Defense chief: After Ramadi, Iraq's 'will to fight' at issue

The Islamic State group's takeover of the provincial capital of Ramadi is stark evidence that Iraqi forces lack the "will to fight," Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in a TV interview that aired Sunday. The harsh assessment raised new questions about the Obama administration's strategy to defeat the extremist group that has seized a strategically important swath of the Middle East.

Although Iraqi soldiers "vastly outnumbered" their opposition in the capital of Anbar province, they quickly withdrew last Sunday without putting up much resistance from the city in Iraq's Sunni heartland, Carter said on CNN's "State of the Union."

The Iraqis left behind large numbers of U.S.-supplied vehicles, including several tanks, now presumed to be in Islamic State hands.
"What apparently happened is the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight," Carter said. "They were not outnumbered; in fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force. That says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis to fight ISIL and defend themselves."

The White House declined to comment on Sunday.

Iraqi lawmaker Hakim al-Zamili, the head of the parliamentary defense and security committee, called Carter's comments "unrealistic and baseless," in an interview with The Associated Press.

"The Iraqi army and police did have the will to fight IS group in Ramadi, but these forces lack good equipment, weapons and aerial support," said al-Zamili, a member of the political party headed by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who is stridently anti-American.
Over the past year defeated Iraq security forces have repeatedly left U.S.-supplied military equipment on the battlefield, which the U.S. has targeted in subsequent airstrikes against Islamic State forces. The Pentagon this past week estimated that when Iraqi troops abandoned Ramadi, they left behind a half-dozen tanks, a similar number of artillery pieces, a larger number of armored personnel carriers and about 100 wheeled vehicles like Humvees.

Rather telling the misguided way that we blundered into this region; even after 'Desert Storm' and we still were so hugely in error about the 'Sunni vs Shite' factions in Iraq and what it was going to do when we took out their dictator!

GWB released this publication in 2005:




Not once in all that printed material was the word 'SHIITE' ever used or the Muslim faith referred too and all 2 of those would come back to bite our troops in the arse and cost numerous lives and the international troops fighting on the ground in Iraq! Inexcusable and indefensible on our WAR ADVISORS = big brass men in charge of this 2 war campaign!

We sent our troops into a foreign country not only ill prepared for all that sand/heat/blowing dust with antiquated equipment and not properly prepared for IED's {armor} those troops didn't know a Shiite vs a Sunni and why those 2 uniquely different status quo humans would have trouble trusting each other and would end up most likely killing each other if given a weapon!

Just more fiasco after another and at the end of that informative link is this from GWB written in 2005:



GWB and his war monger pack {Herr Cheney & Rumsfeld} were out of there F'n minds and the cost of human life has been a horror and the billions of dollars something that we'll be paying off to China for the rest of my lifetime!

Are you high? Militarily, we kicked everythings azz that was thrown at us in Irag. If you wanna blame politicians for fricked up decisions, then do so.....but leave our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines out of your rant, especially today.

Oh, and while youre blaming politicians, dont forget the azzhat thats currently in office. We all know liberals love em some "Its Bush's fault".....but for the last 7 years, he aint been in charge. And when he left office, Iraq was a helluva lot more stable than it is now.
I suggest getting a new schtick.

Really??? Why, because it upsets you - How many nephews/cousins/nieces did you have die/return home mentally F'd up in the head and are trying to survive with the VA benefits? I'm within my rights as all of us Americans are!

How many care packages did you organize to ship over: panty hose/knee high's to give to our troops - ya, essential for their weapons to pull over their guns to try to slow down the amount of sand getting blown into their working parts so their means of protection wouldn't JAM when they needed it most? Tubes of 'HANDY WIPES' buy the thousands - lack of water or any water source for showers so they could at least clean their bodies up once in a while...Ya, I have rants and many of them!

I HATE WAR and I HATE THESE 2 WARS as much as I did Viet Nam!!!
GET OVER IT!

Enough....and pair that with my 4 years in the Marine Corps, 8 more years in the National Guard, and 25 years serving my community as a fire/medic, Im pretty damn sure Im qualified enough to tell YOU that youre full of $hit when you try to insinuate that our troops were ill prepared in Irag. But I expect no less from liberals....always blaming someone else.....even when their "Dear Leader" cldnt negotiate a simple Status of Forces Agreement


You first....

