U.S. Aims to Help Iraq Target Terror Threat
The United States is aiming to help the Iraqi government battle an increasing threat from Al-Qaida linked terror groups with military sales and intelligence sharing, a U.S. official said Wednesday.
"We do want to help the Iraqis develop the capability to target these networks effectively and precisely," the senior administration official said, after a two-hour meeting between U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Unrest in Iraq has reached a level unseen since 2008 and killed more than 5,350 people this year, as Iraqi authorities have so far failed to curb daily attacks despite carrying out a swathe of operations and implementing several tightened security measures.
"It is a fact now that Al-Qaida has a presence in western Iraq and it has a presence in terms of camps and facilities and staging areas that the Iraqi forces are unable to target effectively. And that's just a fact that goes to their capabilities," the U.S. official said, asking not to be named.
Many militants were slipping into Iraq from Syria, armed with heavy weapons.
Washington now had "a pretty good handle now on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant networks and where they are and where it's coming from," he said.
"We're kind of increasing expert cooperation with the Iraqis in terms of developing that information base. But we really want to help the Iraqis have a better vision of what they face so they can target it effectively."
U.S. officials have already notified Congress of plans to sell Iraq "a major air defense system which allows them for the first time to take sovereign control of their air space which right now they don't have," the official said.
He refused to go into details, but the Washington Post reported that Baghdad was hoping to buy U.S.-made Apache helicopters.
A group of U.S. senators on Tuesday accused Maliki of contributing to an alarming slide back into a sectarian war.
"By too often pursuing a sectarian and authoritarian agenda, Prime Minister Maliki and his allies are disenfranchising Sunni Iraqis, marginalizing Kurdish Iraqis, and alienating the many Shia Iraqis who have a democratic, inclusive and pluralistic vision for their country," the letter said.
Signed by Republican Senators John McCain, James Inhofe, Bob Corker and Lindsey Graham, along with Democrats Carl Levin and Robert Menendez, it alleged Maliki's failure was pushing Sunnis "into the arms of Al-Qaida in Iraq."
Maliki said before he left Baghdad that he aimed to discuss security, intelligence sharing and weapons sales during his visit.
Iraq has also ordered dozens of F-16 warplanes from the United States with the first due for delivery in late 2014.
The order has sometimes been a point of contention between the two countries, with Baghdad calling for faster delivery and Washington saying that is not possible.
The U.S. official confirmed Baghdad had now deposited some $650 million with the U.S. as a down payment for the planes.
He insisted thought that the solution in trying to combat groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant did not just lie in weapons sales.
Pointing to past efforts to win over Iraqi tribes to the side of the government, he said that in their talks the Iraqis were "keen to develop the same type of approach ...and they discussed it at some detail."
Source: Agence France Presse
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