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pampango

(24,692 posts)
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 08:50 PM Jun 2014

Iraq Asked U.S. for Strikes, Officials Say

As the threat from Sunni militants in western Iraq escalated last month, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki secretly asked the Obama administration to consider carrying out airstrikes against extremist staging areas, according to Iraqi and American officials.

But Iraq’s appeals for military assistance have so far been rebuffed by the White House, which has been reluctant to open a new chapter in a conflict that President Obama has insisted was closed when the United States withdrew the last of its forces from Iraq in 2011.

The swift capture of Mosul by militants aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria has underscored how the conflicts in Syria and Iraq have converged into one widening regional insurgency with fighters coursing back and forth through the porous border between the two countries. But it has also cast a spotlight on the limits the White House has imposed on the use of American power in an increasingly violent and volatile region.

The Obama administration has carried out drone strikes against militants in Yemen and Pakistan, where it fears terrorists have been hatching plans to attack the United States. But despite the fact that Sunni militants have been making steady advances and may be carving out new havens from which they could carry out attacks against the West, administration spokesmen have insisted that the United States is not actively considering using warplanes or armed drones to strike them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/12/world/middleeast/iraq-asked-us-for-airstrikes-on-militants-officials-say.html?hp

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TwilightGardener

(46,416 posts)
1. Would be good drone target practice, I suppose.
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 09:02 PM
Jun 2014

I don't want to lose any pilots for a country whose soldiers piss their pants and flee, leaving behind the expensive shit WE gave them.

 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
2. Wouldn't you piss your pants and flee at the sight of the world's largest military rolling in?
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 09:03 PM
Jun 2014

I would.

TwilightGardener

(46,416 posts)
3. That's just it, they're not facing US, they're facing a group that they should
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 09:09 PM
Jun 2014

be organized and equipped enough to defeat. The Iraqi army is dropping its shit and running.

 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
5. We are learning that is all they are good for. Fleeing.
Wed Jun 11, 2014, 09:13 PM
Jun 2014

Seems like they don't really have an army anymore. What always worries me is WHAT are they leaving behind for their enemies to pick up an use? I'd much rather see a weapon destroyed, then picked up and used by the enemy.

Maybe we broke the Iraqi army for good.

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