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The U.S. military is "not in Iraq to seize anybody's oil", Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said, distancing himself from remarks by President Donald Trump,as he held talks with Iraqi leaders on Monday.

Mattis was the highest-ranking Trump administration official to visit Iraq since Trump irked Iraqis with a temporary ban on travel to the United States and for saying America should have seized Iraq's oil after toppling Saddam Hussein in 2003.

Trump told CIA staff in January: "We should have kept the oil. But okay. Maybe you'll have another chance."

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Mattis, however, flatly ruled out any such intent. "We're not in Iraq to seize anybody's oil," he told reporters traveling with him late on Sunday, ahead of his arrival.

"All of us in America have generally paid for our gas and oil all along and I'm sure that we will continue to do so in the future," said Mattis, a retired Marine general who once led forces in Iraq.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis addresses a news conference during a NATO defence ministers meeting at the Alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, February 16, 2017. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

His remarks are the latest sign of differences with Trump. Trump has acknowledged that Mattis disagrees with him about the usefulness of torture in interrogation and said he would defer to his defense secretary on the issue.

Mattis has been more critical than Trump of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and distanced himself from Trump's labeling of the media as "the enemy of the American people", saying he had no problems with the press.

A retired Marine general who led American troops in Iraq, Mattis has sought an exemption from Trump's travel ban for Iraqis who have served with U.S. troops, including translators.

He said he had not seen a new executive order which the administration is considering. "But I right now am assured that we will take steps to allow those who have fought alongside us, for example, to be allowed into the United States," Mattis said.

Mattis' visit came a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Haideral-Abadi announced the start of a ground offensive on westernMosul, where Islamic State militants are under siege along with an estimated 650,000 civilians.

It was unclear whether Trump's remarks on oil had come up during Mattis' with Abadi, who has told Washington that Iraq's oil is the property of Iraqis.

Mattis also met Iraq's defense minister and top U.S. officials in Iraq.

Will U.S. Forces Stay After Mosul?

Influential Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Monday called on Iraq's government to order the withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces after the battle of Mosul is over.

"The Iraqi government has to demand that all occupying and so-called friendly forces leave Iraq in order to preserve the prestige and the sovereignty of the state," Sadr said.

Mattis declined to address Sadr's remarks directly, describing them as an internal political matter.

But he said he was reassured after his talks in Baghdad that Iraq's leaders recognized the value of its relationship with the United States.

"I imagine well be in this fight for a while and well stand by each other," he said, repeatedly praising the resilience of Iraqi forces.

The U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Lieutenant General StephenTownsend, has said he believes U.S.-backed forces will recapture both of Islamic State's major strongholdsMosul and the city of Raqqa in Syriawithin the next six months.

Trump is looking for a plan to accelerate the campaign against Islamic State, which could lead to an additional deployment of U.S. forces, who currently number less than 6,000 in Iraq and Syria.

The Pentagon may also look at increasing the number of attack helicopters and air strikes and bringing in more artillery, as well as granting greater authority to battlefield commanders fighting Islamic State.

Townsend told a news conference in Baghdad he had been putting U.S. military advisers closer to front lines in Mosul than before, a move that would increase risk but bolster their ability to aid Iraqis, including by directing air strikes.

"We adjusted our posture during the east Mosul fight and we embedded advisers a bit further down into the formation," he said.

Townsend added he was certain victory in Mosul was within sight. "The Iraqi security forces are going to take that city back. No doubt about it," he said.

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Defense Chief Contradicts Trump on Iraq and Oil - Newsweek

Everyday objects such as this clay toy (c3,000 BC) will be appear alongside items recovered from the 2003 looting. Photograph: AYMAN AL-AMIRIi/Iraq Museum, Department of Antiquities;Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities;and Ruya Foundation

The Iraq Museum of Baghdad is to display 40 ancient artefacts at the Venice Biennale this year, including several that were recently returned after its looting in 2003. The exhibition will be the first time all the objects have been legally allowed out of the country.

Ancient clay pots, medical objects, musical instruments and figurines of deities and animals will be among the items on display, some of which date back to 6,100 BC.

It will be the first time since 1988 that permission has been granted for anything from the museums collection to leave Iraq. The museum reopened in 2015 after being closed for 12 years while the stolen and smuggled objects taken during the invasion of Iraq were recovered.

The display in the National Pavilion of Iraq at the biennale will be in direct response to what co-curator Tamara Chalabi describes as the cultural genocide happening at the hands of Islamic State across Iraq and Syria.

It is more important than ever that people outside of Iraq see these objects and understand their cultural significance, at a time when they are being nihilistically destroyed in Palmyra, in Nimrud, in Mosul, said Chalabi, speaking on the second day of an attempt by Iraqi forces to reclaim western Mosul from Isis.

