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| Iraq |
| U.S. Responds To Calls To Fund Iraqi, Peshmerga Forces Directly |
| 2016-01-17 |
| [NRTTV] The United States said it has not committed to pay the Iraqi security forces, including Peshmerga forces, fighting Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... (IS) bad boys. A U.S. State Department official told NRT on Friday (Jan. 15) that nearly $2.3 billion dollars has been spent to support the military fight against IS, quoting the total amount from the U.S.-led Coalition. "Equipping is another component of enhancing our combat effectiveness. There's been approximately $2.3 billion total from the Coalition allocated to equipping the Iraqi Security Forces. Of that, $1.6 billion is U.S. funding and is done through the Iraq Train and Equip fund, or ITAF," the US official told NRT. The statement continued, "The vast majority of our energy goes to training Iraqi army formations, whether those are Peshmerga -- of which we've trained about 6,000 or regular Iraqi army in the south -- that's where the majority of our training is focused. We've also trained several thousand Sunni tribal fighters." The U.S. agreed to keep in touch with the Iraqi government and Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) over the financial crisis in the future, the official said. "We have met with both Iraqi and Kurdish delegations over the financial crisis and its impact on the battlefield, we agreed to stay in close contact with them in the future. The US government has not committed to pay ISF forces, the Iraqi Government pays them all," the U.S. State Department confirmed. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 +1, grom. |
| Posted by: Barbara 2016-01-17 19:37 |
| #2 You broke it |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2016-01-17 18:00 |
| #1 Why do we have to fund their security forces? Maybe they should learn to take care of themselves sooner or later. |
| Posted by: chris 2016-01-17 10:39 |