Iraq Has No Money To Wage War Against The Islamic State

Ako Rasheed/Reuters

Hannah Allam, McClatchy News: Is Iraq too broke to fight ISIS?

WASHINGTON: Iraq’s ability to fight Islamic State extremists who control roughly a third of the country is hampered by a financial crisis that’s left the Baghdad government operating “hand to mouth,” Iraqi Ambassador Lukman Faily warned this week.

The inability to pay salaries on time to the soldiers and militiamen fighting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has hurt morale and hindered progress in operations to retake key hubs that were captured by the jihadists, Faily said in an interview Thursday. And belt-tightening measures such as consolidating government ministries threaten to exacerbate ethnic and sectarian tensions by upsetting the delicate power-sharing quota system that’s been in place since the U.S.-led occupation authority took charge following the invasion of 2003.

WNU Editor: Having no money is a deadly situation to be when in you are trying to fight and win a war. The Iraqi government has no one to blame but themselves .... their corrupt past has finally caught up to them.