Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi meets with US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter in Baghdad yesterday.

Carter stresses that all US action in Iraq will be done with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s approval, respecting Iraqi sovereignty

Reuters
Baghdad


US Defence Secretary Ash Carter and Iraqi leaders yesterday discussed the idea of greater US contributions to the fight against Islamic State, including an offer of attack helicopters to help retake territory from the insurgent group.
Carter said Washington is willing to do more to support Iraqi security forces as they battle IS and eventually set their sights on Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city that has been under the militants’ control since June 2014.
But he stressed that all US action in Iraq would be done with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s approval, respecting Iraqi sovereignty. Abadi has not so far requested the use of US helicopter gunships. Powerful Iranian-backed Shia militia groups who are aligned with the Shia Abadi’s government against IS also oppose a greater US presence.
“We were talking about the opportunities that will arise in the future to increase the American contribution to Iraqi success here,” Carter told reporters. “Both he (Abadi) and I anticipate that those circumstances will arise as Iraqi forces move north to Mosul, and we’re prepared to increase our contribution.”
The fall of Ramadi, capital of Anbar province, to IS in May was the worst defeat for Iraq’s weak central government in nearly a year, dampening its hopes of routing the group from the country’s north and west.
This month, the United States announced plans to deploy an elite force to Iraq to conduct raids against IS there and in neighbouring Syria.
Carter also told Congress this month that the United States is willing to deploy advisers and attack helicopters if requested by Iraq to help it retake Ramadi, west of Baghdad. The United States has around 3,500 troops in Iraq now.
But the deployment of the helicopters and advisers will depend on a request by Abadi, which has not come yet.
“The prime minister did not make any specific requests in connection with helicopters...in connection with Ramadi,” Carter said. He added that neither Abadi nor Lieutenant General Sean B MacFarland, overseeing US operations against IS, believes the helicopters are needed right now to win back Ramadi.
“That does not mean that they won’t make a difference sometime in the future,” Carter said.
Abadi faces a delicate domestic political situation as influential Iranian-backed Shia groups reject any enhanced US military presence in Iraq. After Carter announced the new special operations force, Shia militias pledged to fight any such US deployment.
“This is a very complex environment that we’re operating in, and we have to be attentive to some of the political realities that surround us every single day,” MacFarland told reporters yesterday. “There are a number of complex relationships that the government of Iraq has to tend to.”
Ten thousand members of the Iraqi security forces now surround Ramadi. US officials have in the past expressed frustration at how long it has taken Iraqi security forces to take back the city, but MacFarland said that the Iraqis had made significant progress in dislodging IS.