Obama to Send 1,500 Troops to Iraq

Local Editor

US President Barack Obama has authorized the deployment of an additional 1,500 American troops to Iraq in the coming months, doubling the number of Americans meant to train and advise Iraqi and Kurdish forces.

Pentagon officials said Friday that military advisers would establish training sites across Iraq in a significant expansion of the American military campaign in Iraq and Syria.
A military Department official said that a number of military personnel would deploy specifically to Anbar Province.

In addition, White House budget officials said they would ask Congress for $5 billion for military operations in the Middle East , including $1.6 billion to train and equip Iraqi troops. At its height in 2006 and 2007, the Iraq war was costing the United States more than $60 billion a year.

The timing of the announcement - three days after the midterm elections - raised the question of whether the administration, wary of angering a war-weary American public, decided to wait until after the elections to minimize further damage to Democratic candidates.
For several weeks now, administration officials have said they expected they would have to send additional American troops to help the Iraqi forces, who initially disintegrated in the face of the rampaging "ISIL".

War Secretary Chuck Hagel, acting on weeks-old advice from top generals, formally requested the additional troops this week, according to Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary.
Administration officials insisted Friday that the doubling to 3,000 American troops in Iraq was consistent with the president's policy that the United States is not engaged in combat in Iraq.
A senior administration official, who asked for anonymity under ground rules imposed by the White House, rejected suggestions that the doubling of forces amounted to mission creep.
"The mission is not changing at all for our service members," the official said, adding that the president "made clear that we are not going to be putting US men and women back into combat. We will continue to assure people that this is a different kind of mission."

Administration officials did not express any heightened concern, at least during the conference call, about the military effort.

White House officials said the request for $5 billion will be presented to Congress during the lame-duck session that begins next week. Officials said the decision to send additional troops was based on what they said was legal authority the president already has from Congress. But they said the president wanted a new authorization from Congress for continuing American military action in Iraq and Syria, which Obama has said will last into the presidency of his successor.

"I do think that it points to the utility in the president working with Congress to formulate and implement our counter-"ISIL" strategy," the official said. If Congress and the president are in agreement on a strategy against the "ISIL", the official said, "we send a more united message overseas."

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team