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Obama Says Iraqi Dam Has Been Retaken From Militants Troops in Iraq Rout Sunni Militants From a Key Dam
(about 4 hours later)
WASHINGTON — President Obama said Monday that Iraqi special forces and Kurdish fighters, backed by American war planes, had retaken a strategically critical dam near Mosul, the latest in what he described as a string of positive steps in halting the march of Islamic extremists across the country. WASHINGTON — Iraqi and Kurdish ground troops overran Sunni militants and reclaimed Iraq’s largest dam on Monday, President Obama said, as American warplanes unleashed a barrage of bombs in an expansion of the limited goals laid out by the president in authorizing the military campaign in Iraq.
“This operation demonstrates that Iraqi and Kurdish forces are capable of working together to take the fight” to the extremists, Mr. Obama said in remarks at the White House. “If that dam was breached, it could have proven catastrophic.” Mr. Obama, who interrupted a family vacation on Martha’s Vineyard to meet Monday with his national security team in Washington, maintained that the airstrikes around the Mosul Dam were within the constraints of what he initially characterized as a limited campaign meant to break the siege of stranded Yazidis on Mount Sinjar and protect American personnel, citizens and facilities in Iraq.
Still, Mr. Obama said, “This is going to take time; there are going to be many challenges ahead.” He said that the American military campaign would continue for the foreseeable future. Administration officials repeatedly painted that second directive — the protection of Americans in Baghdad, 290 miles away — as the justification for the intense air campaign over Mosul Dam, seized two weeks ago by militants with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
The president interrupted a family vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., to meet with his national security team on the crisis in Iraq. After receiving an update on the military operation and political developments there, he emerged to deliver a cautiously optimistic status report. But such a definition gives the White House wide latitude to support Iraqi forces in a sustained military offensive against ISIS across the country. The president hinted that more help from the United States and international partners would come if Iraq’s Shiite majority governed in a more inclusive way.
Mr. Obama said that recapturing the dam, along with breaking the siege on Mount Sinjar and the departure of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had generated a sense of momentum. In announcing the seizure of the strategically critical dam, Mr. Obama mixed his message with a warning to Iraqi leaders not to use the heightened American military support as an excuse to slow down political reconciliation.
“This peaceful transition of power will mark a major milestone in Iraq’s political development,” Mr. Obama said, “but as we’re all aware, the work is not done.” “The wolf’s at the door,” the president said in remarks at the White House. “Don’t think that because we’ve engaged in airstrikes to protect our people that now is the time to let your foot off the gas and return to the kind of dysfunction that has so weakened the country generally.”
Mr. Obama said he was impressed by his first conversation with the newly-chosen Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, though he warned other Iraqi officials not to use American military intervention as an excuse to back off from efforts to form a national unity government. Mr. Obama credited Iraqi and Kurdish forces with moving swiftly to take advantage of some 35 American airstrikes on ISIS militants around Mosul Dam over the past two days. It represented a rare degree of cooperation between Kurdish and Iraqi forces to defeat ISIS.
“Don’t think that because we’ve engaged in air strikes to protect our people, that now is the time to let the foot off the gas,” Mr. Obama said. “They’ve got to get this done because the world is at the door.” On Monday, the smoke from what appeared to be fresh airstrikes was visible from the town of Badriya, northwest of the dam.
Mr. Obama did not put a timetable on American involvement, though he reiterated that he would not deploy ground troops and said he was consulting closely with Congress on the policy. In a letter to Congress on Sunday, the White House said that “failure of the Mosul Dam could threaten the lives of large numbers of civilians, threaten U.S. personnel and facilities, including the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and prevent the Iraqi government from providing crucial services to the Iraqi population.” Speaking to reporters on Monday, Mr. Obama added that if the dam had been breached, “it could have proven catastrophic.”
