Obama Surrenders Iraq

[American Patriot]

ISIS Could Launch Next 9/11 Attack - US Politicians

Jun 16, 2014 10:06 PM EDT |

Katie Collom

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(Photo : rt.com)



U.S. Republicans are sounding the alarm when it comes to Iraq's militant group called ISIS, saying that the next 9/11 attack could be emerging from the Iraq and Syria regions where the extremist sect holds sway.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has already captured the cities of Tikrit and Mosul and recently posted gruesome photographs up on a website claiming to have carried out a mass execution of 1,700 Iraqi soldiers.
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Officials say that ISIS' growing power and scope in Iraq and Syria is extremely disconcerting, but it is not entirely clear why they believe the group to be a direct threat to U.S. national security.
Congressman Michael McCaul, chair of the Homeland Security Committee, stated that sources have described ISIS' success as the "greatest national security threat since 9/11."
Several U.S. politicians have gotten on board, claiming that once the militant group has a firm hold in Iraq, they will be able to cause violence around the globe.
The chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers, told Fox News that the major threat comes from the "thousands" of American and European volunteers and mercenaries who are fighting for ISIS. According to Rogers, ISIS "has the capability to tap people with Western passports to send them back to Europe and the United States for terrorist activity."
The Republican politician called on Barack Obama to use his influence with Sunni Arab States to rein in the ISIS threat, but President Obama has repeated on several occasions that the Iraqis must settle the issue on their own and the US will not be dragged back into costly military operations in the region.
Senator Lindsey Graham has suggested the alternative strategy of holding open discussions with Iran which is a Shia ally of Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The Wall Street Journal cited U.S. officials stating that the US will be holding open talks with Iran in order to broach Iraq's security concerns and solidify a plan for responding to ISIS attacks.

[vector7]

Not good... though I think they are already here.

But Obama is releasing the Islamic radical military leaders captured on the battlefield left and right because Bush's "War on Islamic Terror is Over".

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The Obama Administration that hates war and ME intervention in places like Iraq and Afghanistan are now on a roll in places like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and working hard on Syria to topple dictators and install the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda.

Trading the dictator you know under the guise of democracy and bring in unknown Islamic Radicals creating more instability throughout the region.

The upcoming radicals are putting down the moderates Muslims while eradicating Jews and Christan from the regions they occupy.

This Administration is backing these leftist Islamic radicals throughout the ME.

When Iran had real marches by non-socialists in the streets wanting freedom from the Ayatollahs, this Administration did nothing to support them.

[Avvakum]

I wonder if this whole crisis with ISIS situation isn't a clever attempt to build up a Sunni Jihadi threat in order to justify an Anglo-American deal with Iran.

[American Patriot]

I wonder if this stuff isn't just more wagging the dog.

[American Patriot]

Iraq says its forces repel insurgent attack on Baiji oil refinery




























































Volunteers flock to defend Baghdad
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Islamist insurgents capture Iraqi city of Mosul







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By Liz Sly and Loveday Morris June 18 at 9:35 AM Follow @LizSly Follow @LovedayM
BAGHDAD — Iraq said Wednesday that its forces repelled an attack by Islamist insurgents on the country’s largest oil refinery and recaptured part of a key northern town.
The assertions of gains in Iraq’s battle against the radical Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) came as foreign governments expressed concern about the fate of dozens of foreign workers reportedly kidnapped by the insurgents.
According to Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, Iraq’s chief military spokesman, government forces repelled an attack by militants on the oil refinery at Baiji, killing 40 attackers in fighting there overnight and on Wednesday morning, the Associated Press reported. The claim could not immediately be confirmed.
Iraqi security forces also claimed to have retaken neighborhoods in Tal Afar, a town 40 miles west of Mosul on a main road to the Syrian border.
The insurgents previously were reported to be close to seizing control of the Baiji oil refinery 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. Fighting elsewhere in central Iraq put ISIS within 60 miles of the capital.

Sources: The Institute for the Study of War, The Long War Journal
The refinery accounts for more than a quarter of Iraq’s refining capacity. It produces gasoline, cooking oil and fuel for domestic consumption. The refinery was reportedly shut down this week as the insurgents closed in.
The Indian Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, reported that 40 Indian construction workers have been kidnapped in Iraq, and Turkey said it was investigating claims that 15 Turks were among 60 foreign construction workers abducted by insurgents near the northern city of Kirkuk. About 10,000 Indian citizens reportedly work in Iraq.
In Baghdad, a national unity meeting of Sunni and Shiite leaders attended by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sought to calm rising tensions.
The meeting late Tuesday followed intense pressure from the Obama administration on Maliki to do more to reach out to his political foes if he wants to receive more assistance from the United States in the fight against the Sunni extremists of ISIS, who have been advancing toward the capital.
The gathering was chaired by Ibrahim al-Jafari, a Shiite leader from Maliki’s party who preceded him as prime minister. It was attended by some of the country’s foremost Shiite parliamentarians and three prominent Sunnis: speaker of parliament Osama al-Nujaifi; his brother Atheel al-Nujaifi, who is governor of Mosul; and Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlak.
A statement issued after the meeting pledged an end to sectarian hate speech, a ban on the carrying of weapons on the street by civilians and a “review” of unspecified political practices in the past.
It was unclear whether the meeting would go far enough to satisfy Obama’s demand that Maliki show more inclusiveness toward Sunnis before the United States would consider military intervention to support his government. U.S. officials have said they fear that any more military support to Maliki, who is blamed by many for contributing to sectarian tensions, risks further consolidating his hold on power.

The battle between Islam's two major branches began centuries ago and is threatening Iraq's path to a stable democracy today. The Post's senior national security correspondent Karen DeYoung explains. (Davin Coburn and Kate M. Tobey / The Washington Post)

