Saturday, May 23, 2015

White House Under Pressure To Deploy Ground Troops To Iraq

A pair of U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles fly over northern Iraq after conducting airstrikes in Syria, in this U.S. Air Force handout photo taken early in the morning of September 23, 2014. (Reuters/U.S. Air Force/Senior Airman Matthew)

Bloomberg: Obama Under Pressure to Send U.S. Target Spotters to Iraqi Front

Islamic State’s seizure of Ramadi has revived a debate in the Obama administration about whether to send a limited number of U.S. military specialists to Iraqi battlefields to target airstrikes on the extremists.

The group’s advances in the capital of Anbar province have called attention to the limits of using U.S. airpower to support Iraqi government and Kurdish forces and local militias.

Conducting precision airstrikes that avoid civilian casualties is more difficult without spotters using laser designators and other tools to guide them, particularly in and around cities, said a State Department official who spoke under ground rules requiring anonymity.

WNU Editor: Two words sums up what is happening right now in regards to U.S. policy in the region .... "mission creep".

Update: Some are also pushing for this policy .... The Only ISIS Strategy Left for America: Containment (Dov S. Zakheim, National Interest).

3 comments:

James said...

Short of 200,000 combat troops plus support echelons, complete revision of current ROEs, and a Korean style plan of occupation, any of these suggestions really would start to parallel Nam.
The claim of attempted recapture of Ramadi with a brigade of Shia militia is absurd. ISIS is probably going to go for Iraqi military installations near Baghdad such as Habaniyah. They have the Iraqi regulars completely defeated, any bases held by these regular forces are merely storehouses of loot now, probably the focus of a race to get there first between ISIS and the (Iranian) Shia militias.

War News Updates Editor said...

I concur. There is no real Iraqi army. Just units here and there.

Unknown said...

i just posted on twitter few days ago that this was goin to happen but i said 250,000 are needed gulf war 3 is a coming but not on obamas watch us delibirate mining of sitiation i dont care what anyone says that there out of us control there not seal borders no fly zone ,tell its allies and themselves to stop funding,training,arming,them thats whats fueling the crises do all thses and where are they going to them