WASHINGTON — Putting U.S. military boots on the ground in Iraq doesn't necessarily mean pitching infantry units into the battlefield.
The possibility raised by the top U.S. general this week of involving American forces in the ground fight against the Islamic State presents a different scenario: small groups of commandos operating in the shadows of Iraqi army units, giving advice and calling in airstrikes.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday again drew a hard line on sending U.S. forces into "another ground war in Iraq," even as U.S. combat planes and drones fly missions overhead. Yet that pledge may not preclude having American warriors coming under fire next to Iraqi troops as they root out Islamic State militants.
"The problem with all of this is the very phrase 'boots on the ground,' " said Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "This is a completely different kind of presence than sending in a brigade or a division."
Obama, who won the presidency on his pledge to end Iraq war, is facing fresh questions from Congress and the public about whether the U.S. risks sliding deeper into a conflict there. The debate flared up after Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate committee he would recommend that U.S. military advisers accompany Iraqi troops into battle if necessary to defeat Islamic State.
Some defense analysts — including Obama's former defense secretary, Robert Gates — say Islamic State can't be defeated without a ground offensive.
Dempsey was referring to something limited: special forces teams, usually operating in 12-member groups, and forward air controllers, typically two-person teams.
"If we get to the point where I think we need the JTAC with the Iraqi security forces, I'll make the recommendation. But I'm not there," Dempsey said Sept. 16 before a Senate committee, referring to a Joint Terminal Attack Controller trained to coordinate air strikes.
The United States is set to have about 1,600 military personnel in Iraq to protect American diplomatic missions and to assess and advise the Iraqi military. Obama's strategy for the conflict relies on a campaign of U.S. airstrikes supporting Iraqi and Kurdish forces on the ground.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday that if Dempsey determines it's necessary at some point to send advisers to front-line positions to provide tactical advice and call in air strikes, the president will consider it on a "case- by-case basis." Obama still won't approve a combat role for U.S. ground forces, he said.
Even with those restrictions, the danger of U.S. casualties would be considerable since, to be effective, commando groups would most likely need to operate in the middle of fighting or nearby, according to Cordesman and former military officers.
Air controllers helping ground units typically work within visual range of a target, though they may be using binoculars, said Norton Schwartz, who was U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff from 2008 to 2012.
Although the U.S. sometimes confirms targets with remote imagery, such as from drones, forward air controllers are more reliable in a battlefield situation with multiple targets or moving targets, said Schwartz, now president of Business Executives for National Security.
"We can generally hit what we aim at," Schwartz said. "The question is: Is it a valid target? You want to have confidence in who's providing the information."
Dempsey alluded to unspecified technological advances in his congressional testimony, as he explained why he hasn't yet recommended send such air controllers to battlefields.
"There are technologies available that we didn't have five years ago that allow us to actually apply force and to see the situation on the ground in ways we couldn't before," he said.
David Deptula, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general who commanded the combined air operations center during the war in Afghanistan, said imaging technology on U.S. warplanes would facilitate strikes on Islamic State forces moving between towns or paralyze movements within a town. Forward controllers still would make air power more effective in urban battles, said Deptula, now dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Arlington, Virginia.
John Nagl, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who coauthored the Army's counter-insurgency manual, said accurate information from controllers also is essential to avoid strikes that accidentally kill allies.
Another level of involvement are the larger special forces teams that both advise Iraqi forces and go with them into combat. That would magnify an Iraqi unit's effectiveness "two or three times," said Nagl.
U.S. efforts to train local troops encounter "very, very serious limits" unless advisers also go with them into combat, Cordesman said.
Special forces teams, such as those of the Army's Green Berets, can provide tactical advice, bolster unit leaders and help hold together elements of a unit it comes under fire, he said.
The U.S. used such units during the initial phase of the Afghan conflict. They moved on horseback and dismounted to direct B-52 airstrikes with laser designators and hand-held GPS devices — technology that has improved in the past decade.
The idea of returning America ground forces to Iraq today would face strong opposition among Obama's allies in the U.S. and stir opposition in Iraq.
"The American people are very burned by what happened in Iraq" with the 2003 invasion, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said at a news conference.
Iraq's new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, told the Associated Press in an interview that his country rejects having foreign troops join the battle against Islamic State.
"We don't want them. We won't allow them," he said.
With assistance from Tony Capaccio and Angela Greiling Keane in Washington.
(c) 2014, Bloomberg News.
No comments:
Post a Comment