The White House said Friday it plans to double the number of troops advising Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, and allow them to move closer to the front lines, though not close enough to be engaged in combat.
“The president also authorized U.S. personnel to conduct these integral missions at Iraqi military facilities located outside Baghdad and Erbil,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. “U.S. troops will not be in combat, but they will be better positioned to support Iraqi security forces as they take the fight to [the Islamic State].”
The decision to send an additional 1,500 troops to augment nearly 1,600 already in Iraq comes in tandem with a plan to establish two operations centers elsewhere in the country and four or five other sites to accommodate the training of nine Iraqi army and three Kurdish Peshmerga brigades, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said in a statement. One of the operations centers will be in Anbar province west of Baghdad, where much of the recent fighting between Iraqi forces and extremists has taken place.
“They’ve reached a point where they need additional help,” Kirby said of the Iraqi forces. “We’re basically just trying to improve their battlefield competence.”
The U.S. trainers — augmented by about 700 from other coalition nations — will also work with Sunni Arab tribes in Anbar who are seen as key to undercutting support for the Islamic State among Sunni Arabs in Iraq who have been angered by the sectarian nature of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government.
The administration also will request $5.6 billion in additional war funding from Congress, that includes $1.6 billion to train and equip Iraqi forces, the White House said. Kirby said the Iraqi government and coalition partners would also be expected to contribute money to the effort.
Kirby said the new training mission was made at the request of the Iraqi government and comes amid successes by Iraqi forces against the Islamic State after a stunning collapse over the summer that paved the way for the extremists to seize much of the northern part of the country and threaten Baghdad. It will take about two months to set up the new sites and six months to train the 12 brigades, he said.
“It’s a completely different situation, and if we get the funding that we’ve requested from Congress then we’ll be able to make significant progress in that regard,” he said.
A key Republican lawmaker welcomed the new deployment, but said it still falls short of the effort needed to defeat the Islamic State.
“I have long been concerned that the president has underfunded our combat operations against terrorists … so his acknowledgment that funds for the Department of Defense are necessary to support Operation Inherent Resolve is welcome and I will give any new funding request fair consideration,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, R-Calif.
“However, I remain concerned that the president’s strategy to defeat [the Islamic State] is insufficient. I would urge the president to reconsider his strategy and clearly explain how this additional funding supports a new direction. Such clarity is more likely to find swift congressional approval.”
This story, originally posted at 3:44 p.m., has been updated.