“Iraq has enough weapons, and their weapons are now in the hands of daiish and other people,” said Falah Mustafa Bakir, head of foreign relations for the Kurdistan Regional government, referring to ISIS by its Arabic acronym.
Bakir said the Kurds, who are now absorbing hundreds of thousands of displaced Iraqis into their semiautonomous region in the north, previously warned Washington that it was handing out advanced weaponry to a sectarian government.
Any American support now “should not be seen as one-sided,” Bakir cautioned. “The support should be for Iraq, not for Prime Minister Maliki.”
It was also unclear whether Sunnis would be mollified by Tuesday’s gathering, which resembled many failed attempts in the past to create a semblance of harmony and included leaders whose support in the community is questionable.
Nada Ibrahim, a former Sunni lawmaker, said that the Sunnis who attended the gathering did not represent Sunnis. They would be unable to visit Sunni communities “without being subject to humiliation,” she said.
“This is the truth, so if you want to have political dialogue, you need to find another way,” Ibrahim said, suggesting the formation of a new government including Sunnis who are technocrats. “If you don’t give the Sunni people another option, then ISIS will rule every Sunni area in Iraq.”
Dhafer al-Ani, a spokesman for Osama al-Nujaifi’s Mutahidun party, described the meeting as a belated and futile attempt by Maliki to secure his position, as he comes under pressure from the United States to reach out to political opponents.
“He is only trying to enhance his political image,” Ani said, adding that Nujaifi had only attended because discussions covered Iraq’s rapidly deteriorating security. “We will never be in a government headed by Maliki. That’s a red line.”
The White House has said it still has not decided how to respond to the lightning assault by the al-Qaeda-inspired ISIS, whose fighters have swept through large swaths of northern and central Iraq since capturing the city of Mosul last week.
Obama has already dispatched 275 U.S. Special Operations forces to Iraq and the region to secure U.S. assets, as well as an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf.
On Wednesday, he was scheduled to host discussions at the White House with the four top congressional leaders — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
A White House official said Obama invited the four to the White House in the context of “ongoing consultations” on Iraq, according to Reuters.
The Baghdad meeting coincided with rising concerns that Iraq could be entering a renewed cycle of sectarian slaughter after the bodies of a Sunni cleric and his aides, allegedly kidnapped by Shiite militiamen, were found in a Baghdad morgue and dozens of inmates were killed in a prison as insurgents battled security forces about 35 miles northeast of the capital.
The Association of Muslim Scholars said Imam Nihad al-Jibouri and two of his aides were killed after being abducted by men dressed as members of the security forces.
The killings were reminiscent of the tit-for-tat violence of the worst days of Iraq’s 2005-2007 civil war. The Sunni group warned of retaliation.
Baghdad has remained relatively calm amid a rampage in the north by al-Qaeda-inspired ISIS insurgents. But with thousands of Shiite volunteers answering a call to arms from religious leaders and the Shiite-led government, many Sunnis in the capital and elsewhere fear reprisal attacks.
“There is a real risk of further sectarian violence on a massive scale,” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned Tuesday as he urged Iraqi political and religious leaders to avoid incitement.
The United States is also pressuring Maliki, widely accused of failing to prevent the crisis, to bridge the sectarian divide. It has made clear that U.S. military support is contingent on the Maliki government undertaking political reforms.
Meanwhile, sectarian violence is on the rise. Jibouri and his assistants were abducted in the religiously mixed neighborhood of Saidiya four days before their bodies turned up in the morgue Monday, the Association of Muslim Scholars said.
The group, a Sunni religious organization that the U.S. military long suspected of involvement in the insurgency against American troops, said in a statement that “these crimes won’t go unpunished.”
It added: “The day will come when we punish all the criminals and those who stand behind them.”
Saidiya was a flash point for sectarian killings during the civil war, when Sunni and Shiite death squads roamed the streets, filling morgues to the bursting point.
Reports of mass killings also have been emerging from the confused battlefields across the country as government forces attempt to recover from their humiliating rout a week ago, Shiite militias join the fray and ISIS militants continue trying to seize territory.
On Monday, the United Nations accused ISIS of “systematic” executions in and around the north-central city of Tikrit.
As insurgents continued to bear down on Baghdad from a number of northern locations Tuesday, the country’s biggest oil refinery — in Baiji — was shut down and Turkey evacuated its consulate in the southern oil hub of Basra.
In Baqubah, capital of the religiously mixed Diyala province, 52 prisoners were killed as government troops battled to hold off an ISIS assault, Maj. Gen. Qassim Atta, a spokesman for Iraq’s military, told the National Iraqi News Agency.
Other reports put the death toll at 44. There were conflicting reports on how the inmates died, with some saying the security forces killed them.
Twitter accounts affiliated with ISIS said the men were executed at the hands of the police.
In Baghdad, a spokesman for the security forces, Saad Maan, said at a news conference that security forces had “preemptively” killed 65 unspecified “terrorists,” but he gave no details.
According to Atta’s account, the men were killed by ISIS extremists as the militants attempted to storm the prison. Nine ISIS members also were killed in the attack, he said.
Hamid al-Mutlaq, a member of a bloc of secular parties led by Ayad Allawi, said that the killings occurred after ISIS attempted a prison break but that the security forces had executed the prisoners after repelling the attack.
“This is not the first incident, and it will not be the last,” said Mutlaq, who added that he had been in touch with security forces in the area. “It’s not worse than usual yet, but it is getting worse as a result of sectarian sentiments and the influence of Iran.”
With Iraq’s Shiite neighbor rallying to support Maliki and the United States sending up to 275 troops to protect its embassy in Baghdad, the longtime adversaries have found themselves with mutual interests.
As the United States weighs its options for action, it has also taken the unusual step of having its diplomats engage with their counterparts from Iran to discuss possible cooperation to help stop ISIS’s march. The White House has ruled out military cooperation with Tehran, however.
A U.N. human rights panel warned that the Middle East is on the “cusp of a regional war,” with militants from Syria fueling the insurgency in Iraq. In a report Tuesday, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic said regional war was moving “ever closer.”

Abigail Hauslohner in Irbil, Iraq, and Daniela Deane in London contributed to this report.

[American Patriot]

Obama to Meet Congressional Leaders Over Iraq

By DAVID S. JOACHIMJUNE 18, 2014



WASHINGTON — President Obama is scheduled to meet with congressional leaders on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the United States response to advances by Sunni militants in Iraq, the administration said.


The meeting, at 3 p.m. in the Oval Office, is to include the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio; the minority leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California; the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada; and the minority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.


The White House said it was part of Mr. Obama’s continuing consultations with congressional leaders on foreign policy issues, including the crisis in Iraq.


A senior administration official said on Tuesday that Mr. Obama was considering a limited campaign of airstrikes on Sunni militants similar to the counterterrorism strikes in countries like Yemen, most likely using drones. Such strikes would be limited in scope and would not commence for days, the official said.


Mr. Obama’s national security advisers have presented him with a “sliding scale” of military options ranging from providing more American advisers, equipment and intelligence support to the beleaguered Iraqi Army to conducting airstrikes targeting members of the militant group, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the official said.


Mr. Obama has said that it is mainly up to Iraqi leaders to resolve the crisis by mending divisions between sects and finding a political solution to the crisis.


“There is no military solution that will solve Iraq’s problems,” the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday, “which is why we’ve been urgently pressing Iraq’s leaders across the political spectrum to govern in a nonsectarian manner, to promote stability and unity among Iraq’s diverse population, to address the legitimate grievances of Iraq’s Sunni, Kurd and Shia communities, and build and invest in the capacity of Iraq’s security forces.”


Mr. Boehner’s spokesman, Michael Steel, said in a written statement: “The speaker expects the president to offer a coherent strategy to ensure that Iraq does not descend further into lawless barbarism. We spent years, vast sums of money, and, most importantly, thousands of American lives to improve Iraq’s security and make America safer. Squandering that legacy would be a tragic mistake.”


Lawmakers in both parties have criticized Mr. Obama for not consulting Congress before agreeing this month to exchange five Taliban detainees held by the United States for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the lone American prisoner of war in Afghanistan.


Administration officials have defended the secrecy, contending that they had to act quickly because Sergeant Bergdahl’s health was in jeopardy. They also said they had feared that any disclosure of the prisoner swap might endanger the deal and the soldier’s life.


Last summer, Mr. Obama summoned congressional leaders to the Oval Office to win their support for an attack on Syria for its use of chemical weapons. He ultimately decided against an attack, after Syria agreed to hand over its chemical stockpile.

