BARACK IN IRAQ

[Geee]

American Spectator:

President Bush, in the buildup to the 2003 Iraq invasion, said that our goal was an Iraq that was democratic, able to defend itself. and would be our ally in the global war against terrorism. None of those goals was achieved. Now, three years after President Obama withdrew American forces from Iraq, he’s dipping a military toe into Iraq again. The mission he’s described for our forces boils down to ensuring that the Democrats don’t get blamed for “losing” Iraq in the 2016 elections.

 

If that seems harsh consider the facts, as Obama has described them, to justify the latest round of military intervention.

 

Obama said on Friday — as he has said many times before — that there is no American military solution in Iraq, and that the only lasting solution is “reconciliation among Iraqi communities and stronger Iraqi security forces.” But there is no reasonable prospect for such a reconciliation among Malaki’s Shia in the south, the Sunni barbarians of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (aka ISIS) in the middle, and the Kurds in the north. Obama has no plan or strategy to bring about the formation of such a government.

 

He has also said that ISIS is an Iraqi problem, not an American problem. That can only be understood to mean there is no American national security interest in Iraq. Which compels us to ask why are we then renewing our military intervention in Iraq.

 

On Saturday, Obama said, “I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem in weeks. This is going to be a long-term project.” That’s an open-ended commitment like the one he excoriated President Bush for in the 2008 campaign.

[Geee]

US sending arms to Kurds in Iraq

 

SYDNEY (AP) — The Obama administration has begun directly providing weapons to Kurdish forces who have started to make gains against Islamic militants in northern Iraq, senior U.S. officials said Monday.

 

Previously, the U.S. had insisted on only selling arms to the Iraqi government in Baghdad, but the Kurdish peshmerga fighters had been losing ground to Islamic State militants in recent weeks.

 

The officials wouldn't say which U.S. agency is providing the arms or what weapons are being sent, but one official said it isn't the Pentagon. The CIA has historically done similar quiet arming operations.

 

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/apnewsbreak-us-sending-arms-kurds-iraq

[Geee]

Obama: Pulling All U.S. Troops Out of Iraq Was Not 'My Decision'

 

CNSNews.com) - When he was running for re-election in 2012, President Barack Obama repeatedly took credit for ending the war in Iraq and bringing all U.S. troops home from that country. At the White House on Saturday, however, when talking about his decision to use military force against the al-Qaida-related ISIS terrorist group in Iraq, Obama said removing all U.S. troops from Iraq was not “my decision.”

“You know I say what I mean and I mean what I say,” Obama said in Hollywood, Florida on Nov. 4, 2012. “I said I'd end the war in Iraq. I ended it.”

That statement was similar--or identical--to many others Obama made on the campaign trail in the 2012 campaign.

 

On the South Lawn of the White House today, after Obama explained why he had ordered the U.S. military to renew airstrikes in Iraq, a reporter asked Obama about his decision to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq.

“Mr. President, do you have any second thoughts about pulling all ground troops out of Iraq?” the reporter asked. “And does it give you pause as the U.S.--is it doing the same thing in Afghanistan?”

“What I just find interesting is the degree to which this issue keeps on coming up, as if this was my decision,” Obama said, indicating he does not believe it was his decision as commander in chief of U.S. troops in a congressionally authorized action in Iraq to decide whether the troops should stay or leave.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/obama-pulling-all-us-troops-out-iraq-was-not-my-decision