U.S. military help tops Nouri al-Maliki’s wish list
Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013 8:24 pm
More U.S. military help tops Nouri al-Maliki’s wish list
Nouri al-Maliki (right) and Barack Obama are shown. | AP Photo
Some senators blame al-Maliki, who will meet with Obama, for Iraq's recent woes. | AP Photo
By PHILIP EWING | 10/31/13 5:06 AM EDT
The Obama administration appears open to stepping up some assistance for Iraq as it struggles with a rash of deadly terror attacks, but opposition in Congress could present a major roadblock.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is scheduled to meet Friday with President Barack Obama and plans to ask him for “a deeper security relationship between the United States and Iraq to combat terrorism and address broader regional security concerns, including the conflict in Syria and the threat that proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons could pose in the region,” al-Maliki wrote this week in The New York Times.
A senior administration official told reporters that although Washington wants to help Baghdad suppress the Al Qaeda-linked terrorists who are seeping into Iraq from civil war-torn Syria, large numbers of American troops will not head back to Iraq, and the jury remains out on additional military hardware.
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Instead, the official said, the U.S. and Baghdad will use an “overall strategic approach” to try to pursue the terror network that now calls itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, whose leader, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, is believed to be operating from Syria.
“This is a major and increasing threat to Iraq’s stability, an increasing threat to our regional partners and an increasing threat to the U.S.,” the official said. There’s a $10 million bounty on al-Baghdadi’s head.
The Iraqis say they need to be able to go after bases and training camps in their western desert. “We urgently want to equip our own forces with the weapons they need to fight terrorism, including helicopters and other military aircraft, so that we can secure our borders and protect our people,” al-Maliki wrote.
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The senior administration official declined to discuss Iraq’s “specific equipment request,” which is said to include Boeing-built AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, but said the administration would work “closely” with Congress and cited al-Maliki’s scheduled visits to Capitol Hill.
But in a letter to Obama, an influential bloc of senators have already blamed Iraq’s recent woes on al-Maliki’s “mismanagement,” citing his ties to Iran and what they called al-Maliki’s “sectarian and authoritarian agenda.”
“This failure of governance is driving many Sunni Iraqis into the arms of Al Qaeda in Iraq and fueling the rise of violence, which in turn is radicalizing Shia Iraqi communities and leading many Shia militant groups to remobilize,” the senators wrote. “These were the same conditions that drove Iraq toward civil war during the last decade and we fear that fate could befall Iraq once again.”
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The letter was signed by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and ranking member Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and ranking member Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) — as well as two leading hawks, GOP Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
If al-Maliki were to unite Iraqis by agreeing to share more power, end Iran’s use of Iraqi airspace to fly assistance to the Syrian government and make other reforms, he would get “our support, including appropriate security assistance,” the senators wrote.
Iraq is already set to receive some American-made arms, including Lockheed Martin-built F-16 fighters — their delivery remains on track for next year, the senior administration official said — and Iraq’s counterterrorism forces participated with U.S. and other troops in this year’s multinational Eager Lion exercise in Jordan.
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