US keeps wraps on commando force for Iraq
This is a no-kidding force that will be doing important things, says Carter
The commando force that US President Barack Obama is dispatching to Iraq to conduct clandestine raids against Daesh does not fit neatly into a picture of the US military strategy for defeating the extremist army.
Even the name — “specialised expeditionary targeting force” — is a bit of a riddle.
The main point is that the force is intended to ratchet up pressure on Daesh by using a small group of special operations troops — possibly fewer than 100 — to more aggressively use intelligence information, to include capturing and killing the group’s leaders. In theory, this would generate even more and better intelligence, feeding what the military calls a “virtuous cycle” of intelligence-driven air and ground operations.
It will be combat, but on a relatively small scale. Obama remains opposed to major US ground combat in Iraq or Syria. Several weeks ago the administration said it would send up to 50 special operations troops to Syria as trainers and advisers.
The Pentagon has been spare in its description of this new commando force in Iraq. It has not even said when it will deploy.
Cryptic outline
Offered a chance by the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday to expand on the Pentagon’s cryptic outline of the force’s makeup and mission, Defence Secretary Ashton Carter demurred. In fact he said less about it than when he announced the move a week ago. He said then that the force would be positioned to gather intelligence, conduct raids and free hostages in Iraq while partnered with Iraqi forces. He also said it would conduct unilateral hit-and-run raids into Syria.
But Carter told the committee that he preferred to keep details under wraps.
“This is a no-kidding force that will be doing important things,” he said, adding that describing it too fully would jeopardise its security.
This kind of military force typically works in the shadows; the very fact of its existence normally would be classified secret. In this case the Pentagon lifted that veil to bolster its argument that the US military strategy is building momentum at a time when its critics claim Daesh is winning.
Obama alluded to the new commando force when he said in an Oval Office address Sunday that thousands of Iraqi and Syrian ground forces are trying to retake territory from Daesh and that US special operations forces are being deployed to “accelerate that offensive.” He didn’t go into details, and other officials say the Pentagon has yet to fully develop what was little more than a concept when Carter announced it last week.
Anthony Cordesman, a longtime Middle East defence expert at the Centre for International Security Studies, says the commando force could be helpful if used as part of a broader US strategy for developing effective local ground forces in both Syria and Iraq.
“Like stepping up the number of coalition air sorties, however, it also risks being one more step in a process of strategic incrementalism where the Obama administration reacts to every new problem with [Daesh] by making a limited increase in military force that is too little and too late,” Cordesman wrote recently.