Iraq’s conspicuous silence on Washington’s offer of more U.S. troops
The United States is willing to send more troops to Iraq — but do the Iraqis really want them? Iraqi officials refuse to touch that question. A spokesman for Iraq’s embassy in Washington told Military Times that neither the ambassador nor his staff could provide “informed responses” to questions seeking clarity on Baghdad’s willingness to host more U.S. […]Andrew Tilghman writes for the Military Times:
The United States is willing to send more troops to Iraq — but do the Iraqis really want them? Iraqi officials refuse to touch that question. A spokesman for Iraq’s embassy in Washington told Military Times that neither the ambassador nor his staff could provide “informed responses” to questions seeking clarity on Baghdad’s willingness to host more U.S. troops. “I can try to request clarification from Baghdad,” said Ali Al-Mawlawi, the spokesman, “but I can’t guarantee that we’d get an on-the-record response.”
Al-Mawlawi did not respond to subsequent inquires. The embassy's uncertainty highlights a fundamental shift in the U.S.-Iraqi relationship. When the Islamic State group began to sweep across Iraq in 2014, the government in Baghdad very publicly urged the U.S. to provide air
