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Jim Mattis to Baghdad: ‘We’re Not in Iraq to Seize Anybody’s Oil’ Jim Mattis to Baghdad: ‘We’re Not in Iraq to Seize Anybody’s Oil’
(about 17 hours later)
BAGHDAD — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis arrived in Baghdad on Monday, promising that, despite what President Trump said last month, the administration would not try to seize Iraq’s oil. BAGHDAD — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, on the first visit by a senior Trump administration official to Iraq, worked on Monday to repair breaches of trust with Iraq’s leaders caused by his boss just as the two sides began a major offensive to oust the Islamic State from its last stronghold in the country.
Nor, he said, would the administration repay Iraqis who have worked and fought side by side with American troops by excluding them from the United States — as Mr. Trump initially did with an executive order shutting the door to citizens of seven mainly Muslim countries, including Iraq. That order has been stayed by the courts and is expected to be replaced soon. Mr. Mattis found himself in nearly the same position he was in during his just-finished trip to Europe, where much of his time was spent reassuring wary allies that the United States was still committed to NATO after statements and actions by President Trump seemed to call old alliances into question.
“I have not seen the new executive order,” Mr. Mattis said on Sunday. “But right now, I’m assured that we will take steps to allow those who have fought alongside us to be allowed into the United States.” Before arriving in Baghdad, Mr. Mattis was asked by reporters about Mr. Trump’s remarks during a visit to C.I.A. headquarters last month that the United States should have “kept” Iraq’s oil after the American-led invasion, and might still have a chance to do so.
As for Mr. Trump’s remarks during a visit to C.I.A. headquarters last month that the United States should have “kept” Iraq’s oil after the American-led invasion, and might still have a chance to do so, Mr. Mattis said that Americans were accustomed to paying for their fuel. “We’re not in Iraq to seize anybody’s oil,” Mr. Mattis said during a stop in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
“We’re not in Iraq to seize anybody’s oil,” he told reporters in Abu Dhabi before departing for Baghdad. Mr. Mattis also found himself allaying concerns that the administration would exclude from the United States Iraqis who have worked and fought side by side with American troops.
That Mr. Mattis, the first senior official in the Trump administration to visit Iraq, would even have to make such comments would have been unthinkable under previous administrations. But many once-unthinkable things have become par for the course under Mr. Trump, and his emissaries abroad are spending much of their time trying to reassure American allies that they need not take everything the president says seriously. Mr. Trump’s initial executive order shutting the door to citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries included Iraq. That order has been stayed by the courts and is expected to be replaced soon.
In Brussels last week, Mr. Mattis assured NATO members that, contrary to what his boss had said, the United States still valued the trans-Atlantic alliance. In Munich, he had the same message for skittish European diplomats assembled for a major annual conference on security. Mr. Mattis said on Sunday that he had not seen the new executive order. “But right now,” he said, “I’m assured that we will take steps to allow those who have fought alongside us to be allowed into the United States.”
Nowhere have Mr. Trump’s policy pronouncements landed harder, though, than in Iraq, where about 5,000 American troops are assisting Iraqi forces in the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. That fight went up a gear on Sunday with the start of a major operation by the Iraqi security forces to liberate the western side of Mosul, once Iraq’s second-largest city. His remarks came as Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the commander of the United States’ war effort in Iraq, said that American trainers and advisers had moved closer to the front lines of Mosul, where the fight to retake the western half of the city from the Islamic State started over the weekend.
“It is true that we’re operating closer and deeper into Iraqi formations,” General Townsend said at a news conference with Mr. Mattis in Baghdad, acknowledging a shift approved in the final weeks of the Obama administration.
While Mr. Trump’s policy pronouncements have unsettled allies around the world, they have landed especially hard in Iraq, where about 5,000 American troops are assisting Iraqi forces in the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
A former Iraqi ambassador to Washington, Lukman Faily, said last month that Iraqis were unsettled by Mr. Trump’s moves, including the travel ban, and wondered whether the United States even wanted a long-term relationship with Iraq.A former Iraqi ambassador to Washington, Lukman Faily, said last month that Iraqis were unsettled by Mr. Trump’s moves, including the travel ban, and wondered whether the United States even wanted a long-term relationship with Iraq.
Over the weekend, airplanes carpeted the ground in western Mosul with leaflets appealing directly to Islamic State fighters to surrender. “To those of you who are intrigued by the ISIS ideology,” one leaflet said, “this is your last opportunity to quit your work with ISIS and to leave the foreigners who are in your homeland. Stay at home, raising the white flags as the forces approach.” On Monday, American and Iraqi officials did their best to put forward a united front at a time when a critical battle against the Islamic State is intensifying.
