U.S. Defense Secretary Affirms Support for Iraq on Baghdad Visit

Protection Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III made an unannounced go to to Iraq on Tuesday to reaffirm the U.S. dedication to the nation, lower than two weeks earlier than the twentieth anniversary of the American-led invasion that remodeled the Center Jap nation.

After conferences with Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and his prime navy and counterterrorism crew, Mr. Austin assured Iraqi leaders that america would press on with the mission of advising and coaching the nation’s armed forces.

“U.S. forces are prepared to stay in Iraq on the invitation of the federal government of Iraq,” he stated after assembly Iraqi leaders.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq ousted the longstanding dictator Saddam Hussein and led to a brutal insurgency in opposition to U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies. It set off sectarian warfare and spurred the expansion of Al Qaeda in Iraq, later paving the best way for the rise of the Islamic State as effectively.

It resulted in Iraqi casualties estimated between 185,000-206,000, the overwhelming majority of them civilians, in line with the Cost of War venture on the Watson Institute at Brown College. Some 4,600 U.S. service members additionally died, together with greater than 3,600 navy contractors. As well as, tens of millions of Iraqis have been displaced through the preventing, and just some have returned to their houses.

Mr. Austin underscored that the present focus of U.S. forces in Iraq is on defeating the Islamic State and made clear that assaults on U.S. forces “undermine that mission,” a reference to makes an attempt by Iranian drones to focus on navy camps that home U.S. troopers in Baghdad and northeastern Syria.

He bolstered the significance of Iraq persevering with its gradual efforts to repatriate these Iraqis with ties to the Islamic State who’re at the moment held in jail camps for Islamic State households in northeastern Syria, such because the sprawling Al Hol camp.

Tens of hundreds of individuals dwell within the camp — nearly all of them ladies and youngsters — and about half the residents are Iraqi. The work of reintegrating them into Iraqi communities has been tough due to widespread considerations that they are going to as soon as once more threaten Iraqi civilians.

In keeping with assessments by the U.S. Central Command, the Islamic State has some 10,000 fighters and leaders in detention in Syria along with greater than 25,000 within the Al Hol camp, including that they’re susceptible to radicalization.

Mr. Austin by no means talked about Iran by identify. However his warning about assaults on U.S. troops and different feedback urging Iraq to deepen and strengthen its partnerships with its Arab neighbors advised that he was urging Iraq to do its greatest to counter Iran’s affect with ties to different Arab allies.

Hussein Allawi, the prime minister’s safety adviser, stated that america was dedicated to giving Iraq “technical help since Iraq owns U.S.-made weaponry” and offering particular operations coaching for Iraq’s counterterrorism items.

America has 2,500 troops in Iraq and an extra 900 in Syria to assist advise and help allied native forces in combating Islamic State fighters there. In 2014, the Islamic State seized territory in each international locations, bringing a lot of northern Iraq below its management.

It took greater than three years of arduous preventing and the assistance of a global coalition, in addition to Iran-backed Iraqi militias to win again the territory.

The numbers of Islamic State assaults have declined yearly because the Islamic State misplaced its territory in 2017. However some components Iraq nonetheless see close to every day assaults with small-arms fireplace and typically improvised explosive units.