WHITE HOUSE REALIZES IRAQ’S INADEQUACY
Additional American personnel will link with Sunni tribes more willing to fight
WASHINGTON A White House plan to send up to 450 additional U.S. personnel to Iraq reflects a belated recognition: Iraq’s mili- tary is unable and unwilling to fend off the Islamic State and needs help from other factions willing to take on the militants.
On the first anniversary of the Islamic State’s capture of Iraq’s second-largest city of Mosul, the White House said Wednesday it will send those new advisers and support forces to join about 3,000 U.S. troops already in Iraq.
The Pentagon said the new forces will be based at a new training site in Anbar province, where they will establish links with Sunni tribes that have expressed a desire to combat the Islamic State if provided arms and support. The new contingent will advise Iraqi army units in the mostly Sunni province.
Last month’s fall of Ramadi, 80 miles from the capital of Baghdad, was a stark reminder to the Obama administration of the hollowness of Iraq’s armed forces. Most left the city without putting up a fight despite outnumbering the militants. The same thing happened in June 2014, when Iraqi forces fled as the Islamic
State captured Mosul.
Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said after the debacle in Ramadi that Iraq’s armed forces lacked the will to fight.
A weak military has left the administration few options based on its policy of relying on the government in Baghdad to lead the fight against the Islamic State.
President Obama, who withdrew combat troops from Iraq in 2011, doesn’t want U.S. ground forces exposed to renewed attack. So the U.S. role is limited to airstrikes and advisers housed on bases because they are barred from guiding Iraqis in the field.
The key tenet of Obama’s policy has been to strengthen Iraq’s central government and build its armed forces in a country long simmering with tensions among the majority Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Washington has pushed the Shiite-dominated government to be more inclusive to keep Iraq from splitting into factions.
Toward that end, the Pentagon funnels weapons through the central government to avoid fueling sectarian tensions and to keep Iran from gaining too much influence in Iraq through its support of Shiite militias.
The strategy doesn’t reflect the reality on the ground, where the most effective fighting has been carried out by Sunni tribes, Shiite militias and tenacious Kurdish forces who withstood a prolonged assault by the Islamic State along the Turkish border.
Unlike the Iraqi military, all have shown a strong will to fight.
The Sunni tribes, who were critical in helping U.S. forces defeat al- Qaeda in the region nearly a decade ago, have complained that the Shiite government has not provided enough support, a factor that became critical in the loss of Ramadi.
“The Iraqi government’s approach to train and recruit locals (in Anbar) is a failure,” said Sterling Jensen, who served as a political adviser to U.S. forces in Anbar and keeps in regular touch with officials in the province.
Under the administration’s plan, the U.S. forces will establish a training site at Taqaddum in Anbar province to advise and support Iraqi army troops. The U.S. contingent won’t directly train Sunni tribes for now but will encourage greater cooperation between them and the central government.
“What we’re trying to do here is bring the Sunnis into the fold,” said Army Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.
This week, Obama cited the importance of including Sunnis. “We’ve seen Sunni tribes who are not only willing and prepared to fight ISIL but have been successful at rebuffing ISIL,” Obama said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. “But it has not been happening as fast as it needs to.”
The challenge for Obama is to add reinforcements to the battle without a sectarian rupture. “Iraq is a fragile state,” said Ismael Alsodani, a retired Iraqi brigadier general who served as a military attaché in Washington.
Alsodani said the answer is to unite the Kurds, Shiite militias and Sunni tribes — all filled with young people who are motivated to fight — behind a common enemy while the military recovers and tries to regroup.
“Iraq’s army is like a boxer who has been knocked out,” he said.
“We’ve seen Sunni tribes who are not only willing and prepared to fight ISIL but have been successful at rebuffing ISIL.”
President Obama