Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

U.S. Troops Are Reported Back in Iraq Over Syrian Crisis
New American ^ | Monday, 10 December 2012 12:45 | Jack Kenny

Posted on 12/10/2012 7:20:50 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach

More than 3,000 U.S. military personnel have secretly returned to Iraq via Kuwait and 17,000 more are on their way in response to the civil war in Syria that has spilled over into northern Iraq, according to a report published Monday by Iran's Press TV.

The news follows by four days a report from the Russian news service RT that the aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower has joined the USS Iwo Jima off the coast of Syria. Both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week issued stern warnings to Syria about unspecified but serious "consequences" that would follow if government forces in Syria were to use chemical weapons against insurgents fighting to overthrow the government led by President Bashar al-Assad. The warnings came after reports that intelligence sources have reported signs of activity where the Assad regime is believed to have chemical weapons stored. At the same time, U.S. officials have expressed concern over the possibility that Jihadist elements among the rebel forces might capture those same weapons. Israel is worried — along with Western nations — that the militant Islamic group Hezbollah, an ally of Iran and enemy of Israel, might be among the rebels likely to get hold of and use chemical weapons.

The United States and other nations wanting to help the Syrian rebels in their efforts to topple the Assad regime are also concerned about Nusra Front, the one Syrian rebel group with the explicit "stamp of approval from al Qaeda," according to a New York Times report that identified the group as "a direct offshoot of Al Qaeda in Iraq." A veteran of the al-Qaeda force in Iraq, who said he has led the Nusra Front's efforts in Syria, is quoted in the Times as saying: "This is just a simple way of returning the favor to our Syrian brothers that fought with us on the lands of Iraq."

Faisal al-Maqdad, Syria's deputy foreign minister, denied last week that his government has chemical weapons and called the warnings a "pretext for invasion" of Syria by Western nations. "Syria stresses again, for the tenth, the hundredth time, that if we had such weapons, they would not be used against its people. We would not commit suicide," Maqdad, said in apparent recognition of the retaliation by outside forces that the use of such weapons would bring.

Without citing specific numbers of troops on the U.S. ships off the Syrian coast, RT reported that the Eisenhower is equipped to carry eight fighter-bombers and 8,000 men, while the Iwo Jima is designed to carry 2,500 U.S. Marines. RT last week also quoted an Australian news report of U.S. covert forces either in or very near Syria, ready to strike. "We have (US) special operations forces at the right posture, they don't have to be sent," an unnamed U.S. official told The Australian.

Germany's cabinet, meanwhile, has approved stationing Patriot anti-missile batteries on Turkey's border with Syria, a step requiring deployment of NATO troops and arousing fears by the Assad regime that the move is a prelude to an imposition of a no-fly zone in Syria to protect the rebels from aerial bombardment by government forces.

There has been no United Nations resolution authorizing the establishment of either a no-fly zone or of U.S. ground forces. More importantly for the United States, there has been no authorization from Congress, as the Constitution requires, for the Obama administration to intervene militarily in the Syrian conflict. There is, however, a long line of precedents of presidents waging war without congressional approval, including the aerial campaign ordered by President Obama in 2011 in a "humanitarian intervention" to save the rebel forces that toppled the Moammar Gadhafi regime in Libya. Anti-Western, militant Islamic groups involved in the fighting against Gadhafi's forces later participated in the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 2008; 2011; alassad; aleppo; alnusrah; alnusrahfront; alqaeda; alqaedaobama; anf; aq; arabspring; basharalassad; benghazi; chemicals; chemicalweapons; iraq; iraqwar; jabhatalnusra; kuwait; leadershipgroup; morocco; navyseals; nusrah; nusrahfront; oabamaalqaeda; soc; syria; syrianopposition; threatmatrix; ulg; usseisenhower; ussiwojima; ustroops; wmd; wmdchem
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-51 next last
To: TigersEye

I saw this earlier. The Iranian press is reporting this:

— - — - - - - - - -

“Over 3,000 US troops have secretly returned to Iraq via Kuwait for missions pertaining to the recent developments in Syria and northern Iraq, Press TV reports.

According to our correspondent, the US troops have secretly entered Iraq in multiple stages and are mostly stationed at Balad military garrison in Salahuddin province and al-Asad air base in al-Anbar province.

Reports say the troops include US Army officers and almost 17,000 more are set to secretly return to Iraq via the same route.

All US troops left Iraq by the end of 2011, after nine years of occupation, as required by a 2008 bilateral security agreement between the two countries. The troops left Iraq for the neighboring Kuwait.

Washington decided to pull out all its troops from Iraq after Baghdad refused to grant legal immunity to the remaining US soldiers.

Washington claims that the only US military presence left in Iraq now is 157 soldiers responsible for training at the US Embassy, as well as a small contingent of marines protecting the diplomatic mission.

US-led forces attacked Iraq in 2003 and toppled Saddam Hussein on the pretext of possessing weapons of mass destruction. But no WMD was ever discovered in Iraq. At the peak of the US-led military operation in Iraq, there were 170,000 US troops and more than 500 bases in Iraq.

More than one million Iraqis were killed as the result of the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of the country, according to the California-based investigative organization Project Censored.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/09/277127/3000-us-troops-secretly-return-to-iraq/


21 posted on 12/10/2012 7:57:43 PM PST by Red Steel
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

Comment #22 Removed by Moderator

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Check out this Obama/Hillary/Huma strategy.

