Carter: US to send 101st Airborne Division to Iraq

[bemildred]

(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – The U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter announced, that the United States would send the 101st Airborne Division to Iraq in order to join the Iraqi forces in its war against ISIS.

The U.S. Secretary of Defense said in a statement obtained by IraqiNews.com, “The primary objective of the mission, estimated to involve about 1,800 US troops from the 101st Airborne Division, will be to force ISIS out of their two power centers in Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.”

Carter added, “We need to destroy them in those two places and I’d like to get on with that as soon as possible.”

Noteworthy, 101st Airborne Division is also known as ‘The Screaming Eagles’ and it is armed with 300 helicopters, including thee battalions of Apache attack helicopters.

http://www.iraqinews.com/baghdad-politics/carter-us-to-send-101st-airborne-division-to-iraq/

[bemildred]

1. Czech plans to send 6,500 new and used guns to Iraq

(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – On Monday, Czech Republic government announced, that it discussed sending 6,500 new and used rifles, as well as millions of ammunition to the Iraqi and Peshmerga forces, while pointed out that these munitions will be delivered to Iraq via the U.S. government.

Czech Defense Minister Martin Stropnicky said in a statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “Today, Czech government discussed a decision to donate more than 6,500 new and used machine gun, in addition to more than seven million rounds of ammunition to the Iraqi armed forces and Peshmerga forces.”

Stropnicky added, “Part of these weapons and ammunition will be sent to the Kurdish forces,” indicating that, “The weapons will be delivered to Iraq via the United States government.”

http://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/czech-plans-to-send-6500-new-and-used-guns-to-iraq/

[bemildred]

2. The Long Road to Fallujah and Mosul

Recently, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said that more American ground troops will be needed in the fight against ISIS. This means more boots on the ground, serving in a more active role. The administration has diligently tried to limit the involvement of U.S. ground troops all along, but the campaign against ISIS has suffered for it. Despite their recent success in Ramadi, it is clear that Iraqi forces are not ready to carry the burden being asked of them, and will need U.S. forces to assert themselves more if ISIS is to be driven out anytime soon.

First, the Iraqi Army is simply not large enough to make any kind of serious advance on the other major Iraqi cities under ISIS’s control such as Fallujah and Ramadi. The Iraqi Army currently has a frontline strength of only about 48,000 troops. If we include the Iraqi national police force, that number rises to about 85,000 men. The official size of the Iraqi Army is much larger, closer to 200,000 soldiers, but most of those troops are not combat effective. In fact, Iraq’s security forces were recently rocked by a scandal when it was revealed that the Iraqi Army had 50,000 “ghost soldiers,” soldiers who had abandoned their units but were still drawing a paycheck and were still counted in the official end strength reported by the Defense Ministry.

There are simply not enough combat-ready Iraqi soldiers to take Mosul and Fallujah while also securing and holding the territory that the Iraqis have already taken back. This manpower shortage may explain why the Iraqi government, which had wisely sidelined the Iran-backed Shiite militias from the final fight for Ramadi, is considering giving the militias a role in the fight for Fallujah.

Underscoring the general ineffectiveness of the Iraqi Army, it was recently reported that most of the hard fighting in Ramadi was done not by Iraqi Army units but by Iraqi Special Forces units, while the regular Army provided security around the city. Iraq’s Special Forces are even fewer in number than Iraq’s effective regular army troops. They are simply in no position to clear and hold a city the size of Mosul.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-long-road-fallujah-mosul-15018

[bluedigger]

3. That's maybe two or three battalions with support elements.

Escalation has to start from somewhere.

[bemildred]

4. Gives new meaning to "air war".

But one has to approve, it's not like it would improve the situation if we went back in with more force.

Edit: the local forces with advanced support and air cover/support approach seems to work pretty well, so if that is where he is going and he has well thought out objectives, I'd have to go along.