The liberation of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, an Islamic State stronghold, is on schedule but still months away, said Defense Secretary Ash Carter after a meeting of defense ministers outside Washington Wednesday.
Flanked by U.S. Central Commander Army Gen. Joseph Votel, Carter said the training of enough troops to retake the city is well underway but would not be complete until sometime in the fall, in part because of the complications of coordinating the operations of newly trained Iraqi Army units with seasoned Kurdish fighters.
“I have worked so closely, both with Prime Minister Abadi and President Barzani, to make sure that there’s complete cooperation between them, which there is, because there are mostly Kurdish forces that will comprise the envelopment from the north,” Carter said. “So, that’s all going to occur in the next few months.”
Votel said while the U.S. military was encouraged by the recent performance of Iraqi military units, that did not mean the timetable for the Mosul offensive would be moved up.
“We shouldn’t underestimate the amount of preparation necessary to take on an operation like that. It’s a big city, two million people, large geographic area, so we want to make sure we’re well prepared,” Votel said.
The plan calls for Iraqi Forces to “envelop” Mosul from the south, operating from the recently-captured Qayyarah West airfield, where 560 U.S. advisors and combat engineers will be based. Kurdish fighters will then take the city from the North.
None of the additional American troops have yet arrived in Iraq, although Votel said final preparations are being made to move those forces in, and they will soon be deployed to the base Qayyarah West to get it up and running as a logistics hub and command center.
Carter and Votel were speaking after the first day of a two day gathering of ministers from countries supporting the U.S. led coalition battling the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Carter thanked several countries for stepping up to make additional commitments to the counter Islamic State effort, and singled out France, Australia, and the United Kingdom.
But much of the discussion among the more than 30 countries attending was the lack of planning and resources for what would come after the defeat of Islamic State fighters on the battlefield.
“I think the biggest strategic concern of the defense ministers here was for the stabilization and reconstruction, which are not purely military aspects of the campaign, and to make sure that our plan — that the planning and the execution of them is in time for the execution of the military aspect,” Carter said.
On Thursday, the meeting moves to the State Department, where the defense ministers will be joined by foreign ministers to discuss post-victory reconstruction and governance in areas of Iraq and Syria once they have been freed from the grip of the Islamic State.
Carter and Votel confirmed that a recent air attack in which more than 50 civilians, including children were killed in northern Syria was in an area where U.S. and coalition planes were bombing Islamic State targets. Carter pledged full transparency in the U.S. military investigation, and Votel said that the “dynamic situation,” in which Islamic States forces were moving around the battlespace, may have been a factor in any civilian casualties.
The Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik was not in attendance at the meeting, although Turkey sent a lower level delegation.
Carter said he talked to his Turkish counterpart by phone, who assured him that Turkey’s cooperation in the counter Islamic States fight would be unaffected by the recent failed coup, and that full power would be restored soon to the Incirlik Air Base form which U.S. warplanes launch attacks.
Carter brushed aside any suggestion that Turkey’s NATO membership could be at risk because of the crackdown on dissent in which up to 50,000 people have been arrested, detained, or fired from government posts.
“Turkey’s been a strong ally for decades as we face together all kind — a great variety of problems, from the Cold War to today’s counter-ISIL campaign,” Carter said. “So the alliance is very strong. And our relationship’s very strong.”