**COUGH** {clearing throat} Odd how if it's something shoved out here by 2 men with an 'AGENDA' it's going to be OK...but if it was something a 'WOMAN' posted on one of your topic/threads - TOMATO you were all indignant about it

So did you have a THOUGHT about Alleoops post or just more follow up with flag waving and images that should be over on the 'Memorial Day' thread???

More liberalism.....always playing the "victim" card in some way, shape, form, or fashion.


As for the thread topic....you mean the JV team is winning in Iraq? Shocker....

America now has 3 major exports. Weapons, war, and manufacturing (jobs)!

The Repulsicon agenda for the ME, headed by Cheney and his crew (Dubya was a knee-jerk puppet his daddy put Cheney with to babysit him) was all about Haliburton, Ratheon, Boeing, and Standard Oil profits..... and the banks.

When Obozo and his liberal dimwits came to power they cut them off at the knees. No plan for success or care about national security, just stopping the Repulsicon money machine (war machine).

Our idiot CIC hasn't a clue about anything but buying votes! He should have stuck with community organizing and fund raising...... oh wait! He did! Even as POTUS. He sure hasn't been any kind of a national leader, even bowing to a foreign King, trading 5 enemy generals for a deserter when our nation has never negotiated with terrorists in its past. He's fired, or framed, all of our battle tested generals to be replaced by new recruits with no experience, that will agree with his strategy (or lack of it), reduced our military while we are more at risk than any other time in our history, put 1/2 our nation on food stamps, and more than doubled our national debt while ruining our economy in the process!

All hail the chief!

i have nothing but respect for troops. they make alot of sacrifices and have a tough job. that being said.

TY...something on topic to respond!
Do you see the problem that are military over looked (or just willfully ignored) by not under standing the civi / religious deference between the Sunni tribes that had been Saddam's favored people & the Shiite's that were just itching for their day of revenge?

Sure we threw loads of $$$$ around that country (lost track of millions of it) and lots of Sunnis signed on to obtain weapons and so did the Shiite's...then the next morning there would be a goodly number of dead Shiite laying off somewhere; unexplained deaths!!! GOOD GRIEF

Was this most recent event where the Iraq army (Sunni) abandoned their post and ran the first time??? NOOOOO...will they do it again; seems like their history of fighting is only at night when it's against a local that they know/knew!

What would you have us do differently in that hell hole...seems like there are no easy answers now?

It's easy to dismiss ISIL's rout of Iraq's military as simple cowardice.
And cowardice may surely play a role.
But the most significant gains against ISIL in Iraq seem to be by clan militias.
The Kurds seem to be having some success in defending their own territory.

As early as General Abizaid's rule of Iraq, there was discussion about dividing Iraq up into territory each clan;
- Kurd
- Shi'ah
- Sunni
would defend.

Seems to me had we done this, the clan militias would have been more persistent in defending their People.

I do.
Primarily U.S. politicians.
And primarily Republican U.S. politicians.

But the time Obama got his hands on it, the die had been cast (pun, if any, not intended).

http://conservativetribune.com/woodward-drops-bombshell-obama/

Watergate Journalist Drops Bombshell About Bush and Obama, Liberals in Panic Mode

Bob Woodward, who most Americans know as the investigative reporter who reported on the Watergate scandal that led to the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon, recently dropped a political bombshell on Fox News Sunday concerning former President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama.

Woodward spoke of the controversy surrounding Bush's insistence on invading Iraq, admitting that mistakes were made but that, I spent 18 months looking at how Bush decided to invade Iraq. Lots of mistakes, but it was Bush telling George Tenet the CIA director, don't let anyone stretch the case on WMD.

He also told the show's host, Chris Wallace, that Obama's insistence on pulling troops out of Iraq in 2011 was a mistake, one that probably led to the build-up of the Islamic State group.

Woodward, a registered Democrat, laid out the reasons that Bush decided to go into Iraq when he did, citing momentum becausethe war plan kept getting better and easier, with many advisers saying it would only take a week or two.