[American Patriot]

Not only no boots on the ground... no air strikes now.

[American Patriot]

ByRebecca KaplanCBS NewsJune 18, 2014, 11:44 AM
On Iraq, finger-pointing is in full force

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (L) and former Vice President Dick Cheney (R). Getty Images
While President Obama plots the U.S. response to ongoing violence in Iraq, the dialogue in Washington has fast turned into a game of finger-pointing over who's to blame.

Play Video
Battle for Iraq: Growing signs of sectarian violence returns

Play Video
Iraq mistakes: "Plenty of blame to go around," says former CIA official

The war of words has been brewing since Sunni Islamic militants captured Mosul last week and began eyeing the capital of Baghdad, but the bitternesscame to a head on Wednesday. Former Vice President Dick Cheney, and his daughter Liz, the former deputy assistant secretary for near eastern affairs, authored a blistering op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that defined the Obama doctrine as "empty threats, meaningless red lines, leading from behind, appeasing our enemies, abandoning our allies or apologizing for our great nation."
Worse yet, they charge the president has emboldened the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and is "willfully blind to the impact of his policies."
"Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many," the pair write. "Despite clear evidence of the dire need for American leadership around the world, the desperation of our allies and the glee of our enemies, President Obama seems determined to leave office ensuring he has taken America down a notch. Indeed, the speed of the terrorists' takeover of territory in Iraq has been matched only by the speed of American decline on his watch."
The Cheneys also announced in a video that they are creating "The Alliance for a Strong America," to advocate for their national security policies.
"We know America's security depends upon our ability to reverse President Obama's policies," Liz Cheney said.

• Is the violence in Iraq Obama's fault?
• Harry Reid: Obama's Iraq critics are "flat wrong"

Their assessment did not sit well with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., a staunch opponent of the war in Iraq who now wants to see America stay out of what he believes is a civil war.
"If there is one thing that this country does not need, it's that we should be taking advice from Dick Cheney on wars. Being on the wrong side of Dick Cheney is to be on the right side of history," Reid said.
He also laid into the other Republicans who have been critical of Mr. Obama's handling of Iraq, especially Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. On Tuesday McConnell said that the current violence was the "entirely predictable" consequence of the president's failure to leave troops in Iraq after 2011 (the Iraqis rejected U.S. conditions for an agreement to do so).
"They have preferred that our soldiers stayed in Iraq in harm's way? Is he, are they, the Republicans, willing to risk more American lives?" Reid asked.

Play Video
President Obama briefs top lawmakers on Iraq options

Mr. Obama will meet with Reid, McConnell, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Wednesday afternoon at the White House, and he is expected to make the case for sending a limited number of special forces troops to Iraq to develop better intelligence on the Sunni insurgency in case he moves later to order airstrikes. He is still undecided on the latter option, and has ruled out the possibility of sending in combat troops.
Reid's comments suggest Mr. Obama's biggest objections might come from Democrats, whose opposition to the Iraq war fueled both their takeover of Congress in 2006 and victory in the 2008 election.
Both Democrats and many administration officials have blamed the collapse on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has inflamed tensions in the country by governing in an increasingly sectarian and authoritarian way since taking office. But Republicans say that there's no excuse for the president not moving to intervene sooner.
"The government of Iraq clearly is not the most effective government. They've had their challenges in terms of understanding how to run a free society and a government that's open," Boehner told reporters Wednesday. "Having said that, its nothing new. The president's been watching, we've been watching for over a year as the situation in Iraq continued to be undermined and yet nothing, nothing has happened to try to reverse it. I'm hopeful I'll hear something today."

[American Patriot]

Posted on Wednesday, 06.18.14

Cheney slams Obama for Iraq, starts new group to oppose him

McClatchy Washington Bureau

Former vice president Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz, are ripping into President Barack Obama’s handling of foreign policy with a blast in the Wall Street Journal and the launch of a new group they say “will advocate for a restoration of American strength and power.”


In the editorial -- the former vice president who championed the Iraq War in 2002 -- writes that “rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. Too many times to count, Mr. Obama has told us he is ‘ending’ the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as though wishing made it so.”


He and his daughter also released a video announcing The Alliance for a Strong America, a 501(c)4 grassroots organization that Cheney will lead as chairman, and Liz Cheney, as president.


The committee, the two say, “is supported by citizens who are dedicated to the hard but necessary task of preserving freedom and restoring American strength and power in the wake of the Obama administration’s national security failures.”


“Empty threats, meaningless redlines, leading from behind, retreat, and “engagement” with rogue regimes have put America on a path of decline,” Dick Cheney says in the video. “Threats to America are on the rise, and, yet, President Obama has repeatedly misled the American people about the attacks in Benghazi and the true nature of the threats we face.”


Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/06/1...#storylink=cpy

[vector7]

On Iraq, finger-pointing is in full force

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (L) and former Vice President Dick Cheney (R). Getty Images
While President Obama plots the U.S. response to ongoing violence in Iraq, the dialogue in Washington has fast turned into a game of finger-pointing over who's to blame.

The Bush Administration needs to come forward and break their silence to start laying out the facts of what Obama's Administration actions have done to the region.

Exxon carries out major evacuation from Iraq: Oil official

4 Hours Ago



Exxon Mobile Iraq operations threatened?

Exxon Mobile has declined to comment on reports that they are carrying out mass evacuations in Iraq. CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera reports the latest on the violence.

ExxonMobil has carried out a "major evacuation,'' and BP had evacuated 20 percent of its staff, the head of Iraq's state-run South Oil Company said Wednesday.
Dhiya Jaffar also said ENI, Schlumberger, Weatherford and Baker Hughes had no plans to evacuate staff from Iraq following the lightning advance of Sunni militants through the country. The companies, which are based in southern Iraq where the government is still in firm control, were not immediately available for comment.

"This message is not satisfactory for us. We are not convinced the work should not be done remotely. They should be here on the ground,'' Jaffar told Reuters.

"I assure the companies that the current developments in the country have not affected and will not affect in anyway the operations in the south,'' he said, adding that the export level for June will be 2.7 million barrels per day.


Abdallaah
‏@mujaahid4life

#BREAKING fall of Baiji oil refinery to the Islamic State confirmed. Maliki is in huge trouble now. #ISIS #Iraq
Elijah J Magnier ‏@EjmAlrai 4m

#BreakingNews: Hezbollah takes control of #SaudiArabia #Iraq borders NOW.

[American Patriot]

Yesterday they were defending that oil refinery and had pushed back the insurgents (Look further back, I posted the article in this thread sometime yesterday). I can't keep up with this crap it's happening so fast.

Guys, I hate to say this but between Ukraine, Iran, Russia and Iraq, we're already into World War III.

It's just a matter of time before the shit REALLY hits the fan and someone starts shooting bigger stuff.

[American Patriot]

Here's more on the refinery:

Militants, Iraq security forces clash at country's largest oil refinery

Published June 18, 2014FoxNews.com


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Oct. 6, 2003: In this file photo, an oil refinery is seen in the city of Beiji, home to Iraq's largest oil refinery. (AP)




An official at Iraq’s largest domestic oil refinery says Sunni militants have taken over 75 percent of the facility following clashes with Iraqi security forces.


