Posted on 04/18/2016 4:30:38 PM PDT by Kaslin
resident Obama has decided to add 217 more U.S. troops to fight in Iraq, raising the total number now serving in the country to just over 4,000. The AP reports:
Of the additional troops, most would be Army special forces, who have been used throughout the anti-Islamic State campaign to advise and assist the Iraqis. The remainder would include some trainers, security forces for the advisers, and maintenance teams for the Apaches.
The decisions reflect weeks of discussions with commanders and Iraqi leaders, and a decision by President Barack Obama to increase the authorized troop level in Iraq by 217 forces – or from 3,870 to 4,087. The advise-and-assist teams – made up of about a dozen troops each accompanied by security forces – would embed with Iraqi brigades and battalion, likely putting them closer to the front lines and at greater risk from mortars and rocket fire.
In addition to these advise-and-assist teams we are also sending Apache helicopters. The goal of this increase in troops is to take Mosul from ISIS. ISIS took control of the city in June 2014. The AP reports the U.S. will also be involved in operations to take Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic State, which is located in Syria. Raqqa is about 200 km from Dabiq, the city where ISIS adherents believe they will have a final apocalyptic confrontation with their enemies.
Over the weekend a spokesman for the U.S. military said ISIS had lost nearly half its strength, or about 25,000 fighters, as a result of ongoing bombing campaign:
Col Warren said: ‘Much like a boxer, Daesh [Islamic State] has taken several hard blows to the mid-section. We believe the knees are getting weak, and the head is starting to drop, and they are beginning to feel the effect of the exceptional pressure we’ve placed on them over 20 months.’
He said 600 fighters had been killed in the past three weeks alone, and recent precision drone strikes and covert Special Forces missions to take out senior leaders had left the extremists ‘paranoid and in chaos’.
Strikes on IS-held oilfields had seen its cash flow slashed by a third – leading to a 50 per cent pay cut for its fighters – and, with the help of 650 RAF strikes, the group had been forced to flee from 40 per cent of territory it once held in northern Iraq.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter was in Baghdad Monday to discuss the coming attack on Mosul.
Hey, why not tell them what plane they are flying in on and where they will be stationed?
Empty gesture.
But....will they be allowed to shoot back without asking Valerie
Two hundred whole troops! Supported by twenty sorties a day of air attacks!
Napoleon knew what he was talking about when he said, ‘If you’re going to take Vienna, take Vienna!’ In other words, as we should have learned in Vietnam, Korea and every other war we lost last century, going to war without going all in will usually be a waste of lives and fortune.
God help them. Amen.
"Over there, over there . . . I'll be standing on the pier just passing out doughnuts when we send the girlies over there."
Girls and girly men?
Hm.
We need to grab a retired Sunni Iraqi general and put him in charge of Iraq. I don’t want to see another dead American GI for Obama’s folly.
God be with them.
Just imagine if a GOP POTUS deployed 200 Special Forces and Apaches to Iraq. The MSM would have an heart attack. The kenyan does it and we get crickets.
Indeed
The Founders may have been onto something when they required Congress to declare war. /obvious
Meanwhile, AC-130 gunships and MOABs are idle gathering dust... Instead of stirring up some..
Shades of Vietnam body counts. We shall underwhelm them?
...but these aren’t real “boots on the ground”... </sarc>
Poor guys. I thought we were “out “ of iraq...Clown Prince nobama said so. The degenerate wouldn’t lie to us, would he???!
And most likely, 3,000 of those 4,000 troops are General Officers O-7 or above.
soetoro knows what he’s doing: setting up more Americans to be murdered. His mission in life.
IDIOT!
You should have left troops there in the first place. We wouldn't have ISIS now.
{President Obama has decided to add 217 more U.S. troops to fight in Iraq, raising the total number now serving in the country to just over 4,000.”
So is our president stupid or evil?
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