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The Army chief of staff said his team is taking a hard look" at the operations tempo of the services air defense artillery units, which were frequently tapped this past year for deployments to the Middle East in response to a spike in tensions between the United States and Iran.

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense and Patriot missile batteries remain among the most frequently deployed units in the service, Army senior leaders have said previously. Theyve also acknowledged a need to ease the burden on soldiers manning those systems.

I dont want to make promises until we can deliver, Gen. James C. McConville told an audience Thursday at Fort Sills 2020 Fires Conference. But I think the rotations right now, the ops tempo on our troops, is higher than it was even during the peak time in Afghanistan and Iraq, so we got to fix that."

Lt. Col. Curtis Kellogg, the chiefs spokesman, clarified to Army Times that McConville is concerned about the Armys ops tempo in general. But the comments he made at the Fires Conference were specifically pointed at air defense artillery units and armored brigade combat teams.

Brig. Gen. David Stewart, the 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command boss, called the recent series of deployments made in response to drone and missile threats from Iran and Yemeni militias, the 2019 air defense surge.

Every Patriot unit assigned to the 32nd AAMDC was forward deployed during this period of time," Stewart said Wednesday at the conference. "More importantly, every weapon system in our arsenal, to include C-RAM, Stinger, Avenger, Sentinel Radar, Patriot, THAAD, all those were deployed forward during this time.

McConville told Congress earlier this year that he hopes to shift some of the missile defense burden onto partners and allies.

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A Patriot missile deployment in September 2019, for instance, was triggered by attacks on Saudi oil facilities. But, unfortunately, those troops werent close enough to defend against a Jan. 8 ballistic missile attack by Iran that struck two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops. That sparked some to wonder whether U.S. air defense assets were spread too thin.

What were looking at in some cases when it comes to air and missile defense is advising and assisting our partners so they use their capability to defend their bases and their critical infrastructure, and then we can use our systems to take care of our soldiers and our bases, McConville told lawmakers in March.

But at the Fires Conference on Thursday, McConville also advised leaders to make efficient schedules at their own levels.

Im expecting brigade commanders, division commanders, to take a hard look at how company commanders are managing their time, McConville said.

Your focus, I would argue, needs to be at the lower level," he added. "Most of your time needs to be spent on training individuals in crews, squads and platoons, and maybe even companies and batteries. And quite frankly, youve got to figure out how to do the rest of the stuff on your time, not their time.

McConville also said that leaders need to prioritize the work-life balance of their personnel.

That means, for instance, excusing soldiers from combat training center rotations when they have important life events coming up, like the birth of a child, he explained.

If we show were willing to invest in our people, theyll be there with us in the long term, McConville added. If youre a commander and youre just interested in the short-term your 12 months, your 18 months and thats how youre take care of your people, just making sure that you have a successful command. Thats not the way we want you doing business."

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'Got to fix that': Some unit ops tempos higher than peaks of Afghan, Iraq wars, Army chief says - ArmyTimes.com

Issued on: 02/10/2020 - 13:40

Sheikhan (Irak) (AFP)

Iraq's Yazidi minority paid its last respects to its spiritual leader on Friday as tributes poured in for the cleric, who guided his flock through the horrors of Islamic State group occupation and its aftermath.

Baba Sheikh Khurto Hajji Ismail died late Thursday at the age of 87, his office said.

The funeral was held the very next day in accordance with Yazidi tradition, marking the start of a week's mourning after which his son will be anointed as successor.

Hundreds of Yazidi men and women turned out in traditional dress for the funeral procession in the town of Sheikhan, north of Iraq's second city Mosul.

Tributes poured in for Sheikh Baba, whose pragmatic leadership is credited with helping the community to avoid collapse after the massacres, forced marriage and sex slavery of jihadist rule.

Yazidis are born into their faith and must marry within it -- conversions are not permitted and traditionally those who marry outside are excommunicated.

But after thousands of Yazidi women were abducted by IS and forcibly married off to its Sunni Muslim fighters, Baba Sheikh preached compassion for those who survived, arguing that they should not be treated as outcasts for the horrors they had endured.

Nadia Murad, 26, who was subjected to life a sex slave under IS and won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work highlighting the horrors of the group's rule, said the community had lost a "beacon of light", who "treated Yazidi survivors with love & respect".

The Iraqi government paid tribute to a "man of peace" who had preached "brotherhood and friendship".

The Yazidis, who are nearly all Kurdish-speaking, form a minority within a minority and have faced repeated bouts of persecution throughout their 4,000-year history.

Their faith is monotheistic but they believe God entrusted the world to seven angels, drawing accusations of "devil worship" from followers of other faiths.