"The militants have managed to break in to the refinery. Now they are in control of the production units, administration building and four watch towers. This is 75 percent of the refinery," an official speaking from inside the refinery in Beiji told Reuters on Wednesday.


A state oil official told The Wall Street Journal that two fuel-storage tanks were in flames after hours of fighting before dawn Wednesday, some 155 miles north of the capital, Baghdad. The official said militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) targeted the oil refinery with mortars and machine guns.


In response, Iraqi security forces and helicopter gunships bombarded positions of the militants inside the refinery, another state oil official added.


But Iraq’s government denied reports that the facility has been overrun.

Iraq’s chief military spokesman, Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, told The Associated Press that government forces repelled the siege.


Al-Moussawi said 40 attackers were killed in fighting there overnight and early Wednesday. There was no independent confirmation either of his claims or those of the Iraqi military's retaking neighborhoods in Tal Afar. The areas are in territories held by insurgents that journalists have not been able to access.


The Beiji refinery was shut down on Tuesday and workers were flown out by helicopter, according to Reuters.


The refinery accounts for a little more than a quarter of the country's entire refining capacity -- all of which goes toward domestic consumption for things like gasoline, cooking oil and fuel for power stations. Any lengthy outage at Beiji risks long lines at the gas pump and electricity shortages, adding to the chaos already facing Iraq.


Meanwhile, in a televised address to the nation, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki struck an optimistic tone and vowed to teach the attackers a "lesson" -- even though Iraqi soldiers abandoned their posts in the wake of the initial militant offensive.


"We have now started our counteroffensive, regaining the initiative and striking back," al-Maliki said.


The campaign by the Al Qaeda-inspired ISIS has raised the specter of the sectarian warfare that nearly tore the country apart in 2006 and 2007. The relentless violence that followed the 2003 U.S.-led invasion now haunts those trying to decide how to respond.


At the White House, President Barack Obama was to brief lawmakers later Wednesday on what options the U.S. could take.


The U.S. is pressing al-Maliki to undermine the insurgency by making overtures to Iraq's once-dominant Sunni minority, which has long complained of discrimination by al-Maliki's government and excesses by his Shiite-led security forces.


Al-Maliki, a Shiite, has consistently rejected charges of bias against the Sunnis and has in recent days been stressing the notion that the threat posed by the Islamic State will affect all Iraqis regardless of their ethnic or religious affiliations. He appeared Tuesday night on television with Sunni leaders and politicians as a sign of solidarity.


The prime minister's relatively upbeat assessment came as the Iraqi military said its forces regained parts of the strategic city of Tal Afar near the Syrian border, which Islamic State fighters captured on Monday. Its closeness to the Syrian border strengthens the Islamic State's plan to carve out an Islamic caliphate, or state, stretching across parts of the two countries.


The Indian government also said Wednesday that 40 Indian construction workers have been kidnapped near Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, which ISIS and allied Sunni fighters captured last week. Roughly 10,000 Indian citizens work and live in Iraq, with only about 100 in violent, insecure areas like Mosul, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin.


And the Turkish Foreign Ministry said its diplomats were investigating a Turkish media report that militants abducted 60 foreign construction workers, including some 15 Turks, near the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk.


Ethnic Kurds now control Kirkuk, moving to fill a vacuum after the flight of Iraqi soldiers. They too are battling the Sunni extremist militants.


On Wednesday, Kurdish security and hospital officials said that fighting has been raging since morning between Kurdish fighters known as peshmerga and militants who are trying to take the town of Jalula, in the restive Diyala province some 80 miles northeast of Baghdad.


Two civilians were killed and six peshmerga fighters were wounded, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.


The Sunni militants of the Islamic State have vowed to march to Baghdad and the Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf in the worst threat to Iraq's stability since U.S. troops left in late 2011. The three cities are home to some of the most revered Shiite shrines. The Islamic State also has tried to capture Samarra, a city north of Baghdad and home to another major Shiite shrine.


Iran, a neighboring Shiite country, already has seen thousands volunteer to defend the shrines. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, speaking Wednesday to a crowd gathered at a stadium near his country's border with Iraq, said that the Islamic State and others would be defeated.


"We declare to all superpowers, their mercenaries, murderers and terrorists that the great Iranian nation will not miss any effort in protecting these sacred sites," Rouhani said.


The U.S. and Iran are discussing how the longtime foes might cooperate to ease the threat from the Al Qaeda-linked militants. Still, the White House ruled out the possibility that Washington and Tehran might coordinate military operations in Iraq.


Some 275 armed American forces are being positioned in and around Iraq to help secure U.S. assets as Obama also considers an array of options.

[American Patriot]

June 18, 2014, 10:01 a.m. EDT
Exxon, BP evacuate staff from Iraq: Reuters

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By Joseph Adinolfi



NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- ExxonMobil has carried out a 'major evacuation' of its staff, and BP has evacuated 20% of its staff, according to a report by Reuters Wednesday, citing the head of Iraq's state-run South Oil Company. Other energy firms with a presence in the country, including ENI, Schlumberger, Weatherford and Baker Hughes have no plans to evacuate staff from the country following the rapid advance of Sunni militants, the report said. These companies are based in southern Iraq, where the government remains in control. Dhiya Jaffar, the head of the Iraqi oil company, said that "current developments in the country" will not affect oil production in the south, adding that the export level for June will be 2.7 million barrels per day.

[American Patriot]

1 hour ago:

http://business.financialpost.com/20..._lsa=7222-4d5d

Energy
TrendingFP 500 | Northern Gateway | Bank of Canada | Mortgage Wars | BlackBerry | Loonie | Family Finance | Keystone XL Pipeline | Energy | E3 2014 | Housing Market
Exxon Mobil carries out major evacuation from Iraq, oil official says

Reuters | June 18, 2014 8:44 AM ET
More from Reuters







MOSCOW/NEW DELHI – Some oil companies are pulling foreign staff from Iraq, fearing Sunni militants from the north could strike at major oilfields concentrated in the Shi’ite south despite moves by the Baghdad government to tighten security.
Iraqi officials say the southern regions that produce some 90% of the country’s oil are completely safe from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which has seized much of the north in a week as Baghdad’s forces there collapsed.
The government says 100,000 police dedicated to protecting oil facilities are on high alert and well armed.

