Obama Poised to Send More Troops to Iraq

Local Editor

US President Barack Obama appears poised to approve the deployment of hundreds more US training personnel to Iraq.

Officials said Obama is considering authorizing an increase of around 500 troops to boost the capacity of the Iraqi army and tribal fighters.

"We are considering a range of options to accelerate the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces," National Security Council spokesman Alistair Baskey said.

"Those options include sending additional trainers to Iraq."

The Pentagon has drawn up plans to augment an existing mission rather than forge a new approach.

"We've determined it is better to train more Iraqi security forces," Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren said.

"Because the forces we've trained are performing better than expected, we feel it's in everyone's interest to train more."

The current US mission comprises roughly 3,000 advisers and trainers.

A larger deployment could mean increasing the number of training sites from the four currently being used, one official said.

The training effort would carry "a particular emphasis on the Sunnis," the official added.

Weapons deliveries, however, would continue to flow through the Iraqi central government.

This comes after Obama's meeting with Iraqi PM Haidar Abadi Monday in Germany.

"All the countries in the international coalition are prepared to do more to train Iraq security forces if they feel that additional work is being taken advantage of," Obama said on the sidelines of the G7 summit.

"And one of the things we're still seeing in Iraq is places where we have more training capacity than we have recruits."

Obama said he was waiting for final plans to be presented by the Pentagon.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team