The point he was trying to drive home was that after 18 months of studying Bush's actions leading up to the eventual deployment in Iraq, that he couldn't find any evidence of Bush lying about why we needed to be there.

On the other hand, Obama pulling out the remaining combat troops in Iraq in 2011 was a terrible decision that didn't mesh with historic U.S. policy. Take, for example, South Korea where some 65 years later the U.S. still has about 30,000 troops stationed in South Korea. Woodward calls that and other similar decisions necessary insurance policies.

When you're a super power you have to buy these insurance policies, and he didn't in this case. I don't think you can say everything is because of that decision but clearly [that decision was] a factor, Woodward said. (H/T The Gateway Pundit)

When you have long-time, high-profile Democrats like Woodward defending Bush and admitting that Obama has made mistakes, it's crystal clear that more Americans are recognizing Obama's mistakes in Iraq may have been what lead us to the present disarrayed state of the Middle East.

Undoubtedly, Woodward's statements have caused more than one liberal to completely freak out, since they base most of their arguments on what they consider failures of Bush's presidency.

Rather interesting how the rag-tag Shiite's will be called in whenever the upper class/better trained Sunni's cut & run from their posts and yet the Shiite's are looked down upon by the upper-echelon Sunni's as beneath them and they deem them unworthy non-class humans!

Seems the 'Rag-Tags' Shiite's have a higher degree of moral fiber and willingness to stay and fight then the 'pay check Sunni' fighters that represent the government of Iraq. Now to take back the territory that they abandoned --- much harder to do but must be done for those 'OIL WELLS'!

"When you're a super power you have to buy these insurance policies" C7

It's too much!

I gather there are about 28 NATO member nations.
Not only does the U.S. spend more than any other NATO member nation on military.
The U.S. is reported to spend more on military than all the other NATO member nations COMBINED!!

We can't afford to continue to be the solar system's vigilante.

The Iraq government is run by the shi'a.

The Iraq military is run by the shi'a and is mostly composed of shi'a.

The Iraq police force is run by the shi'a and is mostly composed of shi'a.

Ramadi is the capital of Anbar Province and is sunni..


Now...

Based on the above mentioned.... Would I bet that it was sunnis that ran away or that is was the shi'a that ran away?


Hmmm... Well I guess one could possibly contend that the sunnis ran because they like ISIS... Or on the other hand one could say it was the shi'a because they weren't dying to save sunni land or they just wanted to let ISIS chop off some sunni heads..

It is really a flip of the coin...

Oh wait..

There are next to no sunnis in the Iraq military or police...

And just for fun...

Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, an Iraq war veteran, cast doubt on the U.S. preference to deal only with the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, calling instead for directly arming both the Kurds in the north and Sunni tribes that have asked for help in beating back the Islamic State group.

"These Iraqi security forces have cut and run," Gabbard said.

She criticized Baghdad's close links with Iran-backed Shiite militias that have declared themselves enemies of the United States.

http://news.yahoo.com/us-iraqs-fight-issue-takeover-ramadi-131535725.html;_ylt=A0LEVvuimWZVSyoA4FMnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--

Gotta love that moral fiber of those Iran backed rag tag militias..

'HEY'...is the SHE, you referred to "ME"?

I don't create the news/links InvictusV; I just hear it on NPR and come in and look it up and read what links I can find and remark on it!



And this from my original post >>>



So how did I get that 'TWISTED'? Please to enlighten me when it was presented that way on the NPR station and I found it on the links as well.

GREAT NEWS --- anything that keeps our BOOTS out of this region and more of our American $$$ from being spent and allows the tribal factions to figure this out on their own---is just OK in my book.

I wouldn't know the difference between a Kurd - Shiite - Sunni - even if they had color coded poka-dots on their foreheads!

The 'she' is the congresswoman from the article I linked.

Here is a good article that I just read that makes it very clear about what is going on..
http://www.forbes.com/sites/melikkaylan/2015/05/28/did-iraqs-army-genuinely-collapse-in-ramadi-and-mosul-what-really-happened/2/