We are just very vigilant in Iraq. Non-essential production people have left

But oil firms are taking no chances with the foreign expert staff who could be prime targets for jihadists. And some importers of Iraqi oil are getting nervous about supplies.
“We are just very vigilant in Iraq. Non-essential production people have left, but operations continue,” said Bob Dudley, chief executive at BP, a major investor in Iraq through the giant Rumaila field. He was speaking to reporters in Moscow.
Industry newsletter Iraq Oil Report said Exxon Mobil, which is developing another huge field, West Qurna 1, was also cutting staffing levels. Exxon declined comment.
Related

• Iraqi forces battle terrorists at main oil refinery as diplomats fear 100 foreign workers abducted
• Iran’s ‘anti-Canada rhetoric’ has officials on guard for possible Ottawa area terror attacks

In a mark of concern abroad, Turkey evacuated its consulate in the southern oil hub of Basra on Tuesday.
Though the departure of foreigners would have only limited near-term impact on output, the risk of wider civil war – not restricted to attacks in the south by Sunnis but also a possible revival of friction among Shi’ite factions – could hit production and certainly hold back plans for expansion.
Russian firms said they were not reducing staff so far but were working on contingency plans.
At Gazprom Neft, first deputy head Vadim Yakovlev said of its work in the Badra field, on the Iranian border east of Baghdad: “Everything is going according to plan for now but we are working on plan B, including evacuation options.”
China’s foreign ministry has advised citizens to avoid Iraq.
In India, which with China is the biggest importer of oil from OPEC’s second largest producer after Saudi Arabia, an official said there were concerns about future Iraqi supplies.
The Indian oil ministry official said his department asked refiners to have alternatives: “They should have a contingency plan ready to avoid any supply disruption from Iraq,” he said.
In 2013, Iraqi oil accounted for 14.5% of Indian needs. An official at an Indian refiner said he saw no supply problem at the moment and that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates could make up any future shortfall.
International oil executives note that their assets in Iraq are a long way from the seat of the troubles in the north: “The people we are dealing with appear to be very much in control of the oil communications that we have,” said BP’s Dudley.
Yet firms are well aware of the need for vigilance after attacks on facilities in various parts of the world, including one which killed dozens of workers at a BP gas plant deep in the Sahara desert 18 months ago. The speed with which ISIL fighters have routed Iraqi forces underlines their potential to surprise.
Almost all international oil majors work with Baghdad on joint projects including Exxon, BP, Royal Dutch/Shell, ENI, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil and Chinese firms.




Security sources working for the oil industry say companies will proceed with a full evacuation of the hundreds of foreign staff they employ in Iraq only if there is a major escalation of violence – such as a major attack in Baghdad or Basra.
“For each company, the triggers for evacuation are different,” one security source said. “They analyse practicalities, how you get people out and how you make sure fields continue to operate, possibly even unmanned.”
Basra, on the Gulf, has enormous strategic importance to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government as the hub for oil exports accounting for over 95% of government revenue.
It presents a tough and distant target for Sunni insurgents and saw relatively little of the sectarian violence of the past decade. It has seen bombings, however, including in the past year, and has also been a battleground for Maliki against opponents among fellow Shi’ites, notably during 2008.
RISKS TO PLANS
Iraq wants to double or even triple output from the current level of 3.2 million barrels per day by the end of this decade, but hopes that it will be able to achieve that are fading.
“The bigger question than the immediate threat to production is Iraq’s ability to meet the expectation to meet 60% of the world’s oil demand growth needs,” said Majid Jafar, chief executive at Crescent Petroleum.
A Barclays research team noted that while oil firms have not yet seen a major impact on operations, oil service firms such as Baker Hughes and Schlumberger suspended work for a time last year after labour unrest.
“Activity is stable, though this area does not appear to be outside the reach of the insurgents given the periodic bombings in and around Basra in recent months,” the Barclays team wrote.

The risk of a protracted civil war has become all too apparent

The think-tank Energy Aspects said that the rate of activity was likely to slow due to workers being evacuated. Merrill Lynch said Iraqi oil output was unlikely to grow at all this year.
“The risk of a protracted civil war has become all too apparent,” its analysts wrote. “Longer term, the risks have also risen as investment projects could be cancelled or delayed.”

[American Patriot]

And as if in response to something I said a few days ago.....

Look at what's taking place and ask yourself for whom is Obama really working. It's certainly not the people of United States of America

The stage is being set for World War III


By Doug Hagmann June 17, 2014 | Comments| Print friendly | Subscribe


Today, every American, everyone in the West needs to step away from their backyard barbeques and pool parties and pay close attention, look long and hard at what is being engineered in Iraq, for life as we know it will soon change. For Americans, Iraq is a half a world away. For others, it much closer. For everyone, though, it’s soon to become very personal for all of us.

America, the West and the world is bearing witness to one of the most significant geopolitical events of the last century taking place in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. But few fully understand the enormity of what they are seeing. Even fewer understand the big picture or thinking big enough, as all is not what it appears. We are witnessing the second act of the play about which I’ve previously written, which is the setting of the stage for World War III. Our world as we know it will soon change, and no one will be left untouched by the events that have been orchestrated by the globalist screenwriters and directors.


The average American sees sudden, unexpected chaos, death and destruction in Iraq. Elected leaders, the corporate media and cheerleaders of partisan politics are presenting these events as unfortunate and unforeseeable, or even worse, a consequence of the alleged incompetence by the Renegade-in-Chief and his determined band of outlaws. They are, however, neither based on incompetence nor were they unforeseeable. Rather, we are watching the opening scene of “Act Two,” which is the final cast placement in the run up to World War III as was always intended and long in the making, separated only by a brief intermission due to the public exposure of Benghazi.
Briefly, the first part of the latest play taking place on the global stage began with the fictional tale of the Arab Spring, which was supposedly a spontaneous uprising by freedom fighters against oppressive tyrants. It was neither spontaneous nor engineered at the hands of lovers of freedom. It was a Western intelligence operation designed to change the balance of power for future events, future acts of the play on the world stage. An important act of the play involved Libya and the ouster of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, as I detailed in my August 3, 2013 column titled Unmasking the Embassy Threat.

In my earlier column of October 8, 2012 titled Lemmings…At the precipice of WW III, I warned that “we are at the precipice of global conflict, WW III. The killing of Ambassador Stevens and other Americans in Libya was merely the prelude, like the opening scenes in a Bond film, but we haven’t yet grasped how it relates to the rest of the script. During the ‘Arab Spring’ we thought we were seeing trailers for several different films before the main attraction, but little did we know how seamlessly the various clips all tie together at the end. The show has already started.” We are now well into the opening act after intermission.


As I wrote, “If the script proceeds as written, the entire geopolitical world and balance of power could, and most likely will, change with this next curtain call. No one will be left untouched by the coming events.” And now, here we are. Following the last curtain call, we are watching the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a U.S. CIA/DOS backed organization, taking over Iraq with relative ease. Cue the video cameras and audience attention to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad for a flashback to the April 30, 1975 airlift. The march of ISIS will proceed as intended, but it will not stop at Baghdad. They are headed for Syria and have their sights set on removing Bashir al-Assad from power.
The evidence of a Western backed operation

It’s unlikely that you will see the multitudes of new Toyota pick-ups or the NATO/Western military armaments currently in use by the Muslim Brotherhood-backed ISIS on your television screen, as the global power brokers would rather keep those telling images from anyone who might be paying close attention in America. It was the current Secretary of State John Kerry, following the lead of his predecessor Hillary Rodham Clinton, answering to the current Renegade-in-Chief and his globalist handlers, who toured the Middle East in late December of 2013 and gave ISIS the green light to “do what they will” as the U.S. would not interfere. Not only would the U.S. take a step back, we would leave our military hardware and armaments intact for ISIS to conduct their blood sacrifices in typical Wahhabi fashion.


