APNewsBreak: US sending arms to Kurds in Iraq

[Omaha Steve]

Source: By LOLITA C. BALDOR and JULIE PACE

SYDNEY (AP) — The Obama administration has begun directly providing weapons to Kurdish forces who have started to make gains against Islamic militants in northern Iraq, senior U.S. officials said Monday.

Previously, the U.S. had insisted on only selling arms to the Iraqi government in Baghdad, but the Kurdish peshmerga fighters had been losing ground to Islamic State militants in recent weeks.

The officials wouldn't say which U.S. agency is providing the arms or what weapons are being sent, but one official said it isn't the Pentagon. The CIA has historically done similar quiet arming operations.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the operation publicly.

FULL story at link.



U.S. and Kurdish flags flutter in the wind while displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community cross the Syria-Iraq border at Feeshkhabour bridge over the Tigris River at Feeshkhabour border point, in northern Iraq, Sunday, Aug. 10, 2014. Kurdish authorities at the border believe some 45,000 Yazidis passed the river crossing in the past week and thousands more are still stranded in the mountains. (AP Photo/ Khalid Mohammed)


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140811/as--united_states-iraq-e816b7998a.html

[azurnoir]

1. 'bout time

good for Obama

[joshcryer]

2. Openly.

This has been happening discreetly for years.

[geomon666]

3. Surprised we aren't funding both sides.

You know, let's make a little money off of this. Capitalism baby!

[starroute]

4. This Seymour Hersh article from 2004 may be of interest

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/06/28/plan-b-2

Israeli intelligence and military operatives are now quietly at work in Kurdistan, providing training for Kurdish commando units and, most important in Israel’s view, running covert operations inside Kurdish areas of Iran and Syria. Israel feels particularly threatened by Iran, whose position in the region has been strengthened by the war. The Israeli operatives include members of the Mossad, Israel’s clandestine foreign-intelligence service, who work undercover in Kurdistan as businessmen and, in some cases, do not carry Israeli passports.

Asked to comment, Mark Regev, the spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said, “The story is simply untrue and the relevant governments know it’s untrue.” Kurdish officials declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the State Department.

However, a senior C.I.A. official acknowledged in an interview last week that the Israelis were indeed operating in Kurdistan. He told me that the Israelis felt that they had little choice: “They think they have to be there.” Asked whether the Israelis had sought approval from Washington, the official laughed and said, “Do you know anybody who can tell the Israelis what to do? They’re always going to do what is in their best interest.” The C.I.A. official added that the Israeli presence was widely known in the American intelligence community.

[MisterP]

5. who we will then fight 3 years down the road--wait, was that 3 years or 3 days?