Washington Post: America plans to keep troops in Kurdistan to protect the region from “factions”
Washington Post: America plans to keep troops in Kurdistan to protect the region from “factions”
2024-09-15
The American newspaper, The Washington Post, revealed Saturday (September 14, 2024), that the Pentagon has plans to keep a military force in Kurdistan to protect the region from the factions.
The newspaper said in a report, “The initial agreement between Washington and Baghdad regarding the presence of American forces will include leaving a small force in the Kurdistan region whose mission is to provide security guarantees for the Kurds against the factions.”
It quoted an Iraqi military official as saying, “It is expected that the United States will keep a small military force in the semi-autonomous region.”
For his part, the advisor to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, Hussein Allawi, said that “there will soon be a joint announcement about the intended withdrawal,” stressing that “Baghdad wants the relationship with the United States to return to what it was before 2014.”
Allawi pointed out that “the need for the international coalition ended with the defeat of ISIS, and now the Iraqi forces are fully capable of dealing with the security file efficiently.”
“The return of U.S. forces a decade ago became necessary when Iraqi security forces largely collapsed amid ISIS attacks,” said Dana Stroul, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “I doubt that any U.S. president would send troops back if Iraqi leaders did not take steps to prioritize the counterterrorism mission.”
According to sources familiar with the secret talks, the newspaper reported that some American lawmakers were informed of the withdrawal plans.
Among them is Representative Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, who described the future presence of U.S. forces as a major political challenge for Iraqi leaders.
“The Iraqi people would prefer that there were no American forces, and they would prefer that there was no ISIS, and they realize that we are helping to solve this problem,” Smith said in an interview with the newspaper.
“The Iraqis want us to leave, and they want to know how to do that. That’s not easy,” Smith added.
Democratic Senator Jack Reed, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the issue brings together a complex set of interests for both countries.
“The Iraqis realize that our presence provides stability, but there is also a danger to our forces,” he added.
Reid noted that US officials were not happy that the new Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, made Iraq his first foreign destination, as he was officially received by Al-Sudani on Wednesday.
Republican Rep. Corey Mills, an Iraq War veteran who sits on the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees, said he was particularly concerned about the influence of Iran and the militias it backs.
Although Mills does not oppose withdrawal in principle, he stressed the need for a plan to ensure stability in Iraq. “I think you have an obligation, if you destabilize a country, to help it stabilize again.”
The agreement comes after more than six months of talks between Baghdad and Washington that al-Sudani began in January amid attacks by Iranian-backed Iraqi armed groups on US forces stationed in bases in Iraq, according to the newspaper.
burathanews.com
