General Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrives to deliver a statement after a welcoming ceremony in Tel Aviv June 9, 2015. Reuters/Baz Ratner
Reuters: U.S. weighs more Iraq training sites but no strategy overhaul
U.S. President Barack Obama is weighing expanding the number of training sites for Iraqi forces as a way to bolster the battle against Islamic State, the top U.S. military officer said on Tuesday, a move that could mean deploying more U.S. forces.
But General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a small group of reporters that Obama's requests for options in Iraq left intact a U.S. military strategy that has so far kept U.S. ground troops off the front lines.
"We’ve made some recommendations on potential enhancements to the training and equip mission," Dempsey said, citing options including new training sites.
Update #1: Administration nearing decision on improving Iraqi training -- AP
Update #2: US Military Head: More Training Weighed for Iraq Forces -- VOA
WNU Editor: As I had mentioned in a previous post, there is a problem with this strategy .... U.S. Training Base For Iraqi Soldiers Hasn't Seen A New Recruit In Weeks.
2 comments:
Keeping an ear to the ground and giving the appearance of providing help without actually helping, (As Robert Kennedy once said during the Cuban crisis, 'Canada is a country that provides all manner of assistance just short of actual help.'), and allowing the waring factions to thin out each others herd, so to speak before moving in for the kill.
This is a suggestion I have read on countless boards and comments sections. Stay out of it and let them kill each other off.
The only problems is the possible emergence of a dominant force that cannot be easily defeated. That I think is ISIS.
I give thanks that Jean Chretien kept us out of the second Iraq war. I heard that consequently no re-building contracts were awarded to Canadian firms is retaliation. Not sure they did any re-building.
One initiative was to rehabilitate a factor that produce 8"" guns if I remember to civilian products.
Another one to get local service back up was to get garbage pick up in Sadr city. There were innumerable schools and such rebuilt.
Germany didn't start rebuilding in 1945 or 1946. It would be unreasonable to expect Iraq to be rebuilt soon especially as the Iraqis were not beat. Germany lost 6 million soldiers out of 60 or 70 million people. Iraq dd not lose that many. Iraq was not beat in some regards. Putting hundreds of thousands of people off the payroll was a mistake. The Germans were beat, but they were not all in for de-nazification. they didn't all start pointing fingers. The degree of de-Baathification by firing everyone was a mistake IMHO.
The Americans rebuilt as well as could be considered given the paucity of political support form the people "who were for it before they were against it".
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