Administration officials said they were encouraged by the resilience of Kurdish forces and the limited number of Iraqi special forces that received air support from the United States. The United States, the officials said, was increasing its support for Iraqi and Kurdish forces, providing them with more weapons and training, as well as sharing intelligence. But administration officials acknowledged that there has been no indication in recent days that the dam was about to fail, although there has been fear that the ISIS militants might blow it up.
For now, the official said, defending Baghdad and Erbil were the main objectives of the American military. “If they feel they can count on U.S. support to defend those cities,” he said of the Iraqi and Kurdish forces, “it might free them up to be more assertive.” “They’re saying that if the Mosul Dam breaks, it’ll be felt all the way to Baghdad — that’s the thin veil that they are using,” said Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, a former American commander in Iraq who is now a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War. But that rationale, he cautioned, could see the United States military “backing into a war instead of moving forward with our eyes open with a clear strategy.”
In addition to the military operations, the officials said, the United States would try to build international support for the Iraqis’ effort to form a national unity government. That will mean lining up influential neighbors like Saudi Arabia and would-be Western donors like Britain, France and Canada. Despite the military advances, the White House is still deeply reluctant to signal that Mr. Obama is contemplating anything beyond the initial goals he outlined 11 days ago. A senior administration official said the president did not want to suggest that the United States planned to replicate the operation at the Mosul Dam in other parts of the country, even as he noted the importance of another big dam, at Haditha, that is under the control of the militants.
The recapture of the Mosul dam from the Islamic State inIraq and Syria, is the government’s most significant success against the Sunni militants since they began their sweep through northern Iraq more than two weeks ago. The American airstrikes have received generally positive reaction from lawmakers of both parties — to the surprise of some in the White House, who expected to be criticized — but Mr. Obama’s advisers are sensitive to the wariness of the American public to wider engagement in Iraq. To that end, Mr. Obama emphasized that it was crucial that the Iraqis step up and defend their own country.
In reclaiming the dam, the government is hoping to defuse what many here described as a ticking time bomb. The destruction of the facility — a critical source of electricity for Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city — could have discharged a 65-foot wave of water that would have wiped out several areas of northern Iraq, including Mosul, and flooded areas as far south as Baghdad. “Our goal is to have effective partners on the ground,” the president said. “And if we have effective partners on the ground, mission creep is much less likely.”
While there were no indications that the militants planned to use the dam as a weapon, according to Iraqi officials, the threat was enough to convince Washington to launch a concerted campaign of airstrikes to assist the joint effort. Thus far, Mr. Obama’s military strategy in Iraq has greatly favored the Kurds over the Iraqi government, with all the airstrikes taking place in northern Iraq in general and in the Kurdish areas of Mount Sinjar, Erbil and Mosul in particular. One reason, defense officials said, is that military assessment teams sent to Iraq to gauge whether the Iraqi security forces are capable of countering ISIS sent back reports specifying which units could make the most of American help — in the form of airstrikes — and which units were lost causes.
American war planes and drones unleashed 35 airstrikes near the Mosul dam in the last two days, more than half of all the attacks conducted countrywide since President Obama authorized the use of military force on August 8th, the same day the dam fell to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. The American assessment teams quickly identified Kurdish pesh merga fighters as capable of pushing back the Sunni militants if given help, defense officials said. In addition, certain Iraq commando units — including those that worked with the Kurdish fighters to take back the Mosul Dam — also received good reports from the assessment teams.
The impact of the American involvement has been decisive, Kurdish officials acknowledged. They were optimistic that coordination between the Iraqi forces and the Americans would deepen, now that the former prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, had stepped aside, as the Obama administration had demanded. In London, Britain’s defense minister said the Iraq campaign would last “weeks and months.” But in a replay of the same push-pull underway in the United States, Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, used an appearance on television Monday morning to stress that beyond a humanitarian effort and surveillance flights, there would be limits to that nation’s involvement.
