US Begins Direct Arms Supplies to Iraqi Kurds

WASHINGTON DC – The United States has begun direct weapons supplies to Kurdish Peshmerga forces, with a more comprehensive plan underway to arm Erbil, the Associated Press reported.

It quoted unidentified US officials confirming the arms supplies and explaining they were not yet going through the Pentagon. Historically, it has been the CIA that has done similar quiet arming operations, the agency noted.

The supplies began as Peshmerga forces appeared to be losing ground in recent weeks to the Islamic armies on their southern border. But the new arms – and US and Iraqi air force air strikes on IS positions – appear to be turning the tide again in favor of the Kurds.

“The move to directly aid the Kurds underscores the level of US concern about the Islamic State militants' gains in the north, and reflects the persistent administration view that the Iraqis must take the necessary steps to solve their own security problems,” the AP said.

It reported that, “To bolster that effort, the administration is also very close to approving plans for the Pentagon to arm the Kurds, a senior official said.

“In recent days, the U.S. military has been helping facilitate weapons deliveries from the Iraqis to the Kurds, providing logistic assistance and transportation to the north,” according to the AP.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post quoted Masrour Barzani, the KRG’s security chief, as saying his forces are “overstretched,” and calling for direct US military assistance, saying Erbil had been left alone to confront the extremists.

“It’s a big responsibility, it’s a long border, many of our troops are there and we don’t know how long the situation will continue,” Barzani told the US daily in an interview. “We are really overstretched.”

Barzani revealed that the Kurds are supposed to receive a share of US-supplied weapons to Iraq, but they have gotten “not a single bullet.”

Meanwhile, he said, IS fighters had seized weapons worth hundreds of millions of dollars from retreating Iraqi soldiers.

“This is the truth that the world should know,” he said. “So we are left out to fight all these terrorists, all these problems on our own.”

Some of the about 750 American troops sent to Iraq recently to protect US facilities and serve as military advisers have been dispatched to the Kurdish region, but they are so far taking on only an assessment role, Barzani told the paper.  He declined to comment on reports that a US drone base has been established on Kurdish territory.

The Iraqi government has opposed efforts by the Kurds to acquire weapons, calling such sales “illegal.”  Baghdad insists that only the central government is authorized to purchase arms, but the Post noted that “the Kurds have long pursued secret deals to replenish their stocks.”

The newspaper reported that a recent move by Baghdad to ban cargo flights landing at airports in Kurdistan had squeezed the war effort, because planes landing in Erbil would bring in new weapons from Eastern Europe.

In Washington, Brett McGurk, the Obama administration’s diplomatic advisor on Iraq, told lawmakers Wednesday that “we’ve had conversations” with Kurdish leaders “about how we can work with them on their future.”

But McGurk, the deputy assistant secretary of state for the Near East, made clear that the administration believes that “the best way to go” is for the Kurdish region to stay inside Iraq’s “constitutional framework.”

“I think the heart of every Kurd wants an independent state,” McGurk told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “I think we have to recognize that.”

McGurk did not directly address Kurdish appeals for US weapons. But he made clear that the administration does not support independent Kurdish oil exports outside the central government framework.

 “We have an obligation to say when people ask that there is a legal risk for taking oil without an agreement” with Baghdad, he said.

The AP reported, meanwhile, that the US administration is watching carefully as a political crisis brews in Baghdad.

In the latest bickering in Baghdad -- which has continued through the two months that a third of the country has fallen to the militants -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused the newly-elected President Fouad Massoum of “violating the constitution,” after he did not support the premier’s Shiite bloc to form the new government.

Maliki has been hanging on for third term despite massive opposition by the country’s Kurds – who are in a rebellion – and the Kurd, who are talking independence.

Speaking in Australia on Monday, US Secretary of State John Kerry urged the people of Iraq to remain calm amid the political and military upheaval, AP reported.

He said there should be no use of force by political factions as Iraq struggles to form a government. He said the people of Iraq have made clear their desire for change and that the country's new president is acting appropriately despite claims of wrongdoing by Maliki.

"We believe that the government formation process is critical in terms of sustaining the stability and calm in Iraq," Kerry said. "And our hope is that Mr. Maliki will not stir those waters."