Statement from Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook On Hostage Rescue Mission in Iraq

Statement from Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook On Hostage Rescue Mission in Iraq Press Operations

Early today in Iraq, at the request of the Kurdistan Regional Government, U.S. Special Operations Forces supported an Iraqi Peshmerga operation to rescue hostages at an ISIL prison near Hawijah, Iraq.

This operation was deliberately planned and launched after receiving information that the hostages faced imminent mass execution. It was authorized consistent with our counter-ISIL effort to train, advise, and assist Iraqi forces.

The U.S. provided helicopter lift and accompanied Iraqi Peshmerga forces to the compound. Approximately 70 hostages were rescued including more than 20 members of the Iraqi Security Forces. Five ISIL terrorists were detained by the Iraqis and a number of ISIL terrorists were killed as well. In addition, the U.S. recovered important intelligence about ISIL.

One U.S. service member was wounded during the rescue mission acting in support of Iraqi Peshmerga forces after they came under fire by ISIL. He subsequently died after receiving medical care. In addition, four Peshmerga soldiers were wounded.

On behalf of the men and women of the Department of Defense, we offer our sincere condolences to the family of the U.S. service member who was killed in this operation. The U.S. and our coalition will continue to work with our Iraqi partners to degrade and defeat ISIL, and return Iraq to the full control of its people

something more:

US Special Forces, Kurdish troops raid Islamic State prison in Iraq

BY BILL ROGGIO | October 23rd, 2015 | admin@longwarjournal.org | @billroggio
The Department of Defense announced today that US Special Forces and Kurdish forces launched an air assault against an Islamic State-run prison near Hawijah in central Iraq. One US soldier was killed during the raid, which the military insists was not a combat operation, but part of its “advise and assist” mission. From the Department of Defense press release:

U.S. Special Forces supported an Iraqi peshmerga operation earlier today to rescue about 70 hostages from an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant prison near Hawijah, Iraq, Defense Department Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters at the Pentagon this afternoon.

American Special Forces personnel carried out the planned operation at the request of the Kurdistan regional government after learning through intelligence sources that the hostages faced imminent mass execution, Cook said.

The Special Forces mission was consistent with Operation Inherent Resolve’s counter-ISIL efforts to train, advise, and assist Iraqi forces, he emphasized.

One U.S. service member and four peshmerga soldiers were wounded when ISIL extremists fired on U.S. and Iraqi forces during the rescue, he said, adding the U.S. service member was medically treated but later died.

The recovered hostages were placed with the Kurdistan Regional government, Cook said, adding that no hostages died during the rescue to his knowledge.

“The U.S. provided helicopter lift and accompanied Iraqi peshmerga forces to the compound,” where ISIL held the hostages, Cook said. While it appears more than 20 hostages were Iraqi security forces’ members and the remaining hostages were Iraqi civilians, that review remains under way.

“Five ISIL terrorists were detained by the Iraqis and a number of ISIL terrorists were killed,” he said. “In addition, the U.S. recovered important intelligence about ISIL.”
The Daily Beast’s Nancy Yousef has more on the raid and the Pentagon’s refusal to describe the raid as a combat mission. Additionally, US officials do not seem to know what the importance of the target was:

Even after the raid, Pentagon officials, who once insisted there were no American boots on the ground, continued to call the U.S. effort a “train, advise and assist” mission, not a combat one. It marked the latest game of military semantics in a war defined as much by its messaging as by its tactical results.

At a briefing with reporters, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the U.S. military was “not in an active combat mission” in Iraq. Cook repeatedly called the raid “unique” but refused to say whether the U.S. military had conducted similar mission before this one or whether anyone in the Iraqi government had asked for similar help in the past.

Rather he said Secretary of Defense Ash Carter approved putting U.S. troops in harm’s way because the Kurdish forces asked for raid and because both Kurdish and U.S. forces believed hostages had recently been killed; more could die within hours, they feared.
The U.S. military was not sure who it was rescuing, Cook said. In a statement, Kurdish officials said there were no Kurds among those rescued; they seem surprised and suggested that Iraqis had been rescued, instead.
According The Daily Beast, “dozens of troops from the U.S. Army’s elite Delta Force” were involved in the operation. If true, the military’s claim that the Special Forces troops were not engaged in a combat mission is implausible. Delta operators are highly trained door-kickers and not military advisers.

US special operations forces have conducted at least one other operation in the Iraq-Syria theater this year. In May, US personnel killed an Islamic State military and financial leader known as Abu Sayyaf and captured his wife, Umm Sayyaf, during a raid at the Al Omar oil field in Deir al Zour province in eastern Syria. An estimated 19 Islamic State fighters were also killed during the mission.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of The Long War Journal.

and this comment on Roggio’s take:

I think the Americans thought that there were some western hostages (John Cantile and others) due to some intelligence, but when they reached there, they found Iraqis instead, but still rescued them. That’s the only thing I could think of why they did a raid on this ISIS prison.