“The circumstances in Iraq are very different from the circumstances just a week ago because of political changes,” said Fadhil Merani, the political secretary of the Kurdish Democratic Party, whose military forces have supplied most of the troops in the Mosul Dam operation. “The effort to coordinate with our new acting prime minister is very different from our friend Mr. Maliki.” “I want to be absolutely clear to you and to families watching at home, Britain is not going to get involved in another war in Iraq,” Mr. Cameron said. “We are not going to be putting boots on the ground. We are not going to be sending in the British Army.”
Such is the euphoria among the pesh merga that Kurdish officials have openly talked in recent days about positioning themselves for a potential push towards Mosul itself, though such talk remains highly speculative. Pope Francis also weighed in on Monday. Asked whether he approved of airstrikes against ISIS, Francis stated that stopping the “unjust aggression” of the Sunni militants could be justified. But speaking to reporters on his return from a trip to South Korea, the pontiff quickly clarified that he was not endorsing “bombs,” and called on the United Nations, rather than a single country, to decide on an appropriate response to end the bloodshed by ISIS.
The rout of the ISIS forces, if confirmed, comes after a string of successes since the American military unleashed jet and drone attacks on the militants, stopping an advance that threatened the major Kurdish city of Erbil and the lives of thousands of Yazidi refugees. Now, the American intervention seems to be backstopping a major Kurdish effort to reclaim lost territory. Mr. Obama has maintained that he will not send American combat troops back to Iraq, and the Pentagon has characterized the nearly 1,000 American forces sent there since the ISIS threat flared as advisers.
The strikes aimed around the city of Mosul and the dam have severely hampered the Sunni militants, reducing their freedom of movement and forcing them to retreat from areas they once dominated. Kurdish officials said that the American involvement has been decisive, and seemed optimistic that coordination between the Iraqi forces and the Americans would deepen, now that Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had agreed to step aside as prime minister, as the Obama administration had demanded.
The smoke from what appeared to be fresh airstrikes was visible from the town of Badriya, northwest of the dam, where the pesh merga forces were running a checkpoint. More than a dozen armored personnel carriers full of Kurdish fighters came through, heading to the dam. The forces manning the checkpoint were on edge, forcing cars to turn back and even challenging the ability of pesh merga forces to enter the area. “The circumstances in Iraq are very different from the circumstances just a week ago because of political changes,” said Fadhil Merani, the political secretary of the Kurdish Democratic Party. “The effort to coordinate with our new acting prime minister is very different from our friend Mr. Maliki.”
A large truck passed through the checkpoint at midday from the direction of the dam and carrying more than two dozen metal cylinders, strewn with wires. Idris Mohammed, a Kurdish military officer, said they were bombs that Kurdish sappers, or military engineers, had removed from a village near the dam. Such was the euphoria among the pesh merga that Kurdish officials openly talked in recent days about positioning themselves for a potential push toward Mosul itself, though such talk remained highly speculative.
The airstrikes appeared to have forced the insurgents to flee, or at least to seek cover, and only light clashes were reported as Kurdish forces approached the dam. As a result, hundreds of residents who had fled villages in the vicinity returned Monday, hoping to check on their homes. For the most part, though, they were turned back. Pesh merga forces began their march toward the Mosul Dam on Sunday, following a string of airstrikes on ISIS positions in the area surrounding the dam that started early in the morning. Mansour Barzani, the commander of the Kurdish ground forces, said his troops approached along four lines, making significant advances until they were slowed by an area riddled with mines less than two miles from the dam.
The dam is on the Tigris River, about 30 miles from Mosul. It is also a control point for the water supply for a larger area, and the seizure of the dam by the ISIS militants raised fears that a 65-foot wave of water could be released over northern Iraq. Eventually the pesh merga, with the help of the Iraqi Special Forces, and continued American airstrikes, claimed the area’s big dam and moved to retake a smaller one. Fighting continued into Monday evening.
But as nightfall approached, an assistant to Mr. Barzani, who is the son of the Kurdish president, Massoud Barzani, approached him to say that his forces had reclaimed the area.