It’s unlikely that the corporate media will expose that the development of ISIS was years in the making, first developing in 2004 as “The Organization of Monotheism and Jihad” (JTJ) and then as al Qaeda in Iraq. In 2006, they changed their name to the Islamic State of Iraq and more recently to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as it is known today.


It’s even more unlikely that you will hear about the financing of ISIS, for it is perhaps the most heavily funded terror organization in the world. Even before ISIS overran Mosul last week and pillaged Iraqi banks of hundreds of millions of dollars,ISIS financial documents that were seized during operations in Iraq disclosed that their net worth before they entered Mosul to be at least $900 million. Where did such robust funding come from? A review of their meticulous financial documentation found that much of the wealth possessed by ISIS came from the oil fields they seized in Eastern Syria earlier this year. Yes, Syria. Now their net worth is now over $2 billion, or some speculate about $200,000 per ISIS terrorist. This is no ragtag, unsupported group of spontaneous and opportunistic terrorists, although the Obama-Hillary-Rice-Benghazi narrative is once again in play, this time in Iraq.


Based on the funding and military assets alone, it should be obvious to anyone paying the least bit of attention that ISIS is a creation of Western backed intelligence agencies, spearheaded by the U.S., and funded in part through the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that has its own headquarters based inside our own White House, State Department and CIA.
The bigger picture

The events of today are not taking place in a vacuum. I have written many times about the significance of Benghazi, the third rail of U.S. politics and media. The attack in Benghazi that claimed four American lives was a planned event at the nation-state level, a proxy battle by Russia to expose the flow of weapons from northern Africa into Syria, Turkey, Jordan and other key areas for the sole purpose of toppling Assad and installing a Muslim Brotherhood government, much like Egypt. Despite four separate attempts to blame Assad for crimes against humanity, including the use of chemical weapons, the non-corporate media exposed the false flags for what they were. Accordingly, the globalists had to switch to “plan B” to topple Assad.


Today, the global power brokers are using ISIS to march through Baghdad and into Syria through the newly opened southeastern front via Iraq. They are using our assets and our blessing to do so, which should cause Americans to ask for what did some 4,500 U.S. soldiers die? As Iraq is being transformed into a nation-state of hard line al Qaeda and Taliban related terrorists known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), one can only imagine the sadness and outrage of every American family who has been personally touched by the death, disfigurement, or permanent debilitation of their loved ones in the military. The sand and soil of a land far away has yet to absorb all of their blood that has been shed under the guise of freedom and amid a patriotic fervor scripted by the studios of the globalists. Perhaps the advance knowledge that we would turn over the controlling reins of Iraq, known only to the globalist script writers and certain cast members, is the reason that returning veterans would one day be considered a domestic terror threat, for it is indeed an understandable response to an insidious plot.


The bigger picture has always been Syria via the “Death race to Damascus” as I detailed in my column dated January 20, 2014. The bigger picture has always been to topple Assad and take Syria. So, when all of this comes unraveled, and it will, look for it to explode eastward into Saudi Arabia, into the Arab sea, north into Iran and all the way to the Strait of Hormuz. And when—not if—it does, that attack will not just damage shipping and the free flow of oil into Western markets, it will kill the dollar and with it the hopes and dreams not just of the U.S., but western civilization itself.


The ultimate goal is to kill the U.S. dollar through a proxy war with Russia while the Renegade-in-Chief, his band of outlaws and his global financiers hide under the pretext of plausible deniability. For it is the destruction of the middle class through economic Armageddon, vis-a-vis killing the dollar, that is needed to create a new global economic order and, ultimately, the destruction of the sovereignty of the United States.


Lastly, perhaps those on both sides of the faux political spectrum and their respective cheerleaders understand why many of us were so concerned about the Constitutional eligibility of Barack Hussein Obama to hold the highest office in the land. It was never a distraction, but a matter of allegiance to the United States. Look at what’s taking place and ask yourself for whom is Obama really working. It’s certainly not the people of United States of America.

[Avvakum]

And as if in response to something I said a few days ago.....

Look at what's taking place and ask yourself for whom is Obama really working. It's certainly not the people of United States of America

The stage is being set for World War III


By Doug Hagmann June 17, 2014 | Comments| Print friendly | Subscribe


Today, every American, everyone in the West needs to step away from their backyard barbeques and pool parties and pay close attention, look long and hard at what is being engineered in Iraq, for life as we know it will soon change. For Americans, Iraq is a half a world away. For others, it much closer. For everyone, though, it’s soon to become very personal for all of us.

America, the West and the world is bearing witness to one of the most significant geopolitical events of the last century taking place in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. But few fully understand the enormity of what they are seeing. Even fewer understand the big picture or thinking big enough, as all is not what it appears. We are witnessing the second act of the play about which I’ve previously written, which is the setting of the stage for World War III. Our world as we know it will soon change, and no one will be left untouched by the events that have been orchestrated by the globalist screenwriters and directors.


The average American sees sudden, unexpected chaos, death and destruction in Iraq. Elected leaders, the corporate media and cheerleaders of partisan politics are presenting these events as unfortunate and unforeseeable, or even worse, a consequence of the alleged incompetence by the Renegade-in-Chief and his determined band of outlaws. They are, however, neither based on incompetence nor were they unforeseeable. Rather, we are watching the opening scene of “Act Two,” which is the final cast placement in the run up to World War III as was always intended and long in the making, separated only by a brief intermission due to the public exposure of Benghazi.
Briefly, the first part of the latest play taking place on the global stage began with the fictional tale of the Arab Spring, which was supposedly a spontaneous uprising by freedom fighters against oppressive tyrants. It was neither spontaneous nor engineered at the hands of lovers of freedom. It was a Western intelligence operation designed to change the balance of power for future events, future acts of the play on the world stage. An important act of the play involved Libya and the ouster of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, as I detailed in my August 3, 2013 column titled Unmasking the Embassy Threat.

In my earlier column of October 8, 2012 titled Lemmings…At the precipice of WW III, I warned that “we are at the precipice of global conflict, WW III. The killing of Ambassador Stevens and other Americans in Libya was merely the prelude, like the opening scenes in a Bond film, but we haven’t yet grasped how it relates to the rest of the script. During the ‘Arab Spring’ we thought we were seeing trailers for several different films before the main attraction, but little did we know how seamlessly the various clips all tie together at the end. The show has already started.” We are now well into the opening act after intermission.


As I wrote, “If the script proceeds as written, the entire geopolitical world and balance of power could, and most likely will, change with this next curtain call. No one will be left untouched by the coming events.” And now, here we are. Following the last curtain call, we are watching the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a U.S. CIA/DOS backed organization, taking over Iraq with relative ease. Cue the video cameras and audience attention to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad for a flashback to the April 30, 1975 airlift. The march of ISIS will proceed as intended, but it will not stop at Baghdad. They are headed for Syria and have their sights set on removing Bashir al-Assad from power.
The evidence of a Western backed operation

It’s unlikely that you will see the multitudes of new Toyota pick-ups or the NATO/Western military armaments currently in use by the Muslim Brotherhood-backed ISIS on your television screen, as the global power brokers would rather keep those telling images from anyone who might be paying close attention in America. It was the current Secretary of State John Kerry, following the lead of his predecessor Hillary Rodham Clinton, answering to the current Renegade-in-Chief and his globalist handlers, who toured the Middle East in late December of 2013 and gave ISIS the green light to “do what they will” as the U.S. would not interfere. Not only would the U.S. take a step back, we would leave our military hardware and armaments intact for ISIS to conduct their blood sacrifices in typical Wahhabi fashion.