These objects do have a universality that transcends geography and I think thats such an important message to be relaying at this time and against the global backdrop of a place like Venice. It fights a cultural prejudice people have and the perception that there is no art now left in Iraq or nothing left worth saving.

The Ruya Foundation, which is organising the exhibition at Venice, had to fight against an open reticence from the Iraqi authorities and people at the museum to let any objects out of the country, Chalabi said.

The closed attitude is very entrenched in authorities, which is obviously a result of the looting and a desire to protect what has been left, so they were hard to persuade.

The idea of loaning or having visiting exhibitions is just absent, and yet they are sitting on some of the most interesting antiquities in the world. Ironically, up until now, unless something has been looted and stolen, its been almost impossible for it to come out of Iraq.

For Chalabi, a historian, it was important to include a few of the 15,000 objects which were looted from the museums collection during the fall of Saddam Hussein, a third of which have subsequently been returned. Among the recovered objects to go on display in Venice are a small weight measure shaped like a dove and a clay figurine of a fertility goddess. Both were returned to the museum from the Netherlands in 2010.

Rather than selecting the museums rarest items for the pavilion, simple artefacts representative of the collection as a whole were prioritised. Everyday objects will be showcased, such as a contract of adoption and a clay school text, both from the Babylonian period.

The collection is under such strict security that the curators were not allowed into the museums storage and instead had to have each item brought out specifically.

The exhibition will be titled Archaic, and will also feature new work of eight Iraqi artists. Chalabi said the pavilion offered a rare opportunity to bring together Iraqs ancient and contemporary culture, which is shrouded in mystery and prejudice for so many people.

She said she hoped it would finally open up cultural channels in and out of Iraq, and break away from the thinking that the only way to preserve and save the collection was to keep it hermetically sealed inside the museum.

There such a dichotomy between the ancient and the current and everything else in the middle gets lost, she added. So this is trying to connect the two Iraq as the cradle of civilisation, Garden of Eden of ancient times, and then the war, destruction and chaos of today and create a dialogue between the old and the new.

The historian is the daughter of Ahmed Chalabi who, as the leader of the exiled US-funded Iraqi National Congress, advised the government of George W Bush to go to war

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Answering 'cultural genocide': Iraq's looted treasures to be displayed at Venice Biennale - The Guardian

BAGHDAD The Pentagon is deploying U.S. military advisers closer to the front lines in the campaign against the Islamic State as Iraqi security forces wrestle for control of the city of Mosul, the top U.S. commander here said Monday.

Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend said that the advisers, numbering about 450, are operating closer and deeper into Iraqi formations as a new assault on western Mosul gets underway. U.S. commanders made the adjustment during the fight for the eastern side of the city, which began in October and ended last month, and the deployment has continued with the attempt, beginning Sunday, to capture western Mosul, Townsend said.

It marks the first time the U.S. military has acknowledged how close American service members are to the front lines as it assists what Townsend characterized as a force of more than 40,000 Iraqi police officers and soldiers fighting to retake Mosul. The battle for the western half of the northern Iraqi city is likely to stretch for months in urban neighborhoods where up to 1,000 militants are believed to be entrenched, U.S. military officials said.

[Iraq resumes offensive to retake to Mosul]

Iraqi units encountered determined resistance Monday as they fought for control of Albu Seif, an Islamic State-occupied village south of Mosul. Later Monday, federal police forces and an elite squad belonging to the Interior Ministry had drawn within two miles of Mosuls main airport, at the citys southern edge, according to Lt. Gen. Raed Shakir Jawdat, the commander of the federal police.

The fight for the western half of the city is expected to be more challenging even than the grueling and bloody battle in the east, which lasted for months, according to Iraqi and U.S. commanders. The terrain, including the narrow streets of Mosuls old city, is more daunting. And hundreds of thousands of civilians will be caught between the militants and the advancing army.

Iraqs U.S.-trained counterterrorism forces, the countrys most effective unit and the vanguard force during the fight in eastern Mosul, is expected to join the offensive in the coming days.

Townsends comments came during a visit by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a retired Marine general who led combat forces during the Iraq War. Mattis, the first senior member of the Trump administration to visit Iraq, said the U.S.-led military coalition will be able to simultaneously prosecute the war against the Islamic State in Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa, the capital of the groups self-proclaimed caliphate, along with operations against militants in other cities.

Were going to continue to go after them until we destroy them and any kind of belief in the inevitability of their message, Mattis told reporters after a day of meetings with senior U.S. commanders and Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. They are going to be shown exactly what they are, which is a bunch of murderous relics, to put it bluntly.