Syrian Jihad Group Takes Gov’t Base, U.S. Designates It Terrorist Organization

As the Post goes on to remind us, at the end of last week, member groups of the new Syrian opposition command, the Syrian Opposition Coalition, met in Turkey, but the Nusrah Front was not invited. It is expected that the U.S. will recognize this umbrella group as the legitimate representative of Syria on Wednesday at a meeting in Morocco — meanwhile, the military and tactical vanguard of the rebel forces continues to be undeniably jihadist elements such as the Nusrah group, by their advantages in organization, commitment, expertise gathered in places such as Iraq, enthusiastic funding from Gulf Sunnis, etc., a trend no level of involvement the U.S. is considering seems likely to reverse.

23 posted on 12/10/2012 8:06:35 PM PST by justa-hairyape
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: justa-hairyape; TigersEye; F15Eagle; MestaMachine; Iron Munro

Geez,....seems to me...that Team Obama is gonna have a problem at some point here...


24 posted on 12/10/2012 8:12:46 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ((The Global Warming Hoax was a Criminal Act....where is Al Gore?))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

No different then the garbage they have been pulling on us. They excluded their armed, funded and trained terrorist Al Qeada force from the Umbrella Leadership Group, and viola, they are no longer responsible.


25 posted on 12/10/2012 8:16:26 PM PST by justa-hairyape
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Red Steel

Thank, yes, that is the same article quoted and linked to in the original article of this thread.


26 posted on 12/10/2012 8:16:36 PM PST by TigersEye (Who is John Galt?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Red Steel
yep,...Iran is keeping track of all such details.

No mention of what they have in Syria.

27 posted on 12/10/2012 8:16:41 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ((The Global Warming Hoax was a Criminal Act....where is Al Gore?))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: F15Eagle

I think I heard about the USS Eisenhower on Fox News the other day.


28 posted on 12/10/2012 8:18:21 PM PST by TigersEye (Who is John Galt?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Geez,....seems to me...that Team Obama is gonna have a problem at some point here...

Only if someone someday somewhere on planet Earth holds him accountable for something he has done or said. The next time will be the first time.

29 posted on 12/10/2012 8:22:49 PM PST by TigersEye (Who is John Galt?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: justa-hairyape
From this thread:

Middle East to Become an EVEN MORE Convoluted Mess as Syria Splits....


30 posted on 12/10/2012 8:26:16 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ((The Global Warming Hoax was a Criminal Act....where is Al Gore?))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: justa-hairyape
Hey,....good timing by Team Obama....seems worthy of a thread...just for the sheer irony.

These guys are the ones doing the real damage to Assad.

There might be a problem ahead.

31 posted on 12/10/2012 8:31:00 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ((The Global Warming Hoax was a Criminal Act....where is Al Gore?))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

The Iranians have been yapping for days about a captured US drone.


32 posted on 12/10/2012 8:33:38 PM PST by Red Steel
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

LOL... yes, seems right.


33 posted on 12/10/2012 8:33:45 PM PST by Gator113 (**WHO in the hell gave the damn order to NOT rescue our men in Benghazi?**)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Red Steel

But, but,.. I thought he said that “.... America’s war in Iraq will be over”?!?!
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20123800-503544/obama-announces-end-of-iraq-war-troops-to-return-home-by-year-end/
Gosh darn that evil GW Bush....


34 posted on 12/10/2012 8:37:56 PM PST by daugs2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Obama’s got more Muslim radical pals who need American blood for their moon god.


35 posted on 12/10/2012 8:40:07 PM PST by SaraJohnson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
There might be a problem ahead.

Definitely. Hillary's signature is on the Federal Register notice identifying Jabhat al-Nusra a terrorist organization. They are more or less now admitting they have been working with Al Qeada terrorist in Syria. They claim they are blacklisting them now to gain broad international support for the new leadership coalition they are building. Jabhat will be a problem for anyone who goes into Syria now. Just as they were in Iraq. My guess is the administration now realizes that Jabhat was so successful they have come to acquire Syrian WMD. So they are running away from the terrorist group.

U.S. embracing new Syrian opposition group

36 posted on 12/10/2012 8:40:49 PM PST by justa-hairyape
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: daugs2; Red Steel

I’m sure 0bungles got legal immunity for these guys before sending them back in. /s


37 posted on 12/10/2012 8:40:49 PM PST by TigersEye (Who is John Galt?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: justa-hairyape
Your link referenced the Long War Journal which I consider very reputable...and says that base was involved with the Chemical Weapons program....posted it:

Al Nusrah Front, foreign jihadists seize key Syrian base in Aleppo ( Chemical Weapons here?)

38 posted on 12/10/2012 8:44:08 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach ((The Global Warming Hoax was a Criminal Act....where is Al Gore?))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

FR could use its own spy satellites or drones


39 posted on 12/10/2012 8:48:59 PM PST by GeronL (http://asspos.blogspot.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: F15Eagle; 2ndDivisionVet
Hey, that pig isn’t watching the instruments nor the horizon!!

That's because he's flying by the seat of his pants.

40 posted on 12/10/2012 8:49:51 PM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-51 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson