US, UK Leadership Warn Iraq Mission Won't be Quick; US Escalates Air Offensive -- Defense News
WASHINGTON — In an interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman on Aug. 7, President Barack Obama promised that while the United States would use its formidable air power to help Iraq push back extremist Islamic State fighters from Erbil and other key northern Iraqi cities, Baghdad shouldn’t count on the US “being the Iraqi Air Force.”
But just 10 days later the White House sent a very different letter to Capitol Hill, in which it informed congressional leadership that the president had ordered the US military to “conduct targeted airstrikes to support operations by Iraqi forces to recapture the Mosul Dam,” which had fallen to the Islamist group about two weeks ago.
From Aug. 8 to 17, 35 of the 68 airstrikes conducted in Iraq were launched “in support of Iraqi forces near the Mosul Dam,” the US Central Command said in an Aug. 18 statement, with most of those coming in the past three days.
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Update: Analysis of the UK's military role in Iraq conflict -- BBC
My Comment: What's my take .... Patrick Smith from the Fiscal Times is right .... This is just a quagmire.
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