WASHINGTON (AP) — For years,
Kurdish officials have beseeched the Obama administration to let them
buy U.S. weapons. And for just as long, the administration has rebuffed
the Kurds, America's closest allies in Iraq.
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US Airstrikes, Airdrops in Iraq |
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US Airstrikes, Airdrops in Iraq
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U.S. officials
insisted they could only sell arms to the government in Baghdad, even
after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki broke a written promise to deliver
some of them to the Kurds, whose peaceful, semi-autonomous northern
region had been the lone success story to come out of the 2003 U.S.
invasion.
Now, the
administration is confronting the consequences of that policy. The
Islamic State group, which some American officials have dubbed "a
terrorist army," overpowered lightly armed Kurdish units in a blitzkrieg
that has threatened the Kurdish region and the American personnel
stationed there.
In June, the
Pentagon dispatched 300 military advisers to Iraq. Dozens of them are
operating out of Irbil, the capital of the Kurdish region, which is now
under threat from the Islamic State.
In
a bitter irony, the extremists used American armored vehicles and
weapons they had seized from the hapless Iraqi military to defeat
Kurdish fighters who were blocked from acquiring just such equipment,
U.S. and Kurdish officials said.
The
U.S. sought to halt the extremists' advance Friday with airstrikes, but
Kurdish officials also say Washington has promised to begin sending
them arms. Pentagon officials say their policy hasn't changed — they
will only sell arms to Baghdad.
That raises the question
of whether the CIA has begun providing weapons in secret to the Kurds,
something U.S. officials will neither confirm nor deny. The CIA declined
to comment on whether it was sending arms.
But
whether or not a covert program is underway, a growing number of voices
are calling for the U.S. to begin openly and speedily arming the Kurds.
"If
Baghdad isn't supplying the Kurds with the weapons that they need, we
should provide them directly to the Kurds," said Rep. Adam Schiff, a
California Democrat who serves on the House Intelligence Committee.
"The
only way to confront this threat is to arm Iraqi security forces and
Kurdish forces, and yet we're doing nothing to support either one of
those," said retired Gen. Michael Barbero, who used to run the mission
training the Iraqi military. "It just doesn't make sense to me. It's an
existential threat, so why we are not in there at least equipping and
arming them?"
White House spokesman John Earnest said Friday the U.S. has begun stepping up its help to the Iraqi military and the Kurds.
"We have a strong
military-to-military relationship with Iraq's security forces, and the
Iraqi security forces have shared some of those assets with Kurdish
security forces," Earnest said. "We have also demonstrated a willingness
to increase the flow of supplies, including arms, to Kurdish security
forces as they confront the threat that's posed by ISIL."
In
an interview published Saturday in The New York Times, Obama praised
the Kurds and how they've governed their region of Iraq. But he said the
U.S. does not want to get into the business of providing an air force
for either the Iraqi government or the Kurds.
The
president said he was telling the various factions, "We will be your
partners, but we are not going to do it for you. We're not sending a
bunch of U.S. troops back on the ground to keep a lid on things."
Karwan
Zebari, spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdistan region in Washington, said in
an interview that U.S. officials have assured him that guns and
ammunition would be forthcoming.
"Last night, they said, 'We will be moving expediently with providing you some military assets,'" he said Friday.
The U.S. has not wanted to
stoke the Kurds' desire for, and Baghdad's fear of, an independent
Kurdish state. Officials tried to steer some of the aid to the Kurds,
but it didn't work.
Under the
Pentagon's foreign military sales program, some $200 million worth of
American weapons that was supposed to be earmarked for the Kurds by the
Maliki government was never delivered to them, Barbero said.
"This policy of one Iraq, everything goes through Baghdad, ignores the reality on the ground," Barbero said in an interview.
Zebari
and Barbero said Kurdish forces have been outgunned by ISIL troops
driving in armored American Humvees and firing American machine guns
seized from the Iraqi army.
"It's
not that the peshmerga forces are scared or not willing to fight,"
Zebari said, referring to the Kurdish militia. "They are coming at us
with armored Humvees and we're throwing these AK-47 bullets at them. It
doesn't do anything. At some point you run out of bullets."
The
Kurds have some tanks and armored vehicles, but not in Sinjar, a city
far from the Kurdish seats of power in Irbil and Suliminiya. That city
fell swiftly to an onslaught from Islamic State fighters, leading
thousands of members of the Yazidi religious minority to flee to a
mountaintop, where the U.S. has airdropped supplies to stave off deaths
from hunger and thirst.
Many
of the peshmerga soldiers defending Sinjar had just six magazines of
ammunition, said a former CIA official with close ties to the region who
spoke on condition of anonymity because he got the information in
confidence.
U.S. airstrikes
are not "the endgame," Zebari said. "What has changed for the peshmerga
on the ground? Nothing. We still need that military equipment."
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