Mattis rejected a suggestion by President Trump that the United States might take Iraqs oil.

I think all of us here in this room all of us in America have generally paid for our gas and oil all along, and I am sure we will continue to do so in the future, Mattis said during a meeting with reporters Sunday night. Were not in Iraq to seize anybodys oil.

Trump had said repeatedly that the United States should have taken Iraqs oil during the Iraq War, most recently during a Jan.21 visit to CIA headquarters when he said, Maybe well get another chance.

The defense secretarys comments are among several he has made in efforts to reassure allies since leaving Washington last week. In Brussels and Munich, he promised audiences that the Trump administration will maintain its obligation to NATO, which calls for all members to help if one is attacked. But he also warned that the United States might moderate its support in other ways to nations that do not meet defense spending guidelines set by the alliance.

Mattis is in the middle of a 30-day review of the U.S. strategy to defeat the Islamic State that is expected to make recommendations to the White House on whether additional U.S. troops are needed or whether new authorities should be granted to American forces to help prosecute the campaign.

The defense secretary said the United States and its allies are still sorting out what the fight for Raqqa will look like and whether Turkish forces will be involved. The issue is considered particularly sensitive because the Turks view Kurds allied with the United States as terrorists, while U.S. officials view them as the most credible local fighters.

Reuters reported Sunday that Turkey has submitted two plans to Washington for the Raqqa battle that would rely on local Arab forces potentially backed by the Turkish military, rather than the Kurds.

The allies are still working it out, Mattis said. Theyre sharing planning, and thats all Im going [to say] right now. But the planning is still underway, so it has not all been decided upon who is going to do what and where. Were working together to sort it out.

Mustafa Salim in Irbil, Iraq, contributed to this report.

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US troops in Iraq move closer to the front lines in fight for Mosul - Washington Post

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump has chosen as his national security adviser a soldier-scholar who fought in both Iraq wars and published an influential book that called out the U.S. government for lies that led to the Vietnam War.

Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster would remain on active military duty while leading the National Security Council, White House officials said Monday. He joined two retired generals - Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly - already in Trumps inner circle, adding to the impression that the president prefers military men in top roles.

President Trump named U.S. Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster (L) as his national security adviser at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on February 20, 2017.

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

Trump called McMaster a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience when he introduced his new national security adviser at his private Florida club. McMaster, who returned to Washington with the president, said he looked forward to doing everything that I can to advance and protect the interests of the American people.

McMaster replaced retired Gen. Michael Flynn, who was fired last week after Trump determined that Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his discussion with Russias ambassador to the U.S. during the presidential transition. The White House said McMaster was one of four candidates Trump interviewed for the job over the weekend.

48 Photos

A look at President Donald Trump's cabinet and inner circle

McMaster has been heavily involved in the Armys efforts to shape its future force and its way of preparing for war. He is the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, a sort of military think tank, at Fort Eustis, Virginia.

McMaster commanded troops in both American wars in Iraq - in 1991, when he fought in a storied tank battle known as the Battle of 73 Easting, and again in 2005-2006 in one of the most violent periods of the insurgency that developed after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. He is credited with using innovative approaches to countering the insurgency in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar when he commanded the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. He later served as a special adviser to the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

McMaster, born in 1962, earned a doctoral degree in history from the University of North Carolina. Outside the Army, he may be best known for his 1997 book, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam, a searing indictment of the U.S. governments mishandling of the Vietnam War. The book earned him a reputation for being willing to speak truth to power.

How closely McMasters and Trumps views align were not clear. On Russia, McMaster appears to hold a much dimmer view than Trump of Moscows military and political objectives in Europe.

In remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in May 2016, McMaster said Russia managed to annex Crimea and intervene militarily in eastern Ukraine at zero cost from the international community.

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President Trump's new national security adviser, Gen. H. R. McMaster, is a soldier and a scholar. He is the director of a military think tank, th...

McMaster said Moscows broader goal is to collapse the post-Cold War security, economic and political order in Europe and replace that order with something that is more sympathetic to Russian interests.

In his current role, McMaster has studied the way Russia developed and executed its campaigns in Crimea and Ukraine, where it used what some call hybrid warfare - part political, part disinformation, part military.

The National Security Council has not adjusted smoothly to Trumps leadership. The president has suggested he does not trust holdovers from the Obama administration and complained about leaks to reporters. His decision to put his top political adviser on the councils senior committee drew sharp criticism. On Friday, the head of the councils Western Hemisphere division was fired after he criticized Trumps policies and his inner circle of advisers.

Trump said retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who had been his acting adviser, would serve as the National Security Council chief of staff. He also said he would be asking John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to work with them in a somewhat different capacity.

