Posted on 02/01/2016 10:47:12 AM PST by BenLurkin
The United States is willing to deploy Apache attack helicopters and advisers to help Iraq retake the city of Mosul from Islamic State as it considers options to speed up the campaign against the militant group, a top U.S. general said on Monday.
U.S. officials, including President Barack Obama, have said they want to accelerate the campaign against Islamic State militants, and have called on allies to increase their military contributions to efforts to destroy the group in Iraq and Syria.
U.S. Army Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, the head of the U.S. led coalition battling Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, said he is looking to retake Mosul as quickly as possible, but did not say whether he agreed with Iraqi estimates that it could be wrested from Islamic State control by the end of this year.
"I don't want to put a date out there," MacFarland said. "I would like to get this wrapped up as fast as I possibly can."
Past steps to speed up the campaign have included the deployment of dozens of U.S. special operations forces in northern Syria, and an elite targeting force to work with Iraqi forces to go after Islamic State targets.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
It will just be a pin prick.
That is, the prick in the White House
will try to pin blame for going back
into Iraq on Bush.
They should call up Putin and ask him really nicely if he could come blow up some muslims
I suspect Obama is willing to sacrifice Iraqis in a Stalingrad-like battle with ISIS as well as put US helicopter pilots at greater risk by pushing for a more sudden offensive against Mosul, to make it look like a Dem administration is making progress against ISIS after doing so little for so long.
This would be done so as to reduce security concerns of the American voters that play more to Republican candidates like Trump.
Yet another unserious air campaign by the Imam in Chief. Targets will be prewarned, many targets will be of little significance from a strategic point of view.
Meanwhile the Ruskies...
We already have template to retake Mosul. Turn the Marines loose like we did in in Fallujah in Nov of 2004. What they did there over the course of those 3 weeks will live on in the magnificent history of my beloved Corps forever.
“Bury ‘em in leaflets, dammit. BURY THEM!!”
- Resident Zero
I’m not a professional military planner, but I’ll go out on a limb. If we started shooting and bombing terrorists, it would help the Iraqi Army to retake Mosul. It’s a shame our Community-Organizer-in-Chief is on the other side of this battle.
It won't work. I hope there are enough experienced military advisers left with the guts to speak up to tell them this.
The only way to root out ISIS is door to door. It's dangerous, time consuming, and requires a lot of boots on the ground. I've read several places that Iraq just barely has enough troops to attempt this, and then only if they are willing to commit a sizable percentage of their combat ready battalions to the effort.
Gunships and advisers won't help. Advisers can only help them train and develop the tactics, it is still going to take trained men with guns - lots of them, going door to door. Gunships won't help because they are only good at taking out relatively focused targets. Well, first off, ISIS is smart enough to stay hidden and not concentrate. Second, no way the Iraqi government or bammy will green light ROE that allows the profligate use of firepower. The Marines did that, and basically leveled Fallujah. It was tremendously effective, but did completely trash the city. No way they'll let that happen again. So once again we see bammy and his cohorts proposing things that are completely ineffective. The guy defines impotence.
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