While in Baghdad, Mr. Mattis plans to hold talks with Iraqi officials as well as American military commanders. Mr. Mattis, after meeting with his Iraqi counterpart and Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, said the militant Sunni group’s days were numbered. “They are going to be shown to be who they are, which is a bunch of murderous relics,” he said.
“I need to get current on the situation” in Iraq, he said. “And the only way you can do this is talking to the people on the ground.” And Sabeh Al Noman, a spokesman for Iraq’s counterterrorism services, suggested that Mr. Trump’s remarks on oil, at least, had caused no lasting damage. Asked in a news conference in Baghdad whether Iraq was worried that the Trump administration would try to steal its oil, he replied, “We will trust your government, so we won’t worry about that.”
He said that, though power has been transferred in Washington, the rules of engagement in Iraq have not changed, and American Special Forces will not get any closer to the fighting in western Mosul than they have in eastern Mosul, which has largely been cleared of militant control. Apache helicopter gunships as well as American and other allied artillery are set to strike Islamic State targets in and around western Mosul, as they have for weeks in the fight to reclaim what was once Iraq’s second-largest city, officials said.
“The U.S. forces continue in the same role as they did in East Mosul,” Mr. Mattis said. American commanders estimate that 2,000 to 3,000 Islamic State fighters remain hunkered down in western Mosul.
He added that American-backed coalition forces fighting the Islamic State would “continue with the accelerated effort to destroy ISIL.” “Some are hard-core and will stand and fight and die in place, some will want to escape, some will attempt to quietly quit the fight, and some will sympathize with the enemy but are not now participating,” Col. John Dorrian, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said in an email. “And then, unfortunately, some will be pressed into the fight under threat of death and other harsh retribution.”
Mr. Trump has asked the Pentagon to present a plan for accelerating the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
While defense officials have yet to present him with new options, many Pentagon officials have been operating under the assumption that Mr. Trump will be more willing than President Barack Obama to sign off on having American troops closer to the battlefield.
Yet it was in the final weeks of Mr. Obama’s presidency that the move closer to the front lines was put in place, as Iraqi security forces began their push to retake eastern Mosul from the Islamic State.
When Mr. Obama authorized sending the first group of American trainers and advisers back to Iraq in 2014, he said he did not want them getting close to the fight, insisting that it be an Iraqi-led effort. With the exception of raids by Special Forces, American troops had largely stayed off the battlefield, embedded with Iraqi officers at the brigade level.
That changed in November, United States military officials said on Monday, when the administration allowed American trainers and advisers to move closer to the battlefield for the Mosul operation.
The change, military officials said, will allow for quicker response times, particularly when it comes to calling in airstrikes.
Ever since the start of United States-led airstrikes against the Islamic State, in August 2014, American pilots have complained that depending on Iraqi troops to call in airstrikes makes for slow response times.
Now, two years into the war against the Islamic State and in the middle of the fight to retake Mosul, American commanders said on Monday that operations were speeding up. For one thing, they said, the Iraqi ground troops are now much sharper.
Recently, “one American commander said, ‘I’m watching an army that I know is Iraqi, but if I step back, I wouldn’t know they were not American,” said Brig. Gen. Matthew C. Isler, the deputy commander in charge of coordinating air support for the Iraqi ground forces.
But the fight for western Mosul is expected to be intense. Since capturing the city, Islamic State fighters “have had two years to prepare” for the coming assault, said Brig. Gen. Hugh McAslan of New Zealand, one of the commanders of the American-led coalition in Iraq. “There are some very elaborate defenses in West Mosul.”
Over the weekend, airplanes dropped leaflets in West Mosul appealing to Islamic State fighters to surrender.
While in Baghdad, Mr. Mattis plans to hold talks with Iraqi officials as well as American military commanders. “I need to get current on the situation” in Iraq, he said. “And the only way you can do this is talking to the people on the ground.”
He said that although power had been transferred in Washington, the rules of engagement in Iraq had not changed, and American Special Forces would not get closer to the fighting in western Mosul than they have in eastern Mosul, which has largely been cleared of militant control.
“The U.S. forces continue in the same role as they did in East Mosul,” Mr. Mattis said, adding that coalition forces fighting the Islamic State would “continue with the accelerated effort” to destroy the group.