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Obama Warns of ‘Long-Term’ Iraq Strikes Obama Warns of ‘Long-Term’ Iraq Strikes
(about 4 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Laying the groundwork for an extended airstrike campaign against Sunni militants in Iraq, President Obama said Saturday that the strikes that began the day before could continue for months as the Iraqis build a new government. WASHINGTON — President Obama said on Saturday that the airstrikes and humanitarian assistance drops he ordered last week in Iraq could go on for months, preparing Americans for an extended military presence in the skies there as Iraq’s leaders try to build a new government.
“I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem in weeks,” Mr. Obama told reporters before leaving for a two-week vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. “This is going to be a long-term project.” “I don’t think we’re going to solve this problem in weeks,” Mr. Obama told reporters before leaving for a two-week golf-and-beach vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. “This is going to be a long-term project.”
The president repeated his insistence that the United States would not send ground combat troops back to Iraq. But he pledged that the United States and other countries would stand with Iraqi leaders against the militants if the leaders build an inclusive government in the months ahead. The president repeated his insistence that his administration would not send ground troops back to Iraq after ending an unpopular, decade-long war and withdrawing the last troops in 2011. But two days after emphasizing the limited scope of the mission in a White House address, he pledged that the United States would stand with Iraq if it could form a unified and inclusive government to counter the Sunni militants who threaten its future.
Hours before Mr. Obama spoke, Sunni militants in northern Iraq ordered engineers to return to work on the Mosul Dam, the country’s largest, suggesting that the extremists who captured the dam last week after fierce battles with Kurdish forces will use it, at least for now, to provide water and electricity to the areas they control, and not as a weapon. “Changing that environment so that the millions of Sunnis who live in these areas feel connected to and well served by a national government, that’s a long-term process,” he said during a lengthy departure statement on the White House lawn during which he took several questions from reporters.
Prompted by the seizure of the dam by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, along with the dire circumstances of tens of thousands of civilians stranded in the mountains near Sinjar, in northwestern Iraq, President Obama quickly ordered airdrops of humanitarian aid and airstrikes on militant positions near the Kurdish capital, Erbil. The president’s assessment of the campaign’s duration came as Sunni militants with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria began advancing along a main road up Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq, where thousands of Yazidis, an ethnic and religious minority, remained trapped. In Mosul, residents reported that nearly two dozen bodies of ISIS fighters, said to have been killed in American airstrikes, had arrived at the city’s morgue, while at least 30 wounded fighters were being treated at a hospital.
As ISIS consolidates its control of territory, it has acted brutally, carrying out executions and forcing out minority groups. But it has also displayed an intent to act strategically when it comes to natural resources, highlighted by the call on Saturday for engineers on the dam to get back to work. Saturday was the first time Mr. Obama had addressed the question of a timeline for the military intervention in Iraq, and his remarks are likely to raise new questions, especially among those who fear that the mission could slowly pull America back into a more robust involvement in the country. The president said he would not give a “particular timetable” on the new operations.
Its control over the dam, however, also gives the group the ability to create a civilian catastrophe: A break in the fragile dam could unleash a tidal wave over the city of Mosul and cause flooding and countless deaths along the Tigris River south to Baghdad and beyond, experts have said. Aides said that Mr. Obama had not committed to years of continuous airstrikes while Iraqis develop a new government, but that his comments reflected the uncertainty of a military effort that will be re-evaluated in the months ahead.
The ISIS order came as residents in Mosul reported that nearly two dozen bodies of ISIS fighters, said to be killed in American airstrikes, arrived at the city’s morgue, while at least 30 wounded fighters were being treated at a hospital. The open-ended nature of Mr. Obama’s actions presents a tricky political problem for a president who campaigned against what he once called a “dumb war” and repeatedly pressed Republicans to set a date for the departure of American troops from the battlefield. The last American troops left Iraq in December 2011, yet Mr. Obama now finds himself in charge of a new, if very different, military operation there with no certain end in sight.