More words of wisdom from the eminentos at the Pentagon:

Carter: ‘Combat’ death does not mean ‘combat role’
By Andrew Tilghman and Michelle Tan, . EDT October 23, 2015
Joshua Wheeler

Defense Secretary Ash Carter said it was hard to describe in detail what happened in the moments leading up to the Thursday death of Army Master Sgt. Joshua Wheeler, the first American killed in action in Iraq since 2011.

“This is combat, things are complicated,” Carter told reporters Friday, while declining to offer a full account of the fatal commando raid involving dozens of U.S. special operations soldiers targeting an Islamic State detention center in Iraq.

“Combat” is a term that Carter and many military officials have studiously avoided using over the past few months in an effort to comport with President Obama’s vow to keep U.S. troops out of combat in Iraq.

DoD identifies soldier killed in commando raid in Iraq

But Wheeler's death this week from a gunshot wound in a firefight against hostile enemy forces is fueling new questions about whether U.S. military operations in Iraq have quietly expanded into a combat mission.

Carter on Friday took pains to explain how Wheeler's death does not mean that the entire force of 3,500 U.S. troops in Iraq is involved in a combat mission.

“It doesn't represent us assuming a combat role,” Carter said at the press briefing at the Pentagon. “It represents a continuation of our advise-and-assist mission.”

“We do not have combat formations there, the way we did once upon a time in Iraq,” he said.

In the case of Wheeler, Carter said initial plans for the raid did not call for putting U.S. troops into a direct combat situation, even though dozens of U.S. troops had joined with Kurdish fighters in several helicopters to head to the Islamic State prison compound.

“As the compound was being stormed, the plan was not for the U.S. advise-and-assist and accompanying forces to enter the compound or be involved in the firefight,” Carter said.

“However, when a firefight ensued, this American did what I'm very proud that Americans do in that situation — he ran to the sound of the guns and he stood up,” Carter said. “All indications are it was his actions and that of one of his teammates that protected those who were involved in breaching the compound and made the the mission successful.”

“Again, it wasn't part of the plan, but it was something that he did,” he said. “And I'm immensely proud that he did that.”

U.S. reports first death in combat with Islamic State

On Friday, the commander of U.S. military operations in Iraq issued a rare statement directly rejecting any suggestion of mission creep.

“U.S. forces are not in Iraq on a combat mission and do not have ‘boots on the ground,’” said Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, head of Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.

“It is important to realize that U.S. military support to this Iraqi rescue operation is part of our overarching counterterrorism efforts throughout the region and does not represent a change in our policy,” MacFarland said.

Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey said parsing the terminology used to describe the U.S. role in Iraq is not helpful.

“We have thousands of forces in both Iraq and Afghanistan,” McCaffrey said. “We're conducting active air combat operations throughout Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. We have huge CIA involvement to include with paramilitary forces in Jordan and elsewhere. And we have Congress and the White House both playing political, arcane games with each other over the description of what these forces are doing.”

“It makes no sense,” he said.

McCaffrey applauded the troops who successfully executed the raid, saying the U.S. should view the prison raid as a “one-off operation of great complexity and success.”

Wheeler was among dozens of special operations soldiers who joined Kurdish peshmerga fighters in the raid Thursday morning, which freed about 70 Iraqis who were imprisoned by Islamic State group militants and faced imminent execution, defense officials said.

Wheeler, who joined the Army in 1995, was assigned to Headquarters, U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He is the first American service member killed in action by enemy fire while fighting Islamic State militants.

An Oklahoma native, Wheeler served in the 75th Ranger Regiment, deploying three times to support combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, before being assigned to Army Special Operations Command headquarters. He deployed 11 times after that to Iraq and Afghanistan, according to information released by the Army.

Even as the debate swirls over the role of U.S. troops in Iraq, top officials still believe the advise-and-assist concept remains viable, and that putting U.S. troops alongside Iraqis and other foreign forces improves their capability.

“My experience, plus my reading of history through other operations is that the indigenous force or the force you are advising typically performs better when advisers accompany them out into various operations,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said in a interview with Army Times in early October.

“On the other hand, you've got to weigh the complexity of the situation and the risk associated to the force, and there are judgment calls,” Milley said.

“The question leaders must ask is whether the risk of advisers going forward is worth the benefits of improved performance in Iraqi troops,” he said. “Those are tough questions, and those are judgment calls, and they involve people's lives.”

Interview: US Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales dismissed arguments that the U.S. is stepping up its combat role in Iraq, saying this week's raid was a “dramatic exercise” of the military’s ongoing counterterrorism operations ongoing in Iraq.

“There's nothing strategically ‘out of the paint’ with this,” Scales said. “It's unrelated to the advise-and-assist mission. To suggest that somehow this is an escalation of American involvement is simply not true.”

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