A bipartisan House bill would let the Obama administration ship U.S. arms directly to Iraqi Kurds to aid their fight against the Islamic State, but also potentially bolstering their ability to seek independence.
The legislation introduced Thursday by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., and Eliot Engel of New York, the panel’s ranking Democrat, would allow the direct shipment of arms to the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, and states that it would be the policy of the United States to arm the Kurds directly. The authority would expire in three years.
The Kurds currently are being supplied with U.S. weapons — and U.S. troops are in Iraqi Kurdistan training and advising Kurdish peshmerga forces — but all assistance is being funneled through the central government in Baghdad and there are limits on supplies of heavy weapons. This is a matter of concern for many lawmakers, who say Baghdad is lagging in keeping them supplied with what they need.
“Our critical partner in the fight against [the Islamic State] is in great need of heavy weapons and armored vehicles,” Royce said.
Though the U.S. has generally supported Iraqi Kurdish autonomy within that country, its policy stops short of outright independence. There are concerns that the Iraqi Kurds, who have lingering territorial disputes with the government in Baghdad, might turn their U.S.-supplied weapons against that government once the Islamic State is defeated.
But recent successes on the battlefield by Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces have bolstered bipartisan support in Washington for giving them whatever they need to take on the Islamic State. The bill by Royce and Engel already has 33 co-sponsors.
“The peshmerga forces are ‘boots on the ground’ in the fight against [the Islamic State]. They are fierce, capable, and determined, but they need the right tools to get the job done. We should be doing everything in our power to get weapons and equipment to Kurdish fighters,” Engel said.
