Obama to send up to 1,500 more troops to Iraq for a total of 3,000 troops without boots on the ground

- The White House has announced that US president Barack Obama has authorised sending up to 1500 more troops to Iraq. If all 1500 are sent then the number of troops in Iraq will be doubled.
Obama has been adamant that there will be no boots on the ground in Iraq but he had already sent 1500 and if another 1500 go, there will be a total of 3,000 non-boots on the ground. No doubt Senator John McCain who actually thinks there should be boots on the ground in Iraq will be pleased and support the move.
Of course Obama insists that all of these troops are merely to help train and advise the Iraqi government and Kurdish forces that are fighting the Islamic State. The White House announcement said: ""As a part of our strategy for strengthening partners on the ground, President Obama today authorised the deployment of up to 1,500 additional US military personnel in a non-combat role to train, advise, and assist Iraqi Security Forces, including Kurdish forces," " The Iraq and Syria missions against the Islamic State come with a price tag. Obama will ask Congress for $5.6 billion to fund operations including $1.6 billion for the "Iraq, Train and Equip Fund".
Some of the new troops will arrive in Iraq within the next few weeks according to a defence official. He also said that some of the new troops will be deployed in the west of Anbar where the Iraqi government forces have been in retreat. General Martin Dempsey recently advised that troops should be sent to Anbar but he wanted the Iraqi government to arm the local Sunni tribes. However, any Sunni tribes who accept that offer are liable to be wiped out by the Islamic State before they ever receive the arms. Dempsey told a news conference that due to recent gains in Anbar ""we need to expand the train, advise and assist mission into al-Anbar province, but the precondition for that is that the government of Iraq is willing to arm the tribes. By the way, we have positive indications that they (Iraqi government) are. But we haven't begun to do it yet.""
There are some reports that advisers are actually joining in battles on occasion. A Daily Beast reporter near the front lines of a battle was told that he could not go further because there were "guests" coming: " “Yes, we want to let you in, but we can’t,” said one high-level Kurdish government official. “We have visitors, you’ll see them,” he stated. As we tried to decipher his cryptic response our answer came: multiple armored Toyotas swept down the mountain, passing within feet of us. The Toyotas were packed with what appeared to be bearded Western Special Operations Forces. I watched the trucks pass and saw for myself the crews inside them. They didn’t wear any identifying insignia but they were visibly Western and appeared to match all the visual characteristics of American special operations soldiers."
With the Republicans in control of both houses the general trend of Obama's war policy of intervening everywhere as the global cop is not likely to change. After all, the present secretary of defense Chuck Hagel is a Republican. Obama will be well positioned to finish his term following the path of his predecesor George W. Bush. Obama has avoided suffering US casualties by not having large contingents of American boots on the ground in his interventions. Obma prefers drones, air attacks, and arming proxy troops who will suffer the casualties, but this does not seem to have given him any popularity boost.

Obama and US generals at odds over boots on the ground in Iraq

For several weeks now there has been an apparent tension between Obama and some US generals with respect to the role of "boots on the ground" in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq.

Chair of the US House Armed Services Committee, Buck Mckeon a Republican from California claims that the generals who are in command of the US operations in Iraq have been pushing for US troops to actively join combat: “Our military commanders have all laid out scenarios where we need more troop... if we don’t put boots on the ground, we can’t form the coalition.” Obama has insisted that a ground war with US boots on the ground is not even being considered.
In part, the Obama position simply ignores the reality that the US already has "boots on the ground" in Iraq, about 1,600 of them. The official position is that these troops are simply advisers but there are reports that they have actually entered battle with the Kurds even though officially they are not on a combat mission. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Congress that the US has not officially reengaged in the war in Iraq at least on the ground: “Instead, these advisers are supporting Iraqi and Kurdish forces in supporting the government’s plan to stand up Iraqi national guard units,”
Both Robert Gates, Obama's former Defense Secretary and former president George W Bush, doubted that Obama could achieve his goal of defeating IS without US ground troops. Gates told CBS: "They're not gonna be able to be successful against ISIS strictly from the air, or strictly depending on the Iraqi forces, or the Peshmerga, or the Sunni tribes acting on their own. So there will be boots on the ground if there's to be any hope of success in the strategy. Gates thought that it was a mistake for Obama to continue insisting that there would be no boots on the ground as he was trapping himself into a position he would later need to abandon.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also indicated he would recommend U.S. ground troops if he thought this was required and told reporters: 'I stand by the statement,' he said when asked about testimony before a Senate committee last week in which he first made the assertion. ‘I will recommend… what it takes to destroy ISIS.' Dempsey insisted there is no 'air power alone solution' and it may take the use of boots on the ground to defeat the Islamic State. Obama agrees but wants to use proxy forces as boots on the ground rather than the politically risky use of US forces.
 Top officials in Anbar are also asking that the US send troops into the province. However, these officials are only still top officials there because Iraq was unable to hold elections in Anbar because of security issues. The Iraq government itself does not want US troops on the ground. A cleric associated with the Al Sadr bloc has even threatened to attack any US troops. Many Iraqi Sunnis in areas occupied by the Islamic State prefer them to the Shia-dominated central government. They will likely help defend the Islamic State against the US and central government forces.
Obama could very well be drawn into an open-ended quagmire in Iraq. What started out with a few advisers has even now reached 1,600 and their role appears to be gradually becoming more extensive with engagement in the front lines on occasion. I expect special forces are already engaged in secret unreported missions. It would hardly be a giant step to send a thousand or so more actual boots on the ground with Obama deciding that he should follow the recommendations of his own key military figures.