(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) US officials and coalition partners are considering additional ways to help the Iraqi government in its fight against ISIL, including more equipment and intelligence support, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Tuesday. But a large-scale use of US ground troops is not an option, he said.
In the last week, the United States provided 1,000 AT4 weapons to Iraqi security forces, Earnest noted during a briefing.
"These are weapons that could be used to counter some of the car bombs that we have seen ISIL deploy in advance of some of their offensive military operations," he said.
There has been an interest in trying to ramp up the training capacity of Iraqi security forces, he said. Some coalition partners have special expertise in training security forces, police officers and special operations forces, "and we certainly want to boost the capacity of those forces that are under the command and control of the Iraqi central government," Earnest said.
But President Barack Obama "does not believe it is in the best interests of our country to deploy a large-scale ground operation that is manned by US military personnel, principally because the President believes that the security situation in Iraq is the responsibility of the Iraqi government, the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi people," Earnest said.
"And the President will not put the US military in a situation where we are doing something for the Iraqis that they should be doing for themselves," he added.
US assistance has been in the form of efforts to coordinate airstrikes at the joint operations centers in Baghdad and Erbil, Earnest noted. AT4s, which are light anti-tank weapons, "have been valuable and will be valuable as Iraqi security forces take the fight on the ground to ISIL fighters in their country," Earnest said.
Additional help "will also take the form of some advice that the US and other coalition military officers have provided to Iraqi security forces as they have carried out operations against ISIL on the ground," he said, and important intelligence support has been provided by the United States and its coalition partners.
"In all of these areas, the United States and our coalition partners are considering additional steps that we can take to ramp up the extensive support that has already been provided to Iraqi security forces," he added.
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