NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg visited the Besmaya Range Complex in Iraq on March 2018. File photo: Spc. Antonio Lewis/ US Army
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO defence ministers are set to expand the military alliance’s training mission in Iraq once the coronavirus pandemic eases, senior officials and diplomats said, potentially cementing a broader role for the Atlantic alliance in the Middle East.
Ministers are set to agree plans on Thursday during a video conference, potentially taking the mission from its current maximum of some 500 troops to around 4,000 or 5,000, four diplomats said.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Monday he expected defence ministers to agree to an expanded mission, with more allied personnel working in more security institutions across Iraq.
“The mission will expand gradually, in response to the situation,” he said.
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Update: NATO may increase troops in Iraq to as many as 5,000: diplomats (RUDAW)
WNU Editor: This is what I call "mission creep".
1 comment:
Maybe things have to get worse before they get better. If we bail at the govt, of Iraq (the Shia), the Shia are insulated form the results of their chauvinism.
Maybe we have to let them twist in the wind until the break bread with the Kurds and the Sunni and thus have enough to defeat ISIS.
You could totally defeat ISIS in Iraq, and Syria and ISIS will pop back up. They'll fly into Jordan or Turkey and infiltrate into Syria and Iraq.
Maybe without NATO, the Shia rely so heavily on the Iranians they don't break bread with the Sunni, but instead try to exterminate them and we end up with a general war in the Middle East. That might work too.
The Shia governance of Iraq by excluding Sunni and Shia is as big of a mistake as the complete dismantling of the police and army after 2003 throwing tens of thousands of military aged men out of work. The governance is the problem and it nourishes ISIS.
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