The Pentagon is looking at how it can funnel weapons and equipment directly to Sunni tribal leaders, in what it calls a “fine-tuning” of U.S. policy to get Sunnis more involved in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Since the U.S. began re-equipping and training Iraqi fighters in December, it has shipped tens of millions of dollars worth of armored vehicles, 30,000 M-16 rifles, 12,000 mortar rounds, 3,000 anti-tank weapons and thousands of other pieces of equipment to rebuild Iraq’s Army, which fell apart against the Islamic State last summer.
About 3,000 U.S. military personnel are back in Iraq, training and advising the remaining Iraqi Security Forces and running more than 7,000 recruits so far through a basic training regimen.
But the training has not delivered the results planners hoped for. Instead of a multi-sectarian force, the majority of the recruits has been Shiite, selected from predominantly Shiite areas. Those forces have mostly been assigned to provide protection around Baghdad and have not been sent to either Tikrit or Ramadi.
The arms and equipment the U.S. has provided has been under the direct control of the Iraqi government. The U.S., therefore, has had little say in who receives those weapons as the Shiite government sends them to Shiite fighters.
The U.S. has pressed on the topic of greater Sunni inclusion with Baghdad since new Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Defense Minister Khaled al-Obeidi visited the U.S. in April.
Sunni tribes that have been trained by Iraqi forces have not received equipment or weapons, said prominent Sunni leader Atheel al-Nujaifi, governor of Nineveh province, which includes the Islamic State-controlled city of Mosul.
“We did not get anything — we just have a few weapons we are using for the training,” al-Nujaifi told the Washington Examiner at the time.
In the last month, however, Islamic State have made gains in Anbar, including the fall of Ramadi. After that defeat, al-Abadi publicly promised to arm the Sunnis and entrusted them to help take back Anbar province.
“What you are hearing is discussion of how we can fine tune that [train-and-equip] policy — make it more efficient and find ways to ensure that the Sunni tribes are more fully involved in the fight against [the Islamic State,]” said Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren. “So those discussion are ongoing on how we can fine tune the program. But as of now — the policy remains that the government of Iraq will direct exactly where every piece of equipment goes.”
Defense Secretary Ash Carter reiterated the point on Wednesday during an interview with reporters traveling overseas with him to Singapore, and said the U.S. is re-looking at how the $1.6 billion Iraqi train-and-equip program can be improved.
“One of the last things I did before I left Washington was … meet with my team and ask them how can we — what can we do to enhance the effect of this, of the train-and-equip, so-called line of effort,” Carter said.
The Pentagon’s potential shift in policy is a recognition that current programs to develop a multi-sectarian force rebuilding the Iraqi Security Forces have not created the kind of results needed to defeat the Islamic State.
“The key to victory here is a unified government, which includes the Kurds, which includes Sunnis, which includes Shi’a, all operating under the control of the central government of Iraq,” Warren said. “There’s always room for improvement. … We’ve seen Sunni tribes begin to get into the mix — we’ve seen Iraqi Security Forces train Sunni tribes. So it’s beginning. But we are always looking for ways to improve, and this is an expression of that.”
