idea was that a friendly 'democracy' in Iraq would make the supply safer and maybe even spread around the region. The miscalculation of Islamic fanaticism was a terrible mistake, as was the belief everyone seems to have now from watching too much American crap on TV that good always wins in the end. In the real world, the evil b**tard murders the Samaritan in his sleep, steals everything he owns and lives life as a rich man.

Thailand is a great example of the last part. The good are generally poor here.

[arjunadawn]

American boots on the ground is the only answer. Jeb will see to that as the next president. Its in his blood.

Because it worked out so well last time? And in Afghanistan? And in Vietnam? And in Somalia?

The press lost the war for the USA in Vietnam and are doing the same in every other conflict.

The bottom line is that the West needs oil and everything is done in the 'National Interest'. The idea was that a friendly 'democracy' in Iraq would make the supply safer and maybe even spread around the region. The miscalculation of Islamic fanaticism was a terrible mistake, as was the belief everyone seems to have now from watching too much American crap on TV that good always wins in the end. In the real world, the evil b**tard murders the Samaritan in his sleep, steals everything he owns and lives life as a rich man.

Thailand is a great example of the last part. The good are generally poor here.

I recall a line from Armageddon where Bruce Willis says

It is beyond stunning that this "miscalculation" could have taken place in any event. A cursory review of history and islamic regional demographics would have soundly defeated any notion that democracy would be compatible with the tribal let alone islamic nature of government in this region. How could there not be smart people sitting around thinking this out? After all, many people I know with GEDs saw this coming from the onset. In fact, a visceral tide of protest began simultaneously with the Iraqi intervention and frequently noted the very outcome we witness now.

This is one further example of how social engineering as policy trumps reason and reality. ...another example of democratic empire by shoe horn to make an impossible fit seem agreeable. Regrettably, the first victim of [dys]topian idealism is "National Interest."

[simple1]

An interesting assessment of the current situation by Stratfor under the heading "A Net Assessment of the Middle East". A quote..

It is interesting to note that the fall of the Soviet Union set in motion the events we are seeing here. It is also interesting to note that the apparent defeat of al Qaeda opened the door for its logical successor, the Islamic State. The question at hand, then, is whether the four regional powers can and want to control the Islamic State. And at the heart of that question is the mystery of what Turkey has in mind, particularly as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's power appears to be declining.

Also I assume those interested are aware of and have read "The Management of Savagery" that informs the strategy of organised Islamic extremism that DAESH is implementing word by word

https://azelin.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/abu-bakr-naji-the-management-of-savagery-the-most-critical-stage-through-which-the-umma-will-pass.pdf

Edited June 10, 2015 by simple1