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Pentagon Order to Plan for Escalation in Iraq Meets Warning From Top Commander
More on this story from yesterday, for those of us who do not have access behind the New York Times paywall.
[NYTIMES] A secret Pentagon directive
It's a secret, so don't tell nobody...
orders planning to try to destroy a militia group backed by Iran, but America’s top general in Iraq cautions of the risks.
Every military operation balances risks with gains. So does every business. So, sometimes, does a marriage.
The Pentagon has ordered military commanders to plan for an escalation of American combat in Iraq, issuing a directive last week to prepare a campaign to destroy an Iranian-backed militia group that has threatened more attacks against American troops.

But the United States’ top commander in Iraq has warned that such a campaign could be bloody and counterproductive and risks war with Iran. In a blunt memo last week, the commander, Lt. Gen. Robert P. White, wrote that a new military campaign would also require thousands more American troops be sent to Iraq and divert resources from what has been the primary American military mission there: training Iraqi troops to combat the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
The Pentagon directive and General White’s response ‐ both classified internal military communications ‐ were described by several American officials with direct knowledge of their contents. The exchange comes amid a simmering fight inside the Trump administration over policy toward Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
and the course of America’s war in Iraq, which began just over 17 years ago.
Rudaw adds:
Issued last week, the secret directive
So don't tell nobody...
by the US Department of Defense orders commanders to plan for a campaign to destroy Kataib Hezbollah, a militia in Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) which has threatened and carried out rocket attacks against US forces.

Posted by: Fred 2020-03-29
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=567186