US could send advisors on combat missions in Iraq: Dempsey
Iran Press TV
Tue Sep 16, 2014 4:22PM GMT
America's top military officer General Martin Dempsey says US troops serving as advisors to local forces in Iraq could be sent to combat the ISIL terrorist group.
'To be clear, if we reach the point where I believe our advisors should accompany Iraqi troops on attacks against specific ISIL targets, I will recommend that to the president,' the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
Dempsey's remarks are against the stated official US policy. President Barack Obama has repeatedly said that the US will not send its troops on combat missions against ISIL.
The Pentagon has deployed more than 1000 troops to Iraq to bolster security for American diplomats and provide advice to Iraqi government forces fighting the militants.
The US calls them military advisors, but according to American defense officials, the troops are comprised of Marines and special operations forces from the US Central Command region.
The ISIL terrorists, who were initially trained by the CIA in Jordan in 2012 to destabilize the Syrian government, control large parts of Syria's northern territory. ISIL sent its fighters into Iraq in June, quickly seizing large swaths of land straddling the border between the two countries.
According to reports, ISIL is currently in control of seven oil fields in Iraq and large amounts of the country's wheat supplies.
Iraqi officials said on August 13 that the militants were holding government silos in five of Iraq's most fertile provinces, where the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) says 40 percent of the country's wheat is grown.
The output capacity of the ISIL-held oil fields amounts to 80,000 barrels a day, said the International Energy Agency (IEA) in a monthly oil market report last month.
The potential oil flow from Iraq's ISIL-held deposits is commensurate to about $8.4 million a day on international markets.
GJH/GJH
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