According to the Wall Street Journal, The U.S. has benn flying drones in small numbers over the areas of Iraq now occupied by ISIS. The drones are unarmed and for surveillance only..at least so far.
Someone described as a senior U.S. official was quoted as saying that the intelligence collected under the small program was shared with Iraqi forces, but added: "It's not like it did any good."
There's an understatement for you.
But with all that intelligence, the offensive by ISIS reportedly, 'caught the U.S. by surprise.'
Following the takeover of the two Iraqi cities, administration officials have asked the U.S. military and intelligence agencies to draw up options that include limited U.S. military action in Iraq, officials said.
One of the options being drawn up for the White House would expand the drone flights over Iraq, a step that could aid Iraqi forces or facilitate possible U.S. airstrikes.
"They're looking at everything and anything and have been told explicitly by the White House to think outside the box of what is possible," a senior U.S. official said.
In recent weeks, the U.S. has also stepped up planning for the possible evacuation of the American embassy in Baghdad, a U.S. official said. U.S. military officials say they don't believe an evacuation will be necessary and doubt Baghdad will fall to militant forces, but said expanded planning is prudent.
They were 'caught by surprise' by ISIS but now are saying Baghdad won't fall? Expanded planning is definitely prudent!
What will be interesting is the interaction between U.S. forces and the Iranians, whom already have units of Iran's Revolutionary Guard on the ground. And then there's the Iranian backed Shi'ite militias like Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. The Iranians, as I mentioned before are not at all pleased at their Shi'ite colony changing management,
This seems more and more like deja vu, with American troops being caught in between two sides of a religious civil war.
Based on the 'rewards' we got from intervening last time, I think we might be better off staying out of it, to say the least. Let the two sides work it out. The only people I favor arming in Iraq are the Kurds..if they're willing to be our allies after the sordid betrayals of two consecutive American administrations.
4 comments:
It's Israel's interest to aid the Kurds in every possible way.
I hope we're doing it but somehow I doubt if Netanyahu has the balls, he's turned into a toothless sheep, a windbag.
An independent Greater Kurdistan allied with Israel would be a major strategic victory.
A friend of mine, a former Sgan aluf in the Tzahal was a big part of training the Persh Merga during the Saddam 'no fly' years. They like the Israelis...remember,Kurds are Muslims but not Arabs. Totally different culture and mindset.Just like the Azeris.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if those ties have continued and I've had some hints to that extent, especially since they're right next door to Iran...you just won't hear about it because Obama is so sweet on Turkey and Iran, and would react as expected.
Chash Dam,
Rob
i'm sort of confused about this anonymous. it's not anon, is it?
Someone described as a senior U.S. official was quoted as saying that the intelligence collected under the small program was shared with Iraqi forces, but added: "It's not like it did any good."
that statement is funny/dumb/offensive on about six/seven levels. i'll address two.
this is military intelligence, riiiiight.
if this information is shared with anyone, it will be the ISIS.
It should come as no surprise whatsoever that US intelligence was caught completely by surprise. Given the massive US intelligence failures that led to the 9/11 attacks, the failure to find Iraqi WMD, the failures in Afghanistan, and failures dating as far back as the 1980s (with those failures we were simply "blessed" or "lucky" depending upon one's perspective that none of this led to a catastrophic battlefield defeat or worse our complete destruction), this current failure should surprise no one.
As an example of the failures in the 1980s our forces were given out of date maps of the terrain as well as the locations of enemy forces in Grenada. I could go on. That merely scratches the surface Suffice it to say I'm NOT making up things to support the fact that US Intel Services consist of a combination of incompetent boobs, political hacks, and mostly both of the above.
After the attacks of 9/11 we had a golden opportunity to address these problems. Unfortunately the "Bush lied, kids died" meme as well as the arguably more destructive "911 truther" movement was created in order to protect some very dishonorable and incompetent men and women and the structural changes to US Intelligence Services were never made and continue to pay the price for this!!
G_d help us all!! He has before. Perhaps He will see fit to do so again. As I see it right now, this is the only way we prevail. In the natural realm, our adversaries are simply far to powerful and when combined with the general incompetence of the leadership it can be argued quite convincingly that no nation in history has ever faced the longer odds than the USA faces right now.
The Holy Scriptures do discuss in great detail the difficulties faced by the ancient Israelites. America's challenges today are equally if not more daunting than they faced. In all things a healthy reliance on G_d is the best place to start. After that, at least for America, a change in leadership would be extremely helpful.
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