But they have clung on in two isolated enclaves inside Iraq, one around Sheikhan in the Nineveh Plain and one in the Sinjar Mountains of the northwest.

When IS marched into the Yazidi villages of the Sinjar Mountains in 2014, there were 550,000 Yazidis nationwide out of a worldwide total of 1.5 million, including neighbouring countries and the diaspora.

Three years later, thousands had died and nearly 100,000 had fled abroad.

More than 6,400 Yazidi women were kidnapped, of whom barely half survived to return home, according to Kurdish authorities. The fate of many of the rest may never be known.

Thousands more were displaced inside Iraq and authorities have struggled to persuade them to return to their ancestral homes.

Alongside their spiritual leader, the Yazidis also have a secular leader or prince. The current prince, Hazem Tahsin Bek, took up the post in July last year.

2020 AFP

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'Beacon of light' of Iraq's Yazidis dies at 87 - FRANCE 24

Iraqi demonstrators marked the beginning of their uprising, also known as the October Revolution, on Thursday. According to ELAPH news agency, crowds of Iraqi demonstrators began Thursday with marches and rallies in Baghdad, and in central and southern provinces of Iraq. Protesters called for an end to Irans hegemony in Iraq and systematic corruption in their country. The Iraqi demonstrators called for the trial of the former prime minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi and those who were involved with him in killing protesters. The demonstrators declared they will continue their protests until they achieve their goal, which is achieving justice.

In Tahrir Square, the center of the protests in Baghdad, millions of activities and rallies were launched. Students, women, and youth were commemorating the beginning of their revolution, which ultimately ended in the resignation of the previous government.

Demonstrators demands include a public trial for those who gave the orders to kill, kidnap, torture and arrest peaceful activists, led by then-Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, and any faction involved in killing the demonstrators. Protesters also said that Iraq should join the International Criminal Court so that the trials are conducted with fair international supervision that is neither politicized nor biased.

The coordination bodies of the October 1 Revolution also demanded the approval of a law for the elections. The protesters demanded an election only after the arms are confined to the hands of the state.

The demonstrators also demanded the independence of the High Electoral Commission and to keep it away from being affected by sectarian laws, as well as to activate the political parties law by revealing sources of funding and criminalizing communication with countries at the expense of Iraqs sovereignty and interests.

And they stressed that they are continuing to take back the homeland from the killers and thieves, and the mafias of the parties and their armed forces.

The demonstrators coordination groups warned that if these demands were not fulfilled, the people, led by the youth, will march on the 25th of this month to Baghdad to bring down the parliament, which was born from the elections of fraud, threats, bribery and damned quotas.

It is noteworthy that millions of popular protests erupted in Iraq on the first of October 2019 against corruption and the loss of necessary public services and to demand job opportunities through calls on social media platforms. In addition to the rejection of Iranian hegemony over Iraqs affairs, which resulted the killing of 568 demonstrators and the injury of 21,000 others. At the end it led to forcing former Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi to submit his resignation on the first of November 2019.

Then the head of the Intelligence Service, Mustafa Al-Kazemi, assumed the presidency of the government after months of political stalemate. He promised to hold the security forces those who applied violence against the demonstrators and killed them accountable. He promised also to take care of the families of the martyrs and the treatment of the wounded.

Source: ELAPH website

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Anniversary of Iraq Uprising, Protests Spread in Iraqi Cities - The Media Express

UNESCO Iraq organized a capacity-building training to support the Ministry of Interiors radio station. The training aimed at assisting the MoIs radio station in providing services to the journalism community regarding the safety of journalists. The training focused on the role of the radio station in feeding journalists news and collecting testimonies as well as reporting on violations that journalists encounter.

The knowledge and skills on how to gather different information and testimonies, which are of concern to the journalists was needed, Colonel Raed Hamdan the director of the radio station said. He added, participants will now be able to properly source for news stories and testimonies for the radio station. We have to report on such subject areas and put the journalists in direct contact with the senior official in the ministry.

Capt. Ibtsam Muzail said The segment on receiving complaints will empower female journalists to be able to report these issues during on-air programmes, whereas the segment on the safety of journalists and the issue of impunity enabled our staff to discuss, explain and apply ethical principles, standards of practice and rules of conduct for the safety of journalists planning at the radio station.

M.G. Saad Maan, the Chair Deputy of the Iraqi National Committee on the safety of journalists stated that the trainings were key in deepening and improving knowledge and skills for the radio station staff members. He thanked UNESCO for its continuous support in building the capacities of the ministry.

