Obama Administration Sends Additional Troops to Iraq While Admitting It Has No Strategy

On May 17, Ramadi, the capital of the Anbar Province, fell to the Islamic State, indicating the weak strategy put into place by Iraqi forces. On May 26 Iraqi officials announced that Iraq soldiers and “allied Shiite militias” plan to retake Ramadi. Currently, the US has 3,100 “trainers and advisors” put into place in Iraq. On Wednesday, US officials are “expected to announce … plans for a new military base in Iraq’s Anbar province and the deployment of around 400 additional U.S. trainers.”According to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, “8,920 Iraqi troops have received training at four different sites and another 2,061 are currently in some stage of training.”

The United States’ announcement of further involvement signifies its decision to embark on what is likely to be a “long and bloody” battle in the regaining of Anbar.

However, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told CNN that Iraqi forces lack the “will to fight” even though they “vastly outnumbered” their opponents. Carter went on to say, “We can give them training, we can give them equipment – we obviously can’t give them the will to fight.”

In response to Carter’s comment, NPR reported Iraqi lawmaker Hakim al- Zamili, the head of the parliamentary defense and security committee, countering, “The Iraqi army and police did have the will to fight IS group in Ramadi, but these forces lack good equipment, weapons and aerial support.”

Indeed, the Washington Post reported on May 19 the lack of aid inside Ramadi where local police officers were not paid for months and resorted to soliciting “cash from local families and businessmen to buy weapons.” Prime Minister Abadi even admitted, “The national government failed to deliver weapons and military reinforcements despite the local forces’ repeated requests for support.”

The White House did provide Iraq with $200 million dollars worth of humanitarian aid in April during Prime Minister of Iraq Haider al- Aadi’s visit to the White House.

However, there have been growing concern regarding the Administration’s policy towards Iraq, as some believe the President lacks a tough enough stance on the Islamic State. There is also a question raised on whether training Iraqi forces is a successful maneuver, President Obama saying Monday the United States does not “yet have a complete strategy” for training Iraqi forces in the fight. According to the New York Times, the US has yet to approve neither “the use of American spotters on the battlefield … nor the use of Apache helicopter gunships,” both of which would speed up the process of regaining the city dramatically.

Far from being defeated, Islamic State is on the offensive, as attack after attack consistently headlines nightly news coverage worldwide. Many prominent Sunni leaders have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, such as the leaders in Anbar on May 3, furthering the group’s stronghold in the area. The decision of local Sunni tribes to back IS may largely be tied to Sunni fears of regarding the Iraqi governments reliance on Shia militias, which have been linked to attacks on Sunni populations following Islamic State’s ouster from Tikrit . This map published by The New York Times on May 21 helps explain the vast amount of land that Islamic State still holds.

The United States is not the only country adding forces to the effort to bring Iraqi forces up to the task. On June 8, British Prime Minister David Cameron told the public Britain is sending 125 more troops to Iraq to train forces against the Islamic State which brings the total number of British soldiers there to 275. And according to The New York Times, Italy is supposed to aid Iraq as well in the near future.

If Ramadi stands any chance at being liberated, Iraqi government officials must provide weapons and reinforcements to those fighting IS, which it has largely limited to the Iranian backed Shia militias.  The United States’ deeper involvement in the issue through deploying more trainers, advisers, and military aid is a positive step, only if the aid is dispersed appropriately. However, analysts fear that the undertaking by Iraqi forces of retaking Anbar is too big of a task for the army, as it took “10, 000 US Marines to seize Fallujah … a decade ago.“