Defense chief: Boosting Iraqi forces key

Iraqi Gen. Najim al-Jabouri talks Thursday to police at a camp in Duburdan in northern Iraq, where security forces that fled from Islamic State fighters in Mosul have been receiving training from the U.S. military.
Iraqi Gen. Najim al-Jabouri talks Thursday to police at a camp in Duburdan in northern Iraq, where security forces that fled from Islamic State fighters in Mosul have been receiving training from the U.S. military.

SINGAPORE -- U.S. military leaders are searching for ways to bolster Iraqi forces after the Islamic State's takeover of Ramadi earlier this month, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Thursday while emphasizing the importance of training and equipping the Sunni tribal militias.

"I can't describe to you what the possibilities are because folks are looking at them right now," Carter said.

Days after making the startlingly frank assessment that the Iraqi forces lack "the will to fight," Carter told reporters en route to Singapore with him that he called a special meeting of top military advisers and asked them to come up with options. President Barack Obama earlier this week said the U.S. and its allies must re-examine the effectiveness of U.S. military aid in Iraq.

"One particular way that's extremely important is to involve the Sunni tribes in the fight -- that means training and equipping them," Carter said. "Those are the kinds of things the team back home is looking at."

But a senior defense official said Carter still wants to work through the Iraqi government, an approach that has been ineffective so far. The official was not authorized to describe the defense secretary's thinking publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Islamic State forces took Ramadi on May 16. Obama's administration has said that none of the Iraqi forces fighting in Ramadi, the capital of the Sunni heartland Anbar province, had been trained by the U.S.

In remarks to reporters in Washington, Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, said the Iraqi government has chosen to employ most of the U.S.-trained Iraqi soldiers in and around Baghdad.

Iraqi officials have complained they are not getting the heavy military equipment they need fast enough. Obama said Tuesday that it was time for the U.S. to consider whether it was delivering military aid to Iraq efficiently.

A Pentagon spokesman, Col. Steve Warren, said later that the focus is on fine-tuning the strategy, not rewriting it.

The U.S. military strategy in Iraq is built on airstrikes to degrade the Islamic State forces while rebuilding Iraqi security forces to eventually regain the vast territories in the north and west that were lost over the past 18 months.

Carter said the events in Ramadi "highlighted the central importance of having a capable ground partner" in Iraq.

"I think training and equipment affect the effectiveness of the forces and therefore their ability to operate, and their confidence in their ability to operate," Carter said. "So, there's a direct relationship."

Officials said Carter met with Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Joint Chiefs chairman; Gen. Lloyd Austin, his top Middle East commander; and other key policy officials Tuesday and told them he wanted options for improving and hastening the training and equipping program.

In Washington, Odierno said there may be merit in enlarging the U.S. military role by embedding U.S. advisers with Iraqi forces in the field. But he made clear that this also has drawbacks, and that it would be a judgment call if recommended by the Pentagon.

But he also said he sees no wisdom in sending substantial U.S. ground combat forces to do the fighting.

"I'm adamant about that," he said.

Washington already has pledged to accelerate the shipment of certain weapons to Baghdad, including AT-4 weapons that could be used to stop armored vehicles that Islamic State fighters have used effectively as suicide bombs. The U.S. also has said it will try to speed up the delivery of airstrikes requested by the Iraqi government.

Part of Iraq's plan to bolster its effectiveness against Islamic State fighters includes training, equipping and paying Sunni tribesmen to join in the fight. The tactic is reminiscent of the Sunni Sahwa, or Awakening movement, which confronted al-Qaida in Iraq starting in 2006, although that program was begun by U.S. forces working directly with the tribes.

In January, the Iraqi government held an inauguration ceremony for a few hundred Sunni fighters in Anbar province with the hope that it would plant the seed for an expanded national guard, in which Sunnis would take on responsibility for security in Iraq's Sunni areas, which are predominantly under Islamic State control.

It's unclear how quickly the U.S. will move to adjust the training or speed up the delivery of equipment, even as the Iraqis mobilize to try and retake western Anbar Province.

The U.S. has said it will provide airstrike support to government-led Iraqi forces, but not any Shiite militias operating outside government control.

Information for this article was contributed by Robert Burns and Vivian Salama of The Associated Press.

A Section on 05/29/2015

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