It’s unlikely that the corporate media will expose that the development of ISIS was years in the making, first developing in 2004 as “The Organization of Monotheism and Jihad” (JTJ) and then as al Qaeda in Iraq. In 2006, they changed their name to the Islamic State of Iraq and more recently to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as it is known today.


It’s even more unlikely that you will hear about the financing of ISIS, for it is perhaps the most heavily funded terror organization in the world. Even before ISIS overran Mosul last week and pillaged Iraqi banks of hundreds of millions of dollars,ISIS financial documents that were seized during operations in Iraq disclosed that their net worth before they entered Mosul to be at least $900 million. Where did such robust funding come from? A review of their meticulous financial documentation found that much of the wealth possessed by ISIS came from the oil fields they seized in Eastern Syria earlier this year. Yes, Syria. Now their net worth is now over $2 billion, or some speculate about $200,000 per ISIS terrorist. This is no ragtag, unsupported group of spontaneous and opportunistic terrorists, although the Obama-Hillary-Rice-Benghazi narrative is once again in play, this time in Iraq.


Based on the funding and military assets alone, it should be obvious to anyone paying the least bit of attention that ISIS is a creation of Western backed intelligence agencies, spearheaded by the U.S., and funded in part through the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that has its own headquarters based inside our own White House, State Department and CIA.
The bigger picture

The events of today are not taking place in a vacuum. I have written many times about the significance of Benghazi, the third rail of U.S. politics and media. The attack in Benghazi that claimed four American lives was a planned event at the nation-state level, a proxy battle by Russia to expose the flow of weapons from northern Africa into Syria, Turkey, Jordan and other key areas for the sole purpose of toppling Assad and installing a Muslim Brotherhood government, much like Egypt. Despite four separate attempts to blame Assad for crimes against humanity, including the use of chemical weapons, the non-corporate media exposed the false flags for what they were. Accordingly, the globalists had to switch to “plan B” to topple Assad.


Today, the global power brokers are using ISIS to march through Baghdad and into Syria through the newly opened southeastern front via Iraq. They are using our assets and our blessing to do so, which should cause Americans to ask for what did some 4,500 U.S. soldiers die? As Iraq is being transformed into a nation-state of hard line al Qaeda and Taliban related terrorists known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), one can only imagine the sadness and outrage of every American family who has been personally touched by the death, disfigurement, or permanent debilitation of their loved ones in the military. The sand and soil of a land far away has yet to absorb all of their blood that has been shed under the guise of freedom and amid a patriotic fervor scripted by the studios of the globalists. Perhaps the advance knowledge that we would turn over the controlling reins of Iraq, known only to the globalist script writers and certain cast members, is the reason that returning veterans would one day be considered a domestic terror threat, for it is indeed an understandable response to an insidious plot.


The bigger picture has always been Syria via the “Death race to Damascus” as I detailed in my column dated January 20, 2014. The bigger picture has always been to topple Assad and take Syria. So, when all of this comes unraveled, and it will, look for it to explode eastward into Saudi Arabia, into the Arab sea, north into Iran and all the way to the Strait of Hormuz. And when—not if—it does, that attack will not just damage shipping and the free flow of oil into Western markets, it will kill the dollar and with it the hopes and dreams not just of the U.S., but western civilization itself.


The ultimate goal is to kill the U.S. dollar through a proxy war with Russia while the Renegade-in-Chief, his band of outlaws and his global financiers hide under the pretext of plausible deniability. For it is the destruction of the middle class through economic Armageddon, vis-a-vis killing the dollar, that is needed to create a new global economic order and, ultimately, the destruction of the sovereignty of the United States.


Lastly, perhaps those on both sides of the faux political spectrum and their respective cheerleaders understand why many of us were so concerned about the Constitutional eligibility of Barack Hussein Obama to hold the highest office in the land. It was never a distraction, but a matter of allegiance to the United States. Look at what’s taking place and ask yourself for whom is Obama really working. It’s certainly not the people of United States of America.

He's absolutely right on this one, absolutely right. And the stakes couldn't be higher; we're facing a threat to the very human race here.

[American Patriot]

Iraq strategy: Obama, Congress leaders meeting
Posted: Jun 18, 2014 1:13 AM MST Updated: Jun 18, 2014 11:25 AM MST
By JULIE PACE and KEN DILANIAN
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama has shifted his focus away from airstrikes in Iraq as an imminent option for slowing the Islamist insurgency, in part because there are few clear targets the U.S. could hit, officials say.

Obama has made no final decisions and could ultimately approve limited strikes if stronger targets emerge, the officials say. The CIA and other spy agencies are scrambling to close intelligence gaps in the region and track the movements of key figures in the militant group known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, which seized Mosul, Tikrit and other towns in Iraq as parts of the country's military melted away.

The president summoned top congressional leaders to the White House Wednesday afternoon to discuss the collapsing security situation. The relentless violence marks the greatest threat to Iraq's stability since the U.S. military withdrew at the end of 2011 after more than eight years of war.

Ahead of his meeting at the White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the U.S. had no business sending troops into the midst of what he called Iraq's civil war.

"It's time for the Iraqis to resolve it themselves," said Reid, a Nevada Democrat. Taking on Republicans who have blamed the current violence on the withdrawal of U.S. forces, Reid said, "Those who attack President Obama for bringing our troops home from Iraq are wrong and out of step with the American people. After a decade of war, the American people have had enough."

Obama has ruled out returning combat troops to Iraq in order to quell the insurgency. However, he has notified Congress that up to 275 armed U.S. forces are being positioned in and around Iraq to provide support and security for U.S. interests.

Obama is also considering sending a small contingent of special operations forces to help train the Iraqi military, officials have said. Other options under consideration include boosting Iraq's intelligence about the militants and, more broadly, encouraging the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad to become more inclusive.

The U.S. has also made initial overtures to its long-time foe Iran, which has an interest in seeing the Iraqi government survive, though officials have ruled out the possibility of military cooperation with Tehran.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Wednesday that he opposed outreach to Iran on grounds that it would send the wrong message to American allies in the Middle East given that the Islamic republic is alleged to have sponsored terrorism in the region. Boehner is among the leaders meeting with Obama at the White House.

The most aggressive option under consideration at the White House has been airstrikes, most likely by drones, though officials have also looked at the possibility of launching strikes from manned aircraft. However, at this point, officials have been unable to identify clear targets the U.S. could hit in Iraq that could slow the militants' momentum.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that the U.S. does have a request from the Iraqi government for the Obama administration to use air power to stop the militants.

So far it's unclear whether the CIA and the NSA have been able to locate the top insurgent figures, such as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ISIL's leader. Al-Baghdadi, who was released in 2009 after spending four years in U.S. military custody in southern Iraq, came away with an appreciation of American monitoring technology that made him an elusive target once he took command, said Richard Zahner, a retired Army general and former senior NSA official.