In Baghdad, efforts by leaders to name a replacement for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, stalled, with Mr. Maliki clinging to power and rivals unable to decide on an alternative. A session of Parliament scheduled for Sunday — when leaders had been expected to nominate a new prime minister — was postponed until Monday, as some Shiite leaders rushed to Iran, which holds enormous power in Iraq, and Sunni politicians visited Erbil to confer with the Kurds. When he announced the airstrikes on Thursday night, Mr. Obama emphasized the immediate goals of protecting Americans in Baghdad and in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, and helping to rescue the Iraqis trapped by ISIS fighters on the mountain. In his remarks Saturday morning, he focused more on the need to help Iraqis over the long term, giving them what he called space to develop a government that can fight back against militants.
But his acknowledgment that the effort in Iraq will take time may not be enough to satisfy Republican critics, many of whom accuse Mr. Obama of failing to embrace a sufficiently aggressive air mission aimed at driving the militants out of Iraq and Syria.
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and Mr. Obama’s 2008 presidential opponent, said Saturday that Mr. Obama’s vision for military operations against militants in Iraq was too narrow. He said the actions ordered by the president were not nearly enough to counter a growing threat from “the richest, most powerful terrorist organization in history.”
“Obviously, the president of the United States does not appreciate this is not just a threat to American troops on the ground, or even Iraq or Kurdistan,” Mr. McCain said in a telephone interview from Vietnam, where he was traveling with a congressional delegation. “This is a threat to America.”
In describing a potentially long time frame for military action in Iraq, Mr. Obama cited in part the danger and complexity of the rescue mission on Mount Sinjar. The military has airdropped 36,224 meals to the refugees in the last two days, officials said. But Mr. Obama said the much harder task of creating a safe corridor for them down the mountain would take more time.
“The next step, which is going to be complicated logistically, is how can we give people safe passage,” he said.
Defense Department officials expressed confidence that they could achieve within a few days one of Mr. Obama’s announced goals: stopping the advance of the militants on Erbil, where hundreds of American diplomatic officials and military advisers are stationed. On Friday, the military struck a number of ISIS targets near Erbil, including a stationary convoy of seven vehicles and a mobile artillery unit that was being towed by a truck.
“We can stop them from moving into Erbil,” a senior Defense Department official said Saturday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe military planning. “The cost will become too high. There will be a tremendous amount of deterrence in these strikes.”
But officials said breaking the siege on Mount Sinjar and protecting Americans in Baghdad from advancing ISIS militants would take more time, particularly given the instability of Iraq’s internal politics and the vagaries of protecting and eventually evacuating the stranded Iraqis.
In Baghdad, leaders’ efforts to name a replacement for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite, stalled on Saturday, with Mr. Maliki clinging to power and rivals unable to decide on an alternative. A session of Parliament scheduled for Sunday, when leaders had been expected to nominate a new prime minister, was postponed until Monday.
“Until this moment, nothing has changed,” said Kamal al-Saadi, a member of Parliament from Mr. Maliki’s bloc. “We are sticking with our only candidate, Maliki.”“Until this moment, nothing has changed,” said Kamal al-Saadi, a member of Parliament from Mr. Maliki’s bloc. “We are sticking with our only candidate, Maliki.”
Earlier, Mr. Obama had suggested that wider American military support, including an expansion of the airstrikes, could come if Iraqi leaders formed a national unity government with meaningful roles for the country’s two main minority groups, Sunnis and Kurds. Without saying so explicitly, American officials have been quietly working to replace Mr. Maliki because they believe that he is incapable of uniting the country to face the militant threat. Earlier, Mr. Obama said the length of American involvement would depend on how quickly Iraqi leaders could form a national unity government with meaningful roles for the country’s two main minority groups, Sunnis and Kurds. Without saying so explicitly, American officials have been quietly working to replace Mr. Maliki because they believe that he is incapable of uniting the country to face the militant threat.
On Saturday, Mr. Obama said an inclusive Iraqi government would give all Iraqis a reason to believe that they were represented and help give Iraqi military forces a reason to fight back against the militants. Mr. Obama said an inclusive government would give all Iraqis a reason to believe that they were represented, and Iraqi military forces a motive to fight back against the militants. Once that happens, he said, the American military, working with Iraqi and Kurdish fighters, can “engage in some offense.”
