U.S. Doesn’t Know Who To Hit In Iraq -- Eli Lake & Kimberly Dozier, Daily Beast
The U.S. military has the capability to conduct air strikes over Iraq within hours. The problem is they don’t know exactly who they are supposed to be targeting.
President Obama is repositioning military assets closer to Iraq, in case he wants to strike at the terrorists that are threatening to tear the country apart. The problem is, the U.S. doesn’t know who it’s supposed to hit.
Current and retired American defense and intelligence officials tell The Daily Beast that the CIA and the Pentagon are not certain who exactly makes up the forces that have taken so much of Iraq. Moreover, these intelligence and defense officials says that they believe that some of the people fighting with Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) are former U.S. allies who could be turned against the hard-core fanatics—if they can be identified.
“We don’t have boots on ground providing intelligence and we don’t have confidence in information that the Iraqi government provides, because they’ve [been] so heavy-handed in the use of force against Sunni villages,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee.
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My Comment: There are no U.S. boots on the ground and no U.S. intelligence assets in place .... just more proof that the U.S. government was completely caught off guard when ISIS launched their offensive last week.
Good grief, all this discussion just proves that it is political considerations totally trumping military necessity. Here's a few ideas of what could be done if we wanted to help.
ReplyDelete1) Shut down the roads that represent avenues of approach on Baghdad for the ISIS. Kill anything on them. After the videos only bad guys should be there.
2)Do the same if possible for all usable land approaches from the east to the north west.
This would be done to give the Iraqi government breathing space and break the momentum of ISIS's advance. So the closures should only last 1 to 2 weeks. That's about all that can be done.
note: It has been commented on that ISIS doesn't seem to be concern with being attacked from the air and videos seem to bear this out. Either they are just dumb which is unlikely, or they figure to get what they can quickly then melt back into cover of the cities, or they have anti-air capability and are hoping to ambush US warplanes, the downing of would be an enormous propaganda coup. We'll see.
Something else I haven't seen discussed when it comes to ISIS's new found riches, they are less beholden to their paymasters of the past. My guess is the Ssuds and some UAE groups have been bankrolling them and calling the shots to a large extent. ISIS will still take the money and even follow directions (suggestions) from these sources, but they now have the ability to free lance and there will be surprises in the future.
ReplyDeleteGood point James. For these groups it's all about the money .... and now they are free from outside interference.
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