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23 May 2015

U.S. Shifts Iraq Focus to Western Province

By FELICIA SCHWARTZ and JULIAN E. BARNES
May 20, 2015

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is turning its focus in Iraq away from the northern city of Mosul toward the province west of Baghdad, where Islamic Statecaptured the key city of Ramadi over the weekend.

U.S. officials conceded on Wednesday that any hope of seizing military momentum in Iraq has been stalled by the Sunni militants’ takeover of the capital of Sunni-dominated Anbar Province. That has forced American officials to shift their plans.

“Everybody is focused like a laser on Anbar right now,” said a senior State Department official.

For months, U.S. officials had hoped to mount an offensive to retake the northern city of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest. But officials in Washington and elsewhere on Wednesday said that plan would have to take a back seat to Anbar.

“Mosul will happen when its ready, so it could be some time from now but we’re focused on Anbar,” the official said.

In Iraq, Mosul is considered the biggest, and most difficult Islamic State stronghold. Extremists seized the city last June in a broad offensive that eventually drew the U.S. military into the fight.

This year, U.S. military officials predicted the fight to retake Mosul might begin this spring. But as it became clear Iraqi forces weren’t going to be ready, American officials predicted that the fight for Mosul would wait until fall, at the earliest.


Ramadi residents who fled their homes after Islamic State took control of the city waited to cross Bzeibez Bridge into Baghdad on Wednesday. PHOTO: SABAH ARAR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

When Iraqi forces pushed Islamic State out of the city of Tikrit in March, U.S. officials hoped to capitalize on that victory with a push toward Mosul.

But Iraqi leaders opted to turn their attention toward Anbar, where Islamic State held control of Fallujah and other areas. U.S. officials were initially skeptical of that decision. But the fall of Ramadi has changed the American calculus.

U.S. officials are accelerating efforts to train thousands of Sunni fighters to spearhead efforts to dislodge Islamic State fighters from Anbar province, where the group has maintained a stronghold for more than a year.

Before this week, American officials had sought to play down Ramadi’s significance. In April, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the city was “not symbolic in any way.”

But military officials working to understand how and why Ramadi fell said the Iraqi forces there were offering resistance, and didn’t collapse and flee, as they have elsewhere.

On Wednesday, Gen. Dempsey characterized the Iraqi military’s loss in Ramadi not as a direct defeat by Islamic State forces, but as a decision by an Iraqi commander to retreat from a sandstorm moving through the area that he believed was going to prevent the U.S. from carrying out needed airstrikes against Islamic State fighters.

“The [Iraqi Security Force] was not driven out of Ramadi, they drove out of Ramadi,” Gen. Dempsey said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Elsewhere, U.S. military officials portrayed the loss of Ramadi as a tactical loss, but not a strategic failure. ISF units have waged a long battle in the area against Islamic State, and are regrouping to try to retake the city.

“You’ve got to look at the bigger picture here and how Ramadi is one fight in a larger battle,” said Col. Patrick Ryder, of the U.S. Central Command.

The U.S. can step up training and supplies to Sunni tribes who agree to operate under the central government, but Iraqi officials must do more to entice Sunni fighters to join the Shiite-led Baghdad government’s campaign against Islamic State, officials said on Wednesday.

Gen. Dempsey said there has been “some inertia to overcome” with the Iraqi central government’s willingness to provide equipment to Sunni tribes willing to fight Islamic State.

The success of the Iraqi government’s campaign against Islamic State, Gen. Dempsey said, depends on their inclusiveness.

“The key to victory is not exclusively military success on the battlefield,” Gen. Dempsey said. “It relates to the government of Iraq to draw the various groups back together.”

Gen. Dempsey added that U.S. support for Baghdad’s war with Islamic State is conditional, unlike Washington’s previous involvement there. If the Iraqis fail to take measures to be more inclusive with Sunnis, Kurds or other groups, he said, U.S. support for the central government could be curtailed.

On Wednesday, Islamic State fighters tried to expand their control in Anbar, but were initially pushed back by Iraqi security forces.

One official from U.S. Central Command said the U.S. plan is to defer to Baghdad as to where it wants to deploy its own forces.

The fall of Ramadi and the ground situation has focused attention on that area, said Col.Patrick Ryder, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command. But in the end, it is the Iraqis who decide where they want to focus.

“The Iraqis are the ones leading the fight, making decisions on where they would employ their forces,” Col. Ryder said. “It’s not an either-or kind of thing,” Ryder said. “We will go where the Iraqis need us to go.”

—Dion Nissenbaum and Gordon Lubold contributed to this article.

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