WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama’s decision to send still more American troops to Iraq, and to put military advisers closer to the front lines against the Islamic State, fits a pattern of ever-deepening involvement in a country whose war Obama exited with supposed finality in December 2011.
From the initial contingent of 170 U.S. soldiers who entered Baghdad as advisers in June 2014, after the Islamic State overran much of northern and western Iraq and seemed poised to threaten Baghdad, the troop total jumped to 1,550 six months later. It topped 3,000 in April 2015 and then edged higher. The latest increase announced Monday by Defense Secretary Ash Carter pushes the authorized total above 4,000. More increases seem likely.
What the Pentagon calls “tightening the noose” on the militants, critics call indecisive steps with limited chance to succeed.
One of the most vocal critics of Obama’s Iraq policy, Republican Sen. John McCain, dismissed Carter’s announcement that the U.S. would send another 217 troops to Iraq in support of the Iraqi security forces’ preparation for an assault on the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul.
“Grudging incrementalism,” McCain called it.