State Dept. Can’t Explain Why U.S. Is So Late Attacking ISIS Strongholds in Tikrit

Barbara Boland | March 27, 2015
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Reporters cornered a very uncomfortable-looking State Department spokesperson Jeff Rathke yesterday with questions about Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, and why U.S. airstrikes against ISIS in Tikrit, Iraq were three weeks late.

“On the airstrikes in Tikrit, why did these airstrikes come so late?” asked a reporter.

Rathke appeared caught off-guard and took a pregnant pause before answering.

“Well, uh, uh the decision uh, uhm, by the United States to conduct airstrikes was a decision we reached after consultation with the Iraqi authorities and in response to an Iraqi request,” Rathke began, looking to the podium at a script that was clearly designed for a different question then the one he was asked.

Rathke continues to look to the podium: “Umm, these strikes are designed to destroy ISIL strongholds with precision, uhm, and we are trying to minimize damage and enable Iraqi forces under Iraqi command, to continue their operations, offensive operations against ISIL in the vicinity of Tikrit."

“We’ve gone through a careful process of coordinating those strikes through our joint operations center in Baghdad with Iraqi authorities,” said Rathke, easing into his non-answer.

“So are you saying that you haven’t carried out airstrikes for three weeks because the Iraqis didn’t want it themselves, so far?” asked the reporter.

“Well, I’m not going to get into our … our exchanges…” replied Rathke.

“But you said that, you said that the request just came now…” interrupted the reporter.

“No, well no, I said that we have gone through a careful process of determining uh…” Rathke glanced at his notes, then continued: “…targets and determining the capabilities that we could bring to bare and we’ve acted in response to an Iraqi sovereign government request.”

“And one other quick question,” says the persistent reporter to an uncomfortable-looking Rathke.

The reporter was about to drop a bombshell question: “There are a lot of concerns that with having so many Shia militias around Tikrit, and as U.S. officials including Gen. John Allen have said, most of the Iraqi forces are also Shias, so aren’t you worried that your airstrikes could be seen as taking sides with those Shia militias who are mostly backed by Iran?”

“Well, no, because, again, uh, because,” began Rathke. “Prime Minister Abadi [of Iran] as well as other authorities in Iraq, uh, have been quite clear, uh, about their efforts to generate, uh, cross, cross sect inter-ethnic agreement on the way forward, and they’re acting on that basis and we’re acting in support of the Iraqi authorities.”

Rathke looked around the room desperately and immediately took a question from someone else, but this reporter didn’t back off his line of questions, and seized an opportunity a few minutes later. There are reports that “the Iranian commander is no longer in the area, in the vicinity of Tikrit, can you confirm that?”

“No, I’m not going to speak to his whereabouts,” said Rathke, then fielding a question from a different reporter.

The other reporter jumped right in, following up on Gen. Austin’s statements about the Iranian-backed “militia pulling back and the timing of the bombing... in Tikrit, could it have taken this much time to negotiate …a pullback by the Shia militias for the United States to intervene?”

“I’m not going to get into the details of the…” said a resolute Rathke.

“But that goes to the question of why now,” objected the reporter.

A question that remained unanswered, with good reason.

Iran currently has militia forces in Iraq and is supplying and arming forces there. This would seem to be problematic (and the State Department certainly has a lot of objections to Putin’s Russian-backed forces doing the same thing in Ukraine.)

Obama’s policy has so far enabled these Iranian-backed militias because they’re fighting ISIS, over the objections of Sunni Muslim countries that are accusing the U.S. of taking Iran’s side (and more generally, the side of Shia Muslims everywhere).

These countries are particularly worried because this moves gives Shia Iran increasing control over Iraq, and it was the intolerance of the Shia Muslim majority in Iraq that ran the fledgling democracy into the ground, which enabled ISIS to take hold in the north.

With such a political minefield exploding all around, it’s clear to see why the State Department is loathe to answer questions about the seeming-approval for Iran and Iranian backed militias.

But, it is surprising that they did not expect the reporters’ questions.

 

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