New York Times | The War in Iraq: Why? New York Times And our country has suffered the death and injury of tens of thousands of our own sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives by waging this war in Iraq. But for what purpose? We know that there were no weapons of mass destruction ... |
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The War in Iraq: Why? - New York Times
Iranian authorities said on Monday that Iraq was to blame for a sandstorm that had cut off power and water supply in an oil-rich province and led to street protests against local officials.
According to the AP which quotes state TV, Irans vice-president in charge of environmental affairs, Masoumeh Ebtekar, called upon Iraq to implement an agreement to prevent dust storms by spreading mulch over thousands of square miles of desert.
Earlier this month, a sandstorm led to power outages and temporarily cut off water supply in much of the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan bordering Iraq, reducing oil production by 700,000 bpd.
Following the sandstorm and power supply cuts, residents of the oil-rich Iranian city of Ahvaz with a majority Arab population took to the streets last week to protest against continuous power failures, air pollution, and government mismanagement.
The city of Ahvaz is the capital of the wealthy Khuzestan province, rich in oil and natural gas and located in southwest Iran close to the Iraqi border. Ahvaz has often topped the unfortunate ranking of the worlds most polluted cities.
Referring to the protests, local police have issued a statement that people refrain from illegal gatherings and warned them they would be confronted if they continued those gatherings, according to the New York Times.
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Iran hints that the dust storms originate in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, and has urged their authorities to address the problem.
According to PressTV, the Iranian state broadcasters English-language outlet, Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called upon Iranian officials on Monday to immediately address the problems that the residents of the Khuzestan province are facing. Most recently, the Khuzestan province has been afflicted by torrential rains and the province had already been reeling from sandstorms, which are said to originate in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, Press TV said.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Iran Blames Iraq For Dust Storm That Sparked Protests In Oil Province - OilPrice.com
SOUTHWEST ASIA, Feb. 21, 2017 U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.
Officials reported details of the latest strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.
Strikes in Syria
Coalition military forces conducted 17 strikes consisting of 28 engagements in Syria:
-- Near Bab, three strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units, destroyed four ISIS-held buildings and damaged an ISIS-held building.
-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, four strikes destroyed six oil wellheads.
-- Near Palmyra, three strikes destroyed 26 oil tanker trucks.
-- Near Raqqa, seven strikes engaged four ISIS tactical units; destroyed three fighting positions, a vehicle bomb, a garage, an improvised explosive device and a weapons facility; and damaged a bridge.
Strikes in Iraq
Coalition military forces conducted nine strikes consisting of 61 engagements in Iraq, coordinated with and in support of Iraqs government:
-- Near Beiji, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and an ISIS staging area and destroyed a weapons cache, a vehicle bomb and a vehicle bomb facility.
-- Near Kisik, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed two ISIS-held buildings, a vehicle bomb, a vehicle, a tactical vehicle and an unmanned aircraft.
-- Near Mosul, six strikes engaged two ISIS tactical units; destroyed 11 mortar systems, three ISIS headquarters, three ISIS-held buildings, two anti-air artillery systems, two tactical vehicles, two supply caches, a front-end loader, a fighting position, a weapons facility, a vehicle bomb and an improvised explosive device; damaged nine supply routes; and suppressed 14 mortar teams and an ISIS tactical unit.
-- Near Tal Afar, a strike destroyed a vehicle bomb facility.
Part of Operation Inherent Resolve
These strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The destruction of ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria also further limits the group's ability to project terror and conduct external operations throughout the region and the rest of the world, task force officials said.
The list above contains all strikes conducted by fighter, attack, bomber, rotary-wing or remotely piloted aircraft; rocket-propelled artillery; and some ground-based tactical artillery when fired on planned targets, officials noted.
Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike, they added. A strike, as defined by the coalition, refers to one or more kinetic engagements that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single or cumulative effect. For example, task force officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIS vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against a group of ISIS-held buildings and weapon systems in a compound, having the cumulative effect of making that facility harder or impossible to use. Strike assessments are based on initial reports and may be refined, officials said.
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Officials Provide Details of Latest Strikes in Syria, Iraq - Department of Defense
OTTAWA, Canada Canada will resettle 1,200 Yazidi refugees who faced persecution by the Islamic State group, the immigration minister said Tuesday.
Some 400 have already been airlifted to this country.
Our operation is under way and individual survivors of Daesh have been arriving in Canada for resettlement in the last number of months and this began on October 25, 2016, said Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, using an Arabic name for the Islamic State.
Our government will resettle approximately 1,200 highly vulnerable survivors of Daesh and their family members in Canada, he added.
The initiative follows Parliaments resolution last fall to take in Yazidis facing genocide in Iraq at the hands of the Islamic extremist IS group.
The original aim was to bring over women and girls at risk, but Hussen told a news conference that Ottawa had learned that Daesh has also deliberately targeted boys and as such we are helping to resettle all child survivors of Daesh.
