BAGHDAD — The defeat was the most humiliating for the Iraqi military in months.
Islamic State group militants stormed Camp Saqlawiyah in Iraq’s western Anbar province, sending about 700 soldiers fleeing. At least 40 soldiers were killed and another 68 taken prisoner, later to be paraded through the streets of the city of Fallujah.
The debacle, which took place Sept. 21, shows the extent of the task as the Obama administration moves for the first time to deploy military advisers directly on the ground in Anbar and other battle zones with the extremists.
It is part of a planned expansion in training and advising of the Iraqi military — a risky step for the U.S, which until now has been wary about front-line involvement and fearful of history repeating itself.
“No mission that we undertake anywhere in the world is risk-free,” said Pentagon Spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby. “These trainers will be operating at fixed sites that we are surveying right now.”
President Barack Obama has asked Congress for $5.6 billion for the expansion. He said Friday that he has authorized the deployment of up to 1,500 more American service members to bolster Iraqi forces, which could more than double the total number of U.S. forces to 3,100. He said this represents a new phase in the campaign against the Islamic State as the U.S. plays a bigger role in enabling the Iraqis to go on the offensive.
The Iraqi military has struggled to recover from its collapse in June, when the Islamic State group captured country’s second largest city, Mosul, and swept over much of northern Iraq.
In Anbar, territory is slipping out of the Iraqi government’s hands — most recently large parts of the provincial capital, Ramadi.
An American advisory mission visited Anbar this week for site surveys at al-Asad air base, formerly the largest coalition base in western Iraq, as they search for training locations.
The U.S. has already sent assessment teams to an Iraqi military base in Taji, 12 miles north of Baghdad, for discussions with Iraqi colleagues on how to collaborate. The U.S. is looking to train Iraqi security forces on issues ranging from weaponry, synchronization, fire-maneuvering and gunnery, and better integration of ground action with coalition airstrikes.
But if Iraqi forces are unable to push back the Islamic State and recover lost territory, Obama would be faced with a choice of accepting failure in Iraq or committing U.S. combat troops.
Until now, 12 U.S. advisory teams had been operating in Iraq since August, stationed in joint operations centers in Baghdad and Irbil, in the northern autonomous Kurdish region.
