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US defense secretary visits Iraq: 'We’re not here to seize anybody’s oil' US defense secretary visits Iraq: 'We’re not here to seize anybody’s oil'
(about 2 hours later)
US defense secretary Jim Mattis said Monday the United States does not intend to seize Iraqi oil, shifting away from an idea proposed by Donald Trump that has rattled Iraq’s leaders. With his boss having banned Iraqi citizens from entering the US and threatening to seize its oil, US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis’s goodwill visit to Baghdad was always going to be a tough sell.
Mattis arrived on an unannounced visit in Iraq as the battle to oust Islamic State militants from western Mosul moved into its second day, and as the Pentagon considers ways to accelerate the campaign against IS in Iraq and Syria. But within hours of arriving in the Iraqi capital on Monday, Mattis had told senior officials that the US would do neither, brushing aside earlier suggestions by Donald Trump that had strained already fraught ties on the eve of the most decisive phase of the war against the Islamic State (Isis).
Those efforts could be complicated by Trump’s oil threat and his inclusion of Iraq in the administration’s travel ban – twin blows that have roiled the nation and spurred local lawmakers to pressure Iraq’s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, to reduce cooperation with Washington.
“I think all of us here in this room, all of us in America have generally paid for our gas and oil all along, and I’m sure that we will continue to do that in the future,” Mattis told reporters traveling with him. “We’re not in Iraq to seize anybody’s oil.”“I think all of us here in this room, all of us in America have generally paid for our gas and oil all along, and I’m sure that we will continue to do that in the future,” Mattis told reporters traveling with him. “We’re not in Iraq to seize anybody’s oil.”
His comments may provide some reassurance to the Iraqis. But the tensions come at a critical point in the war against IS, with two key battles in the works: the fight to take control of west Mosul, and the start of a campaign in Syria to oust IS from Raqqa, the capital of its self-declared caliphate. Iraqi officials said the former Marine Corps General’s assurances were well received by his hosts who, like other regional leaders, had started to focus less on the US President’s pronouncements and more on his envoys’ deeds.
Al-Abadi has taken a measured approach, but the issues can roil already difficult internal politics. The offensive to retake the western half of Mosul continued to move slowly on Monday as Mattis met with senior Iraqi leaders and US officers to map out a US role in a battle that is thought likely to take at least two months.
Under the president’s deadline, Mattis has just a week to send Trump a strategy to accelerate the fight and defeat the Islamic State group. And any plan is likely to depend on US and coalition troops working with and through the local forces in both countries. Throughout the past two years, which has seen the terror group lose most of its territory in Iraq, US airstrikes and artillery have systematically picked off key Isis targets, while Iraqi troops have led the ground fight. That equation is unlikely to change as the final battle for Isis’s last urban stronghold draws near.
“We’re going to make certain that we’ve got good situational awareness of what we face as we work together and fight alongside each other,” Mattis said. “The US forces will continue in the same role as they did in East Mosul. I need to get current on the situation,” Mattis told reporters in Iraq. “And the only way you can do this is talking to the people on the ground.”
His key goal during the visit is to speak about the military operations with political leaders and commanders on the ground, including his top commander in Iraq, Lt Gen Stephen Townsend. Since the US joined the war against Isis in Iraq in August 2014, military cooperation has reached levels not seen since the US invasion 11 years earlier, officials from both sides have said. However, trust on the ground has often failed to match that shown in war planning rooms, with Iraqi troops frequently complaining that the US has not acted quickly enough to defeat a mutual foe, which had at one point seized five cities and more than one third of the country’s territory.
Asked about the tensions, Mattis said he has been assured that the travel ban – it has been stalled by a legal challenge – would not affect Iraqis who have fought alongside US forces. “They could have wiped them out in a weekend if they wanted to,” said Mudher al-Saade, a Corporal from Baghdad, who is staged to the southwest of Mosul. “Instead it has taken two and a half years to get this far. Why is that? Who do they want to help?”
The oil issue, however, may be more difficult. Trump brought it up during the campaign, and he mentioned it again late last month during a visit to the CIA. A conspiracy theory that the US benefits from the presence of Isis, or played a direct role in creating the group, has broad currency among some Iraqi fighting forces, particularly the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMUs), an umbrella group of paramilitaries, which was brought under the control of the Government late last year.
“To the victor belong the spoils,” Trump told members of the intelligence community. He said he first argued this case for “economic reasons”, but added it made sense as a counterterrorism approach to defeating IS “because that’s where they made their money in the first place”. The PMUs are not directly involved in the battle for Mosul, a grinding difficult fight through fortified lanes and roads that lead straight to the Isis heartland. However, up to 50,000 militiamen have taken a blocking position to the west of Mosul, where they will attempt to stop Isis fighters from fleeing for the Syrian border.
“So we should have kept the oil,” he said. “But, OK, maybe you’ll have another chance.” National police and Iraqi Army forces are making slow advances towards Mosul airport in the city’s southwest, which will be used as a staging point for the eventual assault on the city. Not far to the east from the airport is the Nour Mosque, where Isis leader proclaimed the existence of a Caliphate, with him as leader in mid-2014. Ever since, Isis had made Mosul one of its two main centres of operation - the other being Raqqa in Syria.
Trump, however, has also been clear that defeating IS is a top priority. In his inauguration address, he pledged to eradicate radical Islamic terrorism “completely from the face of the Earth”. And he talked during the campaign about greatly increasing the number of US troops in order to “knock out” IS. Iraqi officials told the Guardian they were confident of continued cooperation if President Trump played no direct role in how the war was run and if other senior officials, and institutions, continued to show independence.
He signed an order on 28 January that gives Mattis and senior military leaders 30 days to come up with a new plan to beef up the fight. “What the courts did in overturning that ban restored faith,” said one senior Iraqi official. “I think even Americans know that they have elected a fool. It is unusual to be ignoring a President But that’s the new world we live in.”
Mattis would not discuss specifics, saying he wants to gather information first. But he has been talking with military leaders about the possible options, and has largely supported the US strategy of fighting IS with and through local forces. Muhannad al-Shumari, a dental technician from Baghdad said: “I didn’t believe Trump. He just said that for his supporters. Nobody would accept (what he said). No Iraqi politician can allow him to do this, even if they’re all corrupt. They believe Jim Mattis.”
The military options range from putting more troops in Iraq and Syria to boosting military aid to Kurdish fighters backed by the US-led coalition. Additional reporting by Salem Rizk
More specifically, officials have talked about expanding efforts to train, advise and enable local Iraqi and Syrian forces, increasing intelligence and surveillance, and allowing US troops to move forward more frequently with Iraqi soldiers nearer the front lines.
The Pentagon also would like more freedom to make daily decisions about how it fights the enemy. Former and current US officials discussed the likely options on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk publicly.
In Syria, a possible option would be sending more US forces, including combat troops, there as the Raqqa fight heats up.
Another move would be to provide heavy weapons and vehicles to the US-backed Syrian Kurds, known as the YPG, and boost training. They have been the most effective force against IS in northern and eastern Syria, but the proposal is sensitive. Turkey, a key US and Nato ally, considers the group a terrorist organization.
There are more than 5,100 US forces in Iraq, and up to about 500 in Syria.