Free Republic

WASHINGTON, DC – House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) today issued the following statement on U.S. operations in Iraq: “The president’s authorization of airstrikes is appropriate, but like many Americans, I am dismayed by the ongoing absence of a strategy for countering the grave threat ISIS poses to the region. Vital national interests are at stake, yet the White House has remained disengaged despite warnings from Iraqi leaders, Congress, and even members of its own administration. Such parochial thinking only emboldens the enemy and squanders the sacrifices Americans have made. The president needs a long-term strategy – one that defines success...

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.

U.S. President Barack Obama authorized air strikes on Iraq to protect Christians and prevent "genocide" of tens of thousands of members of an ancient sect sheltering on a desert mountaintop from Islamic State fighters threatening to exterminate them. The United States began to drop relief supplies to refugees from the ancient Yazidi sect, but there was no sign yet of air strikes, which Obama authorized for the first time since pulling troops out in 2011. ... U.S. oil majors Exxon Mobil and Chevron evacuated expatriate staff from Iraqi Kurdistan on Thursday, industry sources said. Smaller oil companies that operate in...

Ed Henry on Fox News just reported from the White House that word has been given Obama will speak sometime tonight on worsening situation in Iraq and the U.S. response which so far involves humanitarian aid airdrops in northern Iraq.

Obama speaks from the White House

President Obama said Thursday that United States military aircraft had dropped food and water to thousands of Iraqis besieged by Islamic militants on a mountaintop in northern Iraq. Speaking from the State Dining Room at the White House, the president said he had directed the United States military forces to conduct targeted airstrikes on the militants if they moved to take Erbil, threatening the American citizens and military personnel there.

US military aircraft conduct strike on ISIL artillery. Artillery was used against Kurdish forces defending Erbil, near US personnel.

The New York Times seemed to have caught the Pentagon by surprise this evening when it issued a breaking news alert about American forces bombing two targets in Iraq. The Pentagon firmly denied that American forces had begun a bombing campaign. But Pentagon officials said it was possible that allies of the United States, either the Iraqi or Turkish militaries, had conducted the bombing.

<p>American military forces bombed at least two targets in northern Iraq on Thursday night to rout Islamist insurgents who have trapped tens of thousands of religious minorities in Kurdish areas, Kurdish officials said.</p> <p>Word of the bombings, reported on Kurdish television from the city of Erbil, came as President Obama was preparing to make a statement in Washington.</p>

The Pentagon moved swiftly to shoot down a New York Times report Thursday afternoon that American military forces had bombed at least two places in northern Iraq targeting fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). "Press reports that US has conducted airstrikes in Iraq completely false. No such action taken," Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, wrote on Twitter. President Barack Obama is preparing to make a statement Thursday evening, the Times reported. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The Times reported, citing Kurdish officials, that U.S. military forces...