Obama to expand Iraq campaign

Obama on Friday authorized the Pentagon to deploy the troops "to expand our advise-and-assist mission and initiate a comprehensive training effort for Iraqi forces," said Defense Department spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby.

Kirby told journalists that $1.6 billion (1.29 billion euros) for a new "Iraq Train and Equip Fund" would first need to be approved by Congress. Kirby told journalists that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was urging both houses to pass legislation to approve the funding as soon as possible.

The deployment will roughly double the number of US troops deployed to Iraq and see US forces spread more widely across the country. Obama began the present redeployment - having withdrawn forces in 2011 - after "Islamic State" (IS) made a lightning advance across northern and western Iraq towards the capital, Baghdad, in August.

Moving out from Baghdad

At present there are 1,400 American troops in Iraq, including 600 advisers in Baghdad and the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region, Irbil. The other 800 troops are involved in providing security for the US embassy and the Baghdad airport.

Some of the advisers are now to be deployed to the western and mainly Sunni Anbar province, which was largely abandoned by the Iraqi military in the face of the jihadist onslaught.

With both the Senate and House of Representatives now controlled by the Republicans, Obama's Iraq policies are likely to come under intense scrutiny. Republicans have criticized Obama's aim of limiting intervention to airstrikes and training missions.

'On the offensive'

The Pentagon said the move to send more troops followed a request from the US defense secretary after a response to a plea from the Iraqi government.

Defense officials said the move would go ahead "with the development of a coalition campaign plan to defend key areas and go on the offensive."

The Pentagon said the training would focus on 12 Iraqi brigades, nine from the Iraqi army itself and three peshmerga units.

Ahead of the US withdrawal in 2011, the possibility was discussed that several thousand US troops might be left behind in Iraq. However, talks about the issue with then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki broke down over the question of legal immunity for troops which Baghdad was, at the time, not willing to provide.

rc/jm (AFP, AP,dpa, Reuters)