A day after ordering airstrikes against the Islamic State militants in Iraq, President Barack Obama has informed the US Congress that the offensive will be “limited in scope and duration”.
The operations will seek to protect American personnel and assist Iraqi forces break the siege of Mount Sinjar and help the thousands of religious minorities trapped there, Obama said in a letter to the House Speaker and the Senate’s President Pro Tempore.Obama, however, did not stipulate a timeframe for completion of the military operation either in his communication to the Congress or while replying to questions from reporters at the White House on Saturday. He, however, reiterated that he would not deploy combat troops.
At the same time, Obama indicated in an interview to The New York Times that he would be willing to consider broader military strikes to prevent the ISIS bid to create a caliphate provided Iraq’s political leaders sink their differences and are ready to work with each other.
“We’re not going to let them create some caliphate through Syria and Iraq,” Obama said in the interview, stressing: “But we can only do that if we know that we have got partners on the ground who are capable of filling the void.”
Speaking to reporters before proceeding on vacation to Martha Vineyard in Massachusetts, Obama said the airstrikes in Iraq have succeeded in destroying arms and equipment that could have been used against Irbil, the Kurdish capital city in northern Iraq. While the airdrop of food and water to the thousands of people trapped on the mountaintop, Obama said planning is underway on how to safely get them down.
In three rounds of airstrikes carried out on Friday, the US fighter jets wiped out a seven-vehicle convoy, besides bombing a mobile artillery, the Pentagon said. A Predator drone armed with Hellfire missiles struck a militant mortar position nearby.
“When ISIl (ISIS) fighters returned to the site moments later, the terrorists were attacked again and successfully eliminated,” said Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John F. Kirby, without indicating how many militants thought to be killed in the operation.
In his letter to Congress, Obama said his authorization to provide humanitarian assistance will also be limited to supporting the civilians trapped on Mount Sinjar. The actions he has directed are in the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States, and are being undertaken in coordination with Iraqi Government, he said.
“We have Americans serving across Iraq, including our embassy in Baghdad, and we’ll do whatever is needed to protect our people,” Obama said in his weekly radio address and dwelt on the need to protect the trapped religious minorities who were faced with a potential act of genocide.US air strikes in northern Iraq have successfully destroyed arms and equipment that ISIl terrorists could have used in Erbil city, President Barack Obama said here on Saturday.
While stating that the US cannot and should not intervene in every crisis, he argued in the same breath that it cannot look away when there’s a situation like the one on this mountain with countless innocent people facing a massacre.Obama outlined his plan to continue urging the Iraqi communities to reconcile, come together and fight back against the terrorists.