"Probably around 100, maybe a little bit less," Colonel Steve Warren said. "In fact, really fewer actual trigger-pullers, if you will ... It's a very small number, a double-digit number."
Warren's comments came the day after Defense Secretary Ashton Carter announced additional special forces troops would join the fight against the ISIS group, though the Pentagon chief did not give details on the size of the deployment.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi reacted to Carter's announcement by saying Iraq does not need foreign ground troops to defeat the ISIS group, but he did not directly reject the deployment and US officials downplayed his remarks.
"We've been talking with the prime minister about this for weeks," Warren said.
The specially trained commandos will be involved in direct combat against ISIS, but the Pentagon insists their mission doesn't contradict a White House pledge to avoid US "boots on the ground" and did not constitute "mission creep" in which the United States gets incrementally bogged down in a ground war against the ISIS group.
This is not "ground combat with armor and artillery and combined armed operations and death and destruction everywhere you look," Warren said.
"These are raids, these are a small number of highly skilled commandos conducting very precise, very limited operations ... so there is a difference."
The United States already has about 3,500 troops in Iraq, but their mission is to "train and advise" local forces.
AFP
ahram.org.eg
2/12/15
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Related:
Abadi says no need for foreign troops to combat IS in Iraq
Kerry: Iraq Briefed on US Plan to Strike at Heart of IS
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U.S. To Deploy New Force In Iraq, Expanding Fight Against ISIS/ISIL
Powerful Iraqi Shiite Muslim armed groups on Tuesday rejected and pledged to fight any deployment of U.S. forces to the country after the United States said it was sending an elite special operations unit to combat ISIS...
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday his country did not need foreign ground troops, after the United States said it was sending an elite special unit to help combat Islamic State...
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Related:
Iraq PM says country has sufficient forces to fight ISIS
Kampf gegen den ISIS: Iraker sollen Ramadi verlassen
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Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi says Baghdad has not requested a deployment of foreign soldiers and the sending of combat forces into its territory would be considered a "hostile act."...
ReplyDeleteAbadi's comments on December 3 come one day after the United States announced it will deploy at least 100 special forces personnel to Iraq to fight the Islamic State (IS) group there and in Syria.
U.S. President Barack Obama said in an interview aired on December 3 that his decision to send the special forces to Iraq was necessary to "systematically squeeze and ultimately destroy [IS]."
The statement by Abadi is his strongest yet on the issue of U.S. ground combat forces.
Colonel Steve Warren, the spokesman for the U.S.-led anti-IS coalition, said on December 2 that the proposed deployment had been discussed with Abadi "for weeks."..................http://www.rferl.org/content/iraqi-pm-deploying-foreign-ground-troops-in-iraq-a-hostile-act/27406239.html
4/12/15