Carter’s statement was the harshest assessment yet from a high-ranking Obama administration official of the US effort to bolster Iraqi forces to retake their territory from extremist militants.
Iraqi soldiers “vastly outnumbered” their opposition in the capital of Anbar province but quickly withdrew from the city in Iraq’s Sunni heartland, Carter said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The interview aired on Sunday.
- The Iraqis left behind large numbers of US-supplied vehicles, including several tanks.
- “What apparently happened is the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight,” Carter said.
“They were not outnumbered; in fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force. That says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend themselves.”
Iraqi lawmaker Hakim al-Zamili, the head of the parliamentary defence and security committee, called Carter’s comments “unrealistic and baseless,” in an interview with The Associated Press.
“The Iraqi army and police did have the will to fight IS group in Ramadi, but these forces lack good equipment, weapons and aerial support,” he said. “The US officials should provide Iraq with advanced weapons as soon as possible instead of making such statements.”
The fall of Ramadi last Sunday has sparked questions about the effectiveness of the Obama administration’s approach in Iraq, a blend of retraining and rebuilding the Iraqi army, prodding the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad to reconcile with the nation’s Sunnis and bombing Islamic State group targets from the air without committing American ground combat troops.
Carter defended the use of US airstrikes as an effective part of the fight against the Islamic State group, but he said they are not a replacement for Iraqi ground forces willing to defend their country.
“We can participate in the defeat of ISIL,” he said. “But we can’t make Iraq ... a decent place for people to live - we can’t sustain the victory, only the Iraqis can do that and, in particular in this case, the Sunni tribes to the West.”
Calls for arming Kurds and Sunni tribes
Over the past year defeated Iraqi security forces have repeatedly left US-supplied military equipment on the battlefield, which the US has targeted in subsequent airstrikes against Islamic State forces. The Pentagon this past week estimated that when Iraqi troops abandoned Ramadi, they left behind a half-dozen tanks, a similar number of artillery pieces, a larger number of armoured personnel carriers and about 100 wheeled vehicles like Humvees.
Carter did not discuss any new US tactics in the fight against the Islamic State group.
US lawmakers from both parties criticised the administration’s strategy Sunday, urging a more aggressive posture.
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat who is an Iraq war veteran, cast doubt on the US preference to deal only with the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, calling instead for directly arming both the Kurds in the north and Sunni tribes that have asked for help in beating back the Islamic State group.
“These Iraqi security forces have cut and run,” Gabbard said. “They cut and ran and dropped their weapons when they were faced with their first real battle with ISIS.”
She criticised Baghdad’s close links with Iran-backed Shiite militias that have declared themselves enemies of the United States.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican, called for the president to send in US ground troops, a recommendation increasingly made by Republicans.
“We’re not really engaged in this fight,” he said. “This is a cancer that’s growing in the Middle East. This is now a house on fire in a densely packed neighborhood, where it’s going to extend to other places.”
Republican Rep. Mack Thornberry, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he would prefer not to send US ground forces, but said the US has been “tying its hands” with an overly timid policy.
Even Obama administration allies were urging the president to do more.
“I think there is a major hesitation to get too deeply involved in Iraq again,” said Michele Flournoy, a former senior Obama administration defence official. But, she said, “Particularly given the flow of foreign fighters ... this is a terrorist problem that affects us and we have to take a more forward leaning posture.”
Gabbard, Kinzinger and Flournoy spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union”; Thornberry appeared on ABC’s “This Week”.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
france24.com
24/5/15
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Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in his first comments since the key town of Ramadi fell to ISIS, blamed the weak state of Iraq's military as one major reason for the city's fall, in an exclusive interview on CNN's "State of the Union" aired Sunday...
ReplyDelete"What apparently happened was that the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight," Carter told CNN's Barbara Starr. "They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force, and yet they failed to fight, they withdrew from the site, and that says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend themselves."
Carter's remarks are the strongest yet from any Obama administration official speaking on the record since the last week's events when Ramadi fell. The U.S. has sped up the shipment of some arms to help boost Iraqi forces as ISIS has recently taken more territory, but the U.S. defense chief said Iraq's military needs to step up...............CNN
An Iraqi lawmaker says U.S. military commanders are pointing fingers for their own failure to properly support the Iraqi military in the fight against ISIS...
ReplyDeleteU.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter stirred controversy Sunday morning by claiming in a television interview that Iraqi soldiers had superior numbers but lost the city of Ramadi to ISIS because they "showed no will to fight."
Hakim al-Zamili, the head of the parliamentary defense and security committee, calls Carter's comments "unrealistic and baseless."
He said the U.S. should bear much of the blame for the fall of Ramadi for failure to provide "good equipment, weapons and aerial support" to the soldiers. Now he says the U.S. military is seeking to "throw the blame on somebody else."
AP