This training is part of the Netherlands funded project Breaking the Silence: enhance accountability on safety of journalists and issue of impunity in Iraq.

Practical exercises, lectures and discussions were used as a mode of delivery for the trainings to enhance and encourage participation, thus enabling participants to properly grasp issues raised during the training.

Originally posted here:
UNESCO builds capacity of the Ministry of Interiors radio station staff in Iraq - India Education Diary

Baghdads skies lit up with an arc of light and a humming, the sound of a special system that had been installed near the U.S. embassy in the Green Zone to confront rocket and mortar fire. The gun system is called C-RAM and was deployed to Iraq after dozens of attacks aimed at the embassy and the Green Zone. The U.S. has blamed these attacks on rogue pro-Iran militias. Now Washington faces another crucial juncture in its role in Iraq. Troops are being reduced from 5,200 to around 3,000 and Washington will have to do more with less in the country.

It is a time of transition in Iraq in several ways. There is a new commander for the U.S. fight against ISIS. Lt. Gen. Paul Calvert assumed command on Sept. 9, the seventh commander of the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, the coalition that was put together in 2014 to defeat ISIS. The coalition has been successful; ISIS was largely defeated in 2017. By 2019 ISIS had lost all the land it held in Syria, and today the terrorist group operates from sleeper cells in rural areas of Syria and Iraq. The coalition includes more than 70 countries, but only a few contributed forces on the ground. Today ground forces no longer are needed to go outside the wire and hunt down ISIS members. The Iraqis, more than 200,000 of whom were trained and mentored by the coalition, are capable.

However, despite the success, the challenge of confronting rocket fire by pro-Iran groups, and the threat of COVID-19, has led to rapid consolidation of forces and withdrawal. The U.S. and coalition partners handed over eight bases and posts to full Iraqi control over the past seven months. This means that American troops are located at only a few places in Iraq, including in Baghdad, Al-Asad air base and facilities in the Kurdistan region. President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump says he doesn't think he could've done more to stop virus spread Conservative activist Lauren Witzke wins GOP Senate primary in Delaware Trump defends claim coronavirus will disappear, citing 'herd mentality' MORE has told Americas warfighters that it is not their duty to fight in faraway places and solve ancient conflicts, and he has noted that the U.S. helped to defeat ISIS. Evidence points to a desire by the White House to keep the U.S. footprint in Iraq as small as possible, while also deterring Iran.

This leaves the Pentagon needing to do more with less in Iraq. Luckily, America has the tools and technology to do that. Using drones and intelligence, the U.S. has continued to keep the pressure on ISIS. Drones dont win wars, but the U.S. isnt fighting a major war in Iraq; ISIS today consists of small groups of men hiding in caves and rural areas. For example, in August the coalition said that it carried out 17 strikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Eleven of these strikes were in Iraq they hit eight caves, eight tunnels, and killed nine ISIS members.

Keeping ISIS defeated and Iraq stable requires continual training of Iraqi forces. That includes not only the Iraqi army but also the Kurdish Peshmerga, an independent military force of the Kurdish autonomous region. COVID-19 has made training difficult, though, and it is unclear when full training can resume.

Lastly, the U.S. needs to deter Iran from carrying out more attacks in Iraq. Commanders have sought to deter Irans proxies in Iraq through airstrikes carried out in response to any casualties among coalition members. Since March, there have been no casualties but there are weekly rocket attacks and now attacks on trucks supplying coalition forces. The U.S. has yet to adopt a strategy to deter these attacks. The use of the C-RAM system in Baghdad on Sept. 14 to intercept two rockets fired at the Green Zone is an example of how high-tech defensive solutions can help. Closing bases and posts also means there are fewer targets for the pro-Iran militias. Placing U.S. forces in the Kurdistan region, which is more pro-American, has ensured their safety.

The result is a smaller footprint with just a few thousand U.S. forces. This potentially enables the U.S. to be more confident because it doesnt have soldiers exposed to Irans threats but can continue to support operations against ISIS. Time will tell whether this becomes a new American way of war no surges such as those in the mid-2000s, and a focus on having partner forces do field operations. As long as ISIS stays in its caves and Irans militias cant strike at U.S. forces, this process of consolidation in Iraq could prove successful.

Seth J. Frantzman is executive director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis. A former assistant professor of American Studies at Al-Quds University, he covers the Middle East for The Jerusalem Post and is a Ginsburg/Milstein writing fellow at the Middle East Forum. He is the author of After ISIS: How Defeating the Caliphate Changed the Middle East Forever. His new book, Drone Wars, will be published in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @sfrantzman.

Original post:
How the US is doing more with less in Iraq | TheHill - The Hill