The first teams of up to 300 US military advisers have begun their mission in Baghdad to assist the Iraqi army in its fight against Sunni extremists, the Pentagon said Tuesday, according to AFP reports. Admiral John Kirby told reporters that "we have begun to deploy initial assessment teams" and two teams of about 40 troops "have started their new mission."
The first two teams were drawn from the US embassy in Iraq, and an additional 90 troops had arrived to set up a joint operations center in Baghdad, Kirby said. Another 50 troops were due to deploy in the next few days, he added.
"These teams will assess the cohesiveness and readiness of Iraqi security forces, hire headquarters in Baghdad, and examine the most effective and efficient way to introduce follow-on advisers," he said.
The advisers would relay their findings to commanders within "the next two or three weeks."
US ready to send 300 military advisors to Iraq to help secure Baghdad
Last Thursday, US President Barack Obama said he was ready to send up to 300 military advisors to Iraq to help the Iraqi military fend off the militant Islamist threat. But he will only deploy "precise military actions" - an apparent reference to the airstrikes requested by the Iraqi government - once intelligence on the ground improves and if the situation demands it.
John Kerry meets with Jordanian official as Islamists reach Jordanian-Iraqi border
A few teams of about a dozen advisors each are to arrive "very soon" from their bases in the region, a senior administration official said on about the background details.
They are to focus first on helping Iraqi troops secure Baghdad, starting with the perimeter around Baghdad "and making sure that that's not overrun," Obama said.
A second joint operation center is to be set up in northern Iraq. The advisors will deploy to Iraqi military headquarters and possibly brigades, a senior administration official said on condition of anonymity.
They will "share intelligence and coordinate planning to confront the terrorist threat of ISIL," Obama said.
Obama insisted that the presence of advisors would not be a signal of return to combat in Iraq, and his administration was careful to refer to the military personnel as advisors, not troops.
"We do not have the ability to simply solve this problem by sending in tens of thousands of troops and committing the kinds of blood and treasure that has already been expended in Iraq," he said.
The US will not send in soldiers to actively call in airstrikes, officials said.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi raised concerns about even a small military mission to Iraq, warning that numbers have "a tendency to grow."
Obama warned that the growing prospects of civil war in Iraq pose the danger of a humanitarian crisis, destabilization "throughout the region" and disruption of important "energy and global energy markets" that the US is committed to protecting.
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