Roadside bombs covering much of Ramadi are part of the reason the operation to retake the city is getting off to such a slow start, a top leader in the fight against the Islamic State told reporters on Friday.
In fact, it was the delay in launching an offensive after the city fell in May that gave Islamic State fighters time to fill the city with improvised explosive devices that Iraqi forces must methodically go through and dismantle, said Marine Brig. Gen. Kevin Killea, chief of staff for Combined Joint Task Force — Operation Inherent Resolve.
“IEDs have consistently been a leading cause of casualties for [Iraqi troops] and have contributed significantly to slowing the pace of operations in places like Ramadi,” Killea said. “Because it took as long as it did to launch a counter attack, ISIL was able to cover the Ramadi area with IEDs and other obstacles.”
Ramadi was a key city during the Iraq war that almost 200 Americans died trying to secure. Despite that, Iraqi fighters fled the city when confronted by a much smaller number of Islamic State fighters, leading the city to fall into the terror army’s control in May.
“Anbar was once a symbol of Iraqis working together with brave young Americans in uniform to defeat al Qaeda,” Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham said in a statement when the city fell. “Today, it appears to be a sad reminder of this administration’s indecisive air campaign in Iraq and Syria and a broader lack of strategy to achieve its stated objective of degrading and destroying ISIL.”
In addition to giving the Islamic State ample time to harden its defenses of the city, the long delay in retaking Ramadi is harming the credibility of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who said the city would be back under government control quickly, according to Jim Phillips, a Middle East analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
“The credibility of Prime Minister Abadi is on the line and he promised back in May it would only be a matter of days before Ramadi was back in government’s hands. Initially they did make progress, but it seems like the ground offensive has bogged down,” Phillips said.
The slow start to retaking the city has also allowed the Islamic State to continue growing stronger, he said.
“It’s enabled ISIS to really dig in and prepare much harder fortifications, which will prolong the battle and prolong civilian casualties,” he said. “In the meantime, it allows ISIS to continue its momentum and attract more foreign volunteers, which will make it tougher to defeat in the long run.”
When asked if he thought the timeline to retake Ramadi was moving at an appropriate pace, Killea stressed that it’s the Iraqi government’s fight, saying “my expectations of time are not relevant here.”
“We are on the government of Iraq’s timeline for when they feel they have set the conditions properly to go to the next phase and clear Ramadi,” he said.
Killea also pushed back against the characterization that the weeks-long preliminary isolation phase is stalled.
To combat the threat of IEDs, Killea said U.S. teams have trained more than 8,000 Iraqi and Peshmerga soldiers in counter-IED tactics at several sites in Iraq. The U.S. has also prioritized providing them with equipment to combat roadside bombs, such as bulldozers, mine-clearing equipment and anti-armor weapons.
In addition, the U.S. has been supporting Iraqis with airstrikes, including about 16 in the past week around Ramadi, Killea said.
Phillips said the U.S. should be more involved in advising Iraqi forces on the ground and being able to guide in jets for bombing runs.
“This does point to the weakness of the Obama administration’s strategy of putting an emphasis on Iraqi ground troops and withholding embedded advisers that could help those Iraqi troops fight much more effectively,” he said.
The administration has been adamant that the war must be waged by local ground forces to ensure a lasting defeat of the Islamic State.
“This will be a test of the competence of the Iraqi security forces, and it is a test that they must pass and therefore our and the coalition’s involvement is to try to train and equip and support them to be successful,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said of the Ramadi operation at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in July. “We are going to take the time and encourage them to take the time, so that the operation when they do conduct it is successful.”