Hussen said the migrants are arriving on commercial flights at a controlled pace to avoid overwhelming Canadas refugee system.
The operation is expected to cost Can$28 million (US$21 million).
Since coming to power in late 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus government has resettled 40,000 Syrian refugees.
The Yazidis taken in have been subjected to comprehensive security checks and medical examinations, Hussen said.
Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking minority with a pre-Islamic religion thought partly to have its origin in the Zoroastrianism of ancient Persia. They are neither Arab nor Muslim and IS considers them polytheistic heretics.
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Canada to welcome 1200 Yazidi refugees from Iraq - The Times of Israel
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster looks on as President Donald Trump announces him as his national security adviser at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., on Monday. Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster looks on as President Donald Trump announces him as his national security adviser at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla., on Monday.
In April 1991, I met a young U.S. Army captain in the moonscape of southern Iraq. He was frustrated.
Just weeks earlier, the officer and his troops were part of the wave of U.S. forces that drove Saddam Hussein's Iraqi military out of Kuwait. The Americans kept advancing, pushing some 150 miles into southern Iraq but then they received orders to halt in place.
The captain and his men sat and watched from a distance as Saddam's army regrouped and crushed an uprising by Shiite rebels in Nasiriya and other cities throughout southern Iraq.
"The rebel leaders begged us for weapons," said the captain, explaining that he was not allowed to help them. Later, the rebels returned and pleaded with the U.S. forces to simply drive into the city, believing that would scare out the Iraqi army. "All we could do was wish them luck," the American officer said.
That captain was H.R. McMaster, then just 28.
An old problem
McMaster, now 54, has since put away his desert camouflage and today wears three stars and a chest full of honors. But as President Trump introduced him as his new national security adviser on Monday, McMaster essentially faces the same challenge as 26 years ago how to fix Iraq.
This time, he must try to do so from within the White House, as one of several top aides competing to make policy both within and outside of the formal National Security Council. Based on McMaster's track record, he may not shrink from dealing candidly with Trump's other staffers.
"The president doesn't have a lot of experience in national security policy, in military policy," NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman told NPR's Morning Edition. "But let me tell you something: this guy (McMaster) is no shrinking violet. He's very blunt, he's very smart, and he's not going to suffer fools gladly."
Before the 1991 Iraq invasion, the U.S. had never fought a full-fledged war in the Middle East. Since then, the region has been the military's main focus and that looks likely to continue during the Trump administration. The U.S. is currently involved in wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan and carries out periodic airstrikes elsewhere in the region.
While Trump's national security policy is still taking shape, he has now become the fifth consecutive commander in chief to carry out military action in Iraq.
Here's the condensed version of 26 years of U.S. military history in Iraq: President George H.W. Bush ordered Saddam kicked out of Kuwait, but left the Iraqi dictator in power. President Clinton upheld a no-fly zone over northern and southern Iraq, but did not dislodge Saddam. President George W. Bush invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam in 2003, and the Iraqi insurgency followed. President Obama withdrew the final U.S. troops at the end of 2011, but ordered air strikes in August 2014 to counter the emergence of the Islamic State.
Obama later ordered thousands of American troops into Iraq and Syria to help indigenous fighters against ISIS, the strategic situation that Trump and McMaster inherit today.
To put this in perspective, 26 years before McMaster first charged into Iraq in 1991, the U.S. was just ramping up its involvement in Vietnam in 1965.
A tough job
McMaster's long history with Iraq is a sobering lesson of just how tough his job will be. He earned a silver star in 1991 for heroism in a massive tank battle known as "73 Easting." During the second Iraq war, he was considered one of the architects of the 2007-2008 surge that beat back the Iraqi rebellion.
In between his stints in Iraq, McMaster, a West Point grad, earned a doctorate in military history from the University of North Carolina. His dissertation expanded into a highly acclaimed 1997 book on the Vietnam War, Dereliction of Duty: Johnson, McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam. The central theme is generals who deferred to politicians and came to regret it.
As he moves into his White House office, McMaster's most immediate challenge will be helping to coordinate the effort to drive the Islamic State out of its last stronghold in Iraq, the western side of Mosul.
The Trump administration has inherited an operation in mid-stream. With the U.S. providing air power and advisers to the Iraqi military on the ground, ISIS was recently pushed out of the eastern part of the city in fighting that took roughly four months.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Sunday announced the offensive to take the western part of the city, which is bisected by the Tigris River. If ISIS is uprooted, it will no longer hold any urban areas in Iraq, and would be a greatly reduced force from the one that spread across Iraq in 2014.
But as McMaster knows all to well, military victories in Iraq are ephemeral without a political solution that follows. It's a lesson he's relearned many times over the past 26 years.
Greg Myre, an NPR national security correspondent, covered the 1991 Gulf War for The Associated Press. Follow him @gregmyre1.
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New Trump Adviser HR McMaster Faces An Old Challenge - Iraq - NPR