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Trump's new national security adviser is a soldier-scholar who fought in Iraq - CBS News

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Monday he believes U.S. forces will be in Iraq and in the fight against Islamic State militants for a while, despite some rocky times between the two nations.

Speaking at the end of a day of meetings in Baghdad with military commanders and Iraqi political leaders, Mattis said he is open to any request from his military commanders to aid the battle to retake Mosul and launch a major battle to oust IS from the base of its so-called caliphate in Raqqa, Syria. He would not provide details.

Despite President Donald Trump's past threats to take Iraq's oil and his attempt to impose a travel ban that includes Iraqi citizens, Mattis said his meetings with Iraqi leaders underscored the partnership the U.S. has with the Iraqis.

He said there's no doubt that "the Iraqi people, the Iraqi military and the Iraqi political leadership recognize what they're up against and the value of the coalition and the partnership, in particular with the United States."

His optimistic words come on the heels of his earlier declaration that the U.S. does not intend to seize Iraqi oil, distancing himself from comments made by President Donald Trump that has rattled Iraq's leaders.

Trump's oil threat and his inclusion of Iraq in the administration's travel ban have roiled the nation and spurred local lawmakers to pressure al-Abadi to reduce cooperation with Washington.

"I think all of us here in this room, all of us in America have generally paid for our gas and oil all along, and I'm sure that we will continue to do that in the future," Mattis told reporters traveling with him. "We're not in Iraq to seize anybody's oil."

Trump brought up the prospect during the campaign, and he mentioned it again late last month during a visit to the CIA. He told the gathering there that, "To the victor belong the spoils," and added, "maybe you'll have another chance" to take the oil.

Despite those tensions, Mattis and Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, described an enduring partnership between the U.S. and Iraq.

"I imagine we'll be in this fight for a while and we'll stand by each other," Mattis said.

Townsend, who was standing by Mattis, declined to say how long the U.S. will stay in Iraq. But, he said, "I don't anticipate that we'll be asked to leave by the government of Iraq immediately after Mosul." He added, "I think that the government of Iraq realizes their very complex fight, and they're going to need the assistance of the coalition even beyond Mosul."

Townsend also acknowledged that U.S. forces are now operating closer and deeper into the fight with Iraq units as the battle to retake western Mosul entered its second day.

He said the change began in recent months during the successful fight to take back eastern Mosul, and is now happening more often. U.S. special operations forces have been working with the Iraqis, offering advice and assistance but initially they were only at the headquarters' level.

More recently they have been moving closer to the battlefront, working with brigade, battalion and sometimes smaller units. But they are generally with command and control units, not in combat on the front lines.

"We embedded advisers a bit further down into the formation," Townsend said.

Mattis' unannounced one-day stop in Iraq was his first as Pentagon chief and the first visit to the warzone by a senior member of the Trump administration. It comes as Mattis and his military leaders are nearing the end of a 30-day review of the Islamic State fight. He must send Trump a strategy to accelerate the battle in the next seven days.

Senior U.S. military officers said Monday that the fight in the more urban, heavily populated areas of western Mosul will require more precision airstrikes and probably smaller bombs that can take out a building or group of militants and leave surroundings intact.

Lt. Gen. Jeff Harrigian, the top Air Force commander in the Middle East, said troops responsible for calling in airstrikes are closer to the fight and can move forward with Iraqi units. They also have greater authority now to speak directly to pilots in the aircraft overhead, allowing them to launch strikes more quickly, he said.

Military leaders, said Harrigian, realized they could be more responsive now because the troops have built up trust with their Iraqi partners.

While Mattis and Townsend wouldn't talk about any future changes or accelerants in the war fight, various military options have been discussed in recent months. Among them: putting more troops in Iraq and Syria and boosting military aid to Kurdish fighters backed by the U.S.-led coalition.

More specifically, officials have talked about expanding efforts to train, advise and enable local Iraqi and Syrian forces, increasing intelligence and surveillance, and allowing U.S. troops to move forward more frequently with Iraqi soldiers nearer the front lines.

The Pentagon also would like more freedom to make daily decisions about how it fights the enemy. Current and former U.S. officials discussed the likely options on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk publicly.

In Syria, a possible option would be to send more U.S. forces, including combat troops, there as the Raqqa fight heats up.

Another move would be to provide heavy weapons and vehicles to the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds, and boost training. They have been the most effective force against IS in northern and eastern Syria, but the proposal is sensitive. Turkey, a key U.S. and NATO ally, considers the group a terrorist organization.

There are more than 5,100 U.S. military personnel in Iraq, and up to about 500 in Syria.

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Defense Secretary Mattis: US will stay in Iraq a while - Chicago Tribune