US sends 1st delegation to Anbar to survey support sites

In this 2007 file photo, U.S. Marine Corps Corporal Michael L. Haas, a videographer with 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, Forward Combat Camera, documents Marines with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 361 refueling an AH-1W Super Cobra from Marine Light/Attack Helicopter Squadron 773 during an aero scout mission over the Al Anbar province, Iraq, on Dec. 8, 2007.
DOD

By Chris Carroll

Stars and Stripes

Published: November 10, 2014

WASHINGTON — As a prelude to a U.S. advisory mission in western Iraq, about 50 U.S. troops are visiting the Al Asad Air Base in Anbar province, Pentagon officials said Monday, to survey it as a potential base for a mission to support Iraqi forces against Islamic State insurgents.

One of the largest U.S. air bases during the 2003 to 2011 war in Iraq, Al Asad could again see use by American troops as one of two “train, advise, assist sites” the Pentagon says will be built when 1,500 additional U.S. advisers deploy to Iraq in coming months. The deployment authorized by President Barack Obama will roughly double the number of U.S. troops deployed in noncombat roles in Iraq.

“I don’t want to get into exact locations [of the bases] because we’re still doing site surveys of that, but one will be in Anbar province and one probably in the Baghdad province,” Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said Friday.

In October, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said the advisory mission should be expanded into the broad reaches of the Anbar province, where Islamic State insurgents have made gains in the months since the United States began airstrikes against the group in early August.

Dempsey said Oct. 30 that “we need to expand the train-advise-and-assist mission into the Al Anbar province. But the precondition for that is that the government of Iraq is willing to arm the tribes.”

Pentagon spokeswoman Cmdr. Elissa Smith said the trip was only for surveying purposes, not to rally Sunni tribes to battle.

“U.S. forces are not arming tribes in the region; this is a matter for the Government of Iraq and the ISF,” Smith said in a written statement.

Any weapons carried in by the group are solely for their own protection, she said.

“A portion of the group consists of force protection personnel and any weapons U.S. forces possess are for force-protection requirements,” she said.

carroll.chris@stripes.com

Twitter: @ChrisCarroll_