President Obama, at the end of a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi Tuesday, announced that the United States will provide $200 million in additional humanitarian aid to help people displaced by Islamic State fighting.
“It’s very important for us to remember this is not an abstract issue, there are individual families and children who have suffered as a consequence of ISIL’s activities,” Obama said.
The president, however, declined to say whether he would make a new commitment of billions of dollars worth of drones and other arms that Abadi was expected to request to help Baghdad beat back the Islamic State.
Instead, Obama said the main focus of the meeting was to ensure that Iraq and the coalition “is in a position to succeed in our common mission.”
The White House spokesman Josh Earnest later said Abadi did not come to the meeting with a specific wish list for additional military assistance.
“There was no specific request that was offered in terms of stepped-up military assistance, but obviously there is interest in both sides to protect the strong relationship between U.S. and Iraqi military forces,” he said.
“We understand that the Iraqi security forces are a part of the strategy and we remain committed to providing the assistance and back up that they need,” Earnest said.
Abadi, who succeeded Nouri al-Maliki as prime minister in September, is visiting Washington for the first time as Iraqi leader, and he comes with an urgent request for the United States to fulfill its commitment to defeating the Islamic State.
In reports ahead of the Oval Office meeting, Abadi was expected to ask for the infusion along with deferred payments for the purchases. If the Obama administration balks at the request, Iraqi experts have predicted that Abadi will head to Iran and Moscow to make a similar appeal.
Obama Tuesday acknowledged that the U.S. is concerned about Iran’s growing influence in Iraq, noting that he discussed the issue “extensively” with Abadi.
“We expect Iran to have an important relationship with Iraq as a close neighbor,” he said, although he stressed the need for Shiite militias fighting the Islamic State alongside the Iraqi army to be “answerable” to the Iraqi government’s chain of command.
“That’s how you respect Iraqi sovereignty,” he said.
It’s a pivotal time for the future of Iraq and the battle against the Islamic State. The Iraqi army, with help from Shiite militias and U.S. airstrikes, successfully expelled the extremists from Tikrit in recent weeks and are now planning new sorties in the Islamic State strongholds of Anbar and Mosul.
Iraqi forces, Obama said, are making progress on pushing back Islamic State forces. He claimed Iraq, allied militias and U.S. coalition forces have taken back one quarter of the territory seized by the group, which he referred to as “Daesh,” a nickname it considers to be derogatory.
“This is a long process…success will not occur overnight,” Obama said. “But what is clear is that we will be successful.”
The president also said he is encouraged by initial accomplishments of the new prime minister, a Shiite, in working with both Sunnis and Kurds in attaining a long-sought after oil-sharing deal between Irbil and Baghdad.
Obama said Abadi’s commitment to an inclusive government is key to defeating the Islamic State and noted that the prime interest of the U.S. is to maintain the sovereignty of Iraq and pushing the extremist group out of the country.
But human rights groups argue that regional militias operating inside Iraq, as well as Kurdish paramilitaries, in recent weeks and months have committed serious abuses against civilians in areas retaken from the Islamic State.
Human Rights Watch on Monday called on Obama to make it clear that any U.S. aid to Iraqi security forces hinges on Abadi’s ability to improve the protections of civilians in areas where these militias are active.
At the end of the meeting with Obama, Abadi told reporters he has no tolerance for human-rights violations committed by pro-government fighters, but acknowledged that some have occurred. He blamed “criminals” and “outliers” for committing those acts and pledged they would be found and brought before the Iraqi justice system.
“It’s not an institutional approach, it is individuals,” he said.
Abadi also stressed the need for all fighters combating the Islamic State to be brought under the control of the Iraqi government, an apparent reference to Iran-backed Shiite militias.
He also thanked U.S. forces for making sacrifices in Iraq and said they will not go to waste and stressed the great strides the country has recently made toward establishing a democratic government.
The American-led coalition has had the “greatest impact” in driving back ISIS forces, he said.
