Army Chief: Future of U.S. Troops in Iraq TBD as ISIS Crumbles by Jen Judson - Defense News
The U.S. Army chief of staff, who recently returned from a trip to Iraq, said U.S. troops there will continue to help Iraqi security forces root out Islamic State militants, but what comes after that for the Army in the war-torn country remains to be seen.
“I think the situation in Iraq is a lot different than it was three or four years ago when ISIS came rolling out of the desert and screaming down the Euphrates River Valley,” Gen. Mark Milley told reporters Jan. 17 following an Association of the U.S. Army breakfast in Arlington, Virginia…
But the war against ISIS is not yet over, and Milley has visited Iraq, as well as U.S. soldiers there who are helping Iraqi security forces, to get a sense of what needs to be done. “There is a lot of work left to be done,” he said.
Yet, what the combatant commander decides for future U.S. troop presence in both Iraq and Syria has yet to be determined. “We will see what the combatant commander, how he wants to shift gears” once ISIS is defeated, Milley said. “But the Iraqi security forces are in a consolidation period where they have to continue to eliminate the small pockets of terrorists and insurgents, the ISIS terrorists that are out there, and we will help them do that.”
Milley wouldn’t say whether such troop presence could include the Army’s newly conjured security force assistance brigades designed specifically to train, advise, assist and enable foreign militaries and police forces…
Comments
“I think the situation in Iraq is a lot different than it was three or four years ago when ISIS came rolling out of the desert and screaming down the Euphrates River Valley".
They didn't come rolling out of the desert three or four years ago. Abu Musab was declared AQI Emir in 2004. I still have official letters with "Ad-Dawlat Islamiya fils Iraq" letterheads dated 2007 in my tough box. ISI before ISIL before Africa and Eurasia.