Obama's attack plan for ISIS differs from Iraq War strategy Iraq conflict
.. could be .. hate to say it, and don't know how, but i'm feeling i've missed this bombing chat ..
A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter holds a position at a frontline in Yangije, where heavy clashes against Islamic States fighters took place the previous night. (JM Lopez, AFP/Getty Images)
By David S. Cloud
*Obama prepared to extend Syria attacks, but Pentagon officials admit intelligence on Islamic State is sketchy. *Rather than troops fighting in Iraqi cities, new strategy is based on bombing escalation, military advisers.
September 11, 2014 7:28pm Washington
The military offensive ordered by President Obama against marauding Islamic State militants barely resembles the grinding ground war that the United States waged in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 — but may prove just as tough to win.
Rather than U.S. combat troops fighting street by street in Iraqi cities and towns, the new strategy is based on an escalation in U.S. bombing and on at least 1,600 American military advisers and others working with Iraqi Army, Kurdish fighters, sectarian militias to drive the jihadists from Iraq, and eventually defeat them in neighboring Syria.
In his primetime speech Wednesday night, Obama compared his plan to U.S. counter-terrorism operations in Yemen and Somalia, where the CIA and Pentagon have carried out drone strikes, special operations raids and other missions against extremist groups while training and advising government troops.
by Carol J. Williams, Paul Richter, Laura King ---
The terrorist groups Al Shabaab in Somalia and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen remain lethal and ambitious, but the U.S. efforts have helped keep the threat contained while periodically knocking off key leaders, officials argue.
That may be all Obama can realistically expect using air strikes and proxy ground forces against an enemy as resilient and fanatical as the Sunni fighters who swept out of Syria last year and have captured about a third of Iraq, according to current and former military officers with experience in Iraq.
"Even if everything goes right, which is never a safe assumption in combat, we are looking at a long and difficult campaign that probably won't destroy the threat but might be able to neutralize it for a while," said a senior U.S. military officer briefed on the new strategy. lRelated Photos: Sectarian violence splits Iraq
In a sign of the new campaign, the Pentagon plans to base U.S. warplanes inside Iraq for the first time since Obama authorized air strikes on Aug. 7 to protect Americans and to support humanitarian missions. The aircraft will operate from the northern city of Irbil, officials said.
The Pentagon would not identify the type or number of planes, describing them only as "manned and armed" aircraft for intelligence and surveillance. That fits the AC-130 gunship, which carry sophisticated cameras and weapons that can bring devastating fire on ground targets.
Basing the gunships closer to Islamic State positions in Iraq will free U.S. drones, which have launched many of the 156 airstrikes so far, to increase intelligence-gathering flights over Syria, U.S. officials said.
Several hundred U.S special operations troops will also advise Iraqi security forces, embedding "at the brigade level and above," according to Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary.
It's unclear how many Iraqi brigades, which can range from several hundred to several thousand soldiers, will get U.S. advisors. Many Iraqi units surrendered or collapsed in recent months when attacked by Islamic State fighters. Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers reportedly abandoned their weapons and fled.
U.S. officials are counting on the return of American advisors, many of whom served multiple tours in Iraq, to give a psychological boost to the Iraqi army. The new U.S.-backed government in Baghdad will begin reconstituting army units, but whether they will prove more resolute in battle remains to be seen.
The White House plan also calls for backing sectarian militias similar to the "Sons of Iraq," the Sunni tribal fighters who fought against Al Qaeda in Iraq and helped stabilize Anbar Province during the height of the civil war in 2007 and 2008.
With power-sharing by the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, as well as new weapons and cash payments, U.S. officials hope to peel away the Sunni tribes that have joined the Islamic State's ranks, officials said.
The Syrian part of the White House strategy remains far from decided, officials said.
Obama made clear Wednesday he is prepared to extend U.S. attacks into Syria. But Pentagon officials admit their intelligence on the Islamic State remains sketchy, especially regarding the whereabouts and makeup of its leadership.
For now, the Pentagon says airstrikes in Syria are possible only after it gains better intelligence and after initially focusing on driving the extremists out of northern and western Iraq.
"We're not at the point yet" of attacking targets in Syria, said a senior military officer. Whether they eventually are approved "depends on a lot of different factors," he said, including whether more-moderate Syrian fighters can be trained and armed to take over if the Islamic State is sufficiently weakened.
Obama's strategy will limit American casualties in the field, which is likely to maintain public support. It is also likely to achieve visible gains quickly, as a surge in airstrikes destroy additional Islamic State positions, equipment and convoys.
But airstrikes alone probably can't drive the militants from Mosul, Fallouja, Ramadi and other cities they have captured. Iraqi ground troops will have to bear the brunt of urban battles.
In any case, the Islamic State has proved to be an adaptable and sophisticated fighting force, and they may change tactics to meet the challenge.
Instead of acting as a terrorist army, moving in formations and convoys, and governing captured towns and territory, the militants are likely to disperse their forces. They may rely more on suicide bombings and more mass killings to terrorize the population.
U.S. officials say more than 1,000 people with Western passports have gone to fight in Syria, and some may pose a potential danger when they come home. Declaring war on the Islamic State could backfire and spur an even larger flow of foreign fighters to join the group, as happened during the Iraq war.
Obama's citing Yemen and Somalia as relevant counter-terrorism cases also sparked criticism Thursday. White House officials say they are examples of how U.S. forces can degrade extremist groups even if they can't eliminate them.
While neither country "has been turned into a Jeffersonian democracy," the U.S. has helped rollback extremist gains and has "had success in degrading the threat that those organizations pose," said Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman.
In Yemen, the U.S. has helped train an effective counter-terrorism force that has driven Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula out of much of the southern part of the country that they had seized last year. But U.S. intelligence still considers the group, which has repeatedly sought to launch attacks on America, as the most lethal Al Qaeda franchise.
In Somalia, a U.S.-backed force of African troops has driven Al Shabab out of the capital, Mogadishu and a U.S. airstrike killed the group's leader last week. But Al Shabab remains a potent threat in Somalia's hinterland, and is mounting an effective campaign of suicide bombings and attacks on high-profile Western targets, including an upscale shopping mall in neighboring Kenya last year.
If pushing the Islamic State out of Iraq and crushing it in Syria proves equally difficult, Obama or his successor could face a difficult decision to escalate the U.S. involvement or accept that a limited U.S. role in Iraq will be necessary for years.
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