Update:
With the arrival of an additional four teams of U.S. advisors in Baghdad last night, the number of American service members in Iraq is now about 500, according to the Defense Department.
They have now opened a joint operations center in the city “to assess the security situation in the wake of the rapid territorial gains made by Sunni militants.”
“Enhanced teams” commanded by lieutenant colonels will be “fanning out across Baghdad and assessing the Iraqi military.”
Of the approximately 500 American military personnel in Iraq, “Some of them are conducting an advise and assist mission, some are manning the joint operations center, some of them are part of the [Office of Security Cooperation] and yet others are Marines that are part of a [fleet anti-terrorism security team] platoon,” according to the Pentagon.
In addition, the Pentagon says that the assessment teams, mostly made up of Army Special Forces personnel, will advise and assist the Iraqi military at various levels of command and that the teams will take two to three weeks to assess the Iraqi military and make their reports.
Also, that the U. S. will establish another joint operations center in northern Iraq in the coming days or weeks. The commander of the U.S. forces in Iraq is Army Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard.
Pentagon Spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren “would not comment on reports that Iran is operating drones over Iraq and supplying the Baghdad government with arms. He did however, call on all regional countries to ‘participate constructively in the situation’ in Iraq,” according to the American Forces Press Service.
Original post:
Nick Simeone at American Forces Press Service (AFPS) reports:
“The first U.S. service members ordered to Iraq to help the Iraqi military counter an advancing Sunni insurgency have arrived in the country, Pentagon Press Secretary Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby said today.
About 90 troops have arrived in Baghdad, where they will join some 40 others attached to the U.S. Embassy to establish assessment teams and a joint operations center with Iraqi forces.
They are the first of what could be up to 300 U.S. military advisors President Barack Obama has ordered to the country to assess an insurgency led by a Syrian-based extremist group that has routed the Iraqi military and taken over much of the country’s Sunni-dominated north and west while continuing to move closer to Baghdad, threatening to push Iraq to the brink of full-blown sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites. The group is known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, and also as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.
Kirby told reporters four additional teams totaling about 50 people will arrive in Iraq in the coming days. U.S. special operators will assess the cohesiveness of Iraqi security forces and the threat posed by advancing ISIL insurgents, and then will provide recommendations on how to best help the Iraqi military.
“We expect that they’ll start to flow their assessments up through the chain of command in about two to three weeks,” the admiral said.
U.S. military aircraft already are flying up to three dozen surveillance missions over Iraq every day and, Kirby said, are “sharing what we can with the Iraqi security forces.”
At his regular Pentagon briefing, Kirby said the United States does not yet have a full picture of the situation on the ground, but that ISIL fighters continue to solidify their gains as they advance and have no trouble crossing the Iraq-Syria border at will.
“They continue to press into central and southern Iraq, … and they are still a legitimate threat to Baghdad,” he added.
The U.S. troops arrived in Iraq a day after defense officials said the Baghdad government had provided “acceptable assurances” that the Americans would receive the necessary legal protections to operate in the country, the same level of immunity Kirby said, that diplomats and U.S. forces based at the U.S. Embassy already receive.
While the United States and Iraq do not have a status of forces agreement in place to provide U.S. troops in the country with blanket immunity, Kirby said, Iraq has committed to protections that are “adequate to the short-term assessment and advisory mission our troops will be performing.”
End of AFPS Report
But, wouldn’t you know it, even as Obama secures legal immunity for our troops about to enter Iraq, into possible harm’s way, the neocons led by bomb-bomb-Iran and stay-one-hundred-years-in-Iraq McCain still feel the urge to attack the commander in chief.
The Hill reports:
A pair of senior GOP senators on Tuesday said if the Obama administration has been able to secure legal immunity for U.S. special operations heading to Iraq, it should have landed the deal years ago.
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“It’s interesting that [immunity’s] OK now when, according to their narrative, it was impossible to get before,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
But also read, “Right-Wing Media Ignore Iraqi Resistance To Status Of Forces Agreement To Blame Obama For Violence.”
Lead Photo: U.S. Army file photo by Sgt. Kani Ronningen
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.