His announcement prompted immediate criticism from Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who said in an interview by telephone from Vietnam that the president’s vision for the campaign was insufficient to fight “the richest, most powerful terrorist organization in history.” “The most important timetable that I’m focused on right now is the Iraqi government getting formed and finalized,” he said before boarding Marine One.
The United States continued on Saturday its efforts to address the crisis in Iraq, as three American military cargo planes, escorted by Navy F-18 fighter jets, dropped more food and water on Mount Sinjar to help refugees who fled there under threat from the Sunni militants. Hours before Mr. Obama spoke in Washington, Sunni militants in northern Iraq ordered engineers to return to work on the Mosul Dam, the country’s largest, suggesting that the extremists who captured the dam last week after fierce battles with Kurdish forces would use it, at least for now, to provide water and electricity to the areas they control.
The humanitarian assistance came after a day of military strikes by Navy warplanes and Predator drones on ISIS artillery positions. The planes — one C-17 and two C-130s — dropped more than 28,000 ready-to-eat meals and more than 1,500 gallons of fresh drinking water, the Pentagon said. That brings the number of meals delivered to the refugees to 36,224 in the last two days. As ISIS consolidates its control of territory, it has shown an intent to act strategically when it comes to natural resources. But its control over the fragile dam also gives the group the ability to create a civilian catastrophe: A break could unleash a tidal wave over Mosul and cause flooding and deaths along the Tigris River south to Baghdad and beyond, experts said.
In London, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said in a statement on television that Royal Air Force planes would begin humanitarian airdrops in northern Iraq “imminently.” ISIS fighters also appeared to make progress in a separate battle for control of the Haditha Dam, Iraq’s second largest, which sits on the Euphrates River farther south in Anbar Province. Security forces said militants had destroyed a strategic bridge near the town of Barwana, which government forces had been using to resupply fighting units.
Britain announced Friday that it would support the American relief effort there but would avoid military action. Britain was a close ally of the United States in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and in operations in Afghanistan, but its appetite for overseas military deployments has faded. Last year, Parliament refused to authorize military action in Syria in response to the use of chemical weapons in the civil war there. In London, the British foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, said in a statement on television that Royal Air Force planes would “imminently” begin humanitarian airdrops in northern Iraq. President François Hollande of France also pledged humanitarian support in a telephone call with Mr. Obama, officials said.
ISIS’s advance northward over the last week appears to be a shift in strategy, as the group had previously announced its intent to march on Baghdad. That was stalled when Shiite militias quickly mobilized to defend the capital.
While ISIS has been the most prominent fighting force of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, its gains could not have come without the support of other Sunni groups, experts say, including fighters aligned with Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, which is not sympathetic to the religious extremism of ISIS but is seen as more intent on taking the fight to Baghdad and trying to topple the central government.
In a recent statement, the Iraqi Baath Party condemned ISIS’s attacks on the Kurdish region, suggesting emerging fissures in the alliance of Sunni resistance. “We categorically reject the fight against Kurdistan,” the statement said. “Kurdistan and its government were a safe haven to all Iraqis.”
The statement added, “We call on all military brigades to move on Baghdad instead.”
As ISIS went to work securing the Mosul Dam on Saturday, its fighters appeared to make progress in an battle for control of the Haditha Dam, Iraq’s second largest, which sits on the Euphrates River farther south in Anbar Province. Security forces said militants had destroyed a strategic bridge near the town of Barwana, which government forces had been using to resupply fighting units.
Within ISIS-controlled territory, the new American involvement in Iraq has become a rallying cry. With the ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has declared areas under his control in Iraq and Syria a new Islamic caliphate, calling for jihad against the United States, imams have called on citizens to fight the United States.
One preacher in Falluja, which has been under ISIS control since the end of last year, said at Friday Prayer: “We know there comes a day to fight the United States. We are ready to march towards Erbil and Baghdad. The Islamic State will not be defeated and we are willing to keep pursuing jihad, according to the plans.”