Intelligence agencies have been tracking the ISIL for years, officials say, watching closely as it grew stronger in the Syrian civil war and began to challenge the Shiite-dominated Baghdad government.

The CIA and other agencies are assembling detailed dossiers known as "targeting packages" that amount to profiles of insurgent commanders, including as much day-to-day information as can be gathered about their location, movements, associates and communications. Those packages can be used to target subjects for drone strikes or other military action, though they also can be used for nonlethal purposes, current and former officials say.

The officials would not be quoted by name because they were not authorized to discuss the classified details publicly.

The U.S. already has a range of ground, air and sea troops and other assets in the region. They include six warships in the Persian Gulf, including the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush and the amphibious transport ship USS Mesa Verde, which is carrying about 550 Marines and five V-22 Osprey hybrid aircraft.

There are about 5,000 U.S. soldiers across the border in Kuwait as part of a routine rotational presence, several Air Force aircraft capable of a full range of missions and intelligence gathering and surveillance assets, including drones, in the region.

[American Patriot]

http://www.voanews.com/content/us-of...s/1939806.html

US Official Says Iraq Requests Airstrikes




Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey speaks next to U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel during the defense subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 18, 2014.



VOA News
Last updated on: June 18, 2014 2:23 PM

The top U.S. military official says the Iraqi government has requested U.S. airstrikes to aid the fight against Sunni Islamist militants who have taken over key cities of northern Iraq.

Army General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate subcommittee Wednesday that Iraq has requested U.S. air strikes against the militants, who attacked Iraq's main oil refinery Wednesday.

Dempsey said, particularly as a veteran, he is disappointed by the siege of the militants in Iraq.

"Al Qaida-inspired extremists raising flags over Iraq's embattled cities triggers in me the same thing that runs through the minds of any veteran who served there, which is bitter disappointment that Iraq's leaders failed to unite for the good of their people," said Dempsey.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he believes it is in the interest of U.S. national security to honor that request.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the blame for the insurgency lies not just with the militants, but also with the Iraqi government for failing to establish a working relationship among different groups in the country's leadership.

"I think we go back to who is responsible for this: ISIL, they invaded, but also this current government in Iraq has never fulfilled the commitments it made to bring a unity government together with the Sunnis the Kurds and the Shia," said Hagel.

The clash between militants and security forces took place at the refinery in Beiji, located about halfway between Baghdad and Mosul.
A member from the oil police force stands guard at Zubair oilfield in Basra, southeast of Baghdad, June 18, 2014.



Militants took control of Mosul last week, and India's foreign ministry reported Wednesday that 40 Indian construction workers have been kidnapped from the city. A spokesman said India has not received a demand for ransom and does not know the location of the missing workers. He also said 46 Indian nurses are stranded in militant-controlled Tikrit.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki gave a televised address vowing that his security forces would strike back against terrorism and described their earlier defeats at the hands of militants as a setback.

Also Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani pledged that his majority Shi'ite country would do whatever is necessary to protect Shi'ite holy sites in Iraq from what he called "terrorists."

Obama to host congressional leaders

Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama is due to host congressional leaders to discuss the situation in Iraq and possible responses to the militant advances.

The White House meeting comes as Obama considers a range of possibilities including assistance to Iraqi security forces and carrying out airstrikes, while stressing the need for political unity.

Presidential spokesman Jay Carney said Tuesday there is no military solution to Iraq's problems, but that "Iraq needs significantly more help to break the momentum of extremist groups."

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the political component is important for Iraq's long-term success.

"Our view is that Iraq and the successful outcome here is not contingent upon the intervention of any country," she said. "They need to take steps on the political front to be more inclusive, to govern in a non-sectarian manner. But the United States is - and the president is - considering a range of options, looking at factors including the national security interests of the United States."

Carney described that national security interest as making sure the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is not able to establish a safe haven in the region. The militant group has taken control of several Iraqi cities and has threatened to attack Baghdad.

Prime Minister Maliki met Tuesday with Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders, and the group appeared on television to pledge unity.

Zebari discusses threat

In an interview with VOA Kurdish service, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari called the recent insurgency the "biggest threat" for the Iraqi government. He said terrorism in Iraq is not only a threat to Iraq and its neighbors, but also to the United States.

He said assisting Iraq in the current conflict would be the "best option" for the United States, and also said most Iraqi political leaders would prefer getting help from the United States than from neighboring Iran.
U.S. Troops Deploying to Iraq

• Involves up to 275 U.S. military personnel
• Provides support and security for U.S. personnel and embassy in Baghdad
• Assists in temporary relocation of embassy staff to U.S. consulates in Basra and Irbil and to Amman, Jordan
• Military personnel are entering Iraq with consent of Iraqi government

Source: White House


"Most of the Iraqi political leaders agree that American assistance in this fighting against terrorism in the country will be with less problem comparing to the Iranian participation," he said.

The United States has ruled out sending combat troops back to Iraq, but President Obama has ordered 275 military personnel to help provide security for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

The U.S. is considering working with Iran. But the Pentagon says it has no plans to enter into military cooperation with the Iranians in any action in Iraq.

• A member of the Iraqi Special Operations Forces stands guard during an intensive security deployment in Baghdad's Amiriya district, June 18, 2014.
  

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[American Patriot]

UAE recalls its envoy from Baghdad for consultations

UAE reaffirms full and clear support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq

• Staff Report
• Published: 18:53 June 18, 2014

Abu Dhabi:The UAE on Wednesday recalled Abdullah Ebrahim Al Shihi, the country’s Ambassador to Baghdad, for consultations in view of what it described as the dangerous developments in Iraq.



In a statement issued on Wednesday, the ministry of foreign affairs expressed its deep concern over “the continuation of the policy of exclusion, sectarianism and marginalisation of basic components of the Iraqi people”.



The UAE believes that “such an approach will exacerbate the situation and will create a political environment that will lead to a further growth in political tensions and deterioration of the security situation in Iraq.”



The ministry said that “while reaffirming its condemnation of and deploring of the terrorism of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), and of other terrorist organisations, which has led to the killing of many innocent Iraqis, the UAE strongly believes that the way out of this cycle of violence cannot be found through more of the exclusionary and sectarian policies, and strategies that are embedded in the statement of the Government of Iraq issued yesterday, Tuesday 17th June.”




The ministry added that the UAE strongly believes that the only way to save Iraq and to preserve its territorial integrity and stability is through the adoption of a national approach that is based on consensus and that brings people together, without excluding anyone.



The statement reaffirmed the full and clear support of the UAE for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq, considering this to be a top Arab national priority, and also reaffirmed its “total rejection of any interference in its internal affairs”.



It concluded by emphasising the belief of the UAE that the only way in which Iraq can escape from the existential danger with which it is faced is through the adoption of a political approach that rises above divisions, through the creation of a government of national unity that does not exclude any of the components of the Iraqi people and that spares no effort to preserve its national unity, territorial integrity and stability.

[American Patriot]

The UAE? Seriously?

That's interesting.