US wants long-term security ties with Iraq: Pentagon official

WASHINGTON, DC - The United States is looking for a long term security relationship with Iraq that includes a professional, nonpartisan Peshmerga force, a senior US defense department official said on Friday, days after Baghdad and Washington held a landmark meeting on security cooperation.

Earlier this week, Washington hosted Iraqi officials for the first meeting of the Joint Security Cooperation Dialogue. “We envision an enduring defense partnership with Iraq beyond the focus on defeat Daesh [Islamic State, ISIS] campaign at this moment in time, and we’d like to begin setting the foundation for the future of our defense partnerships,” a senior Pentagon official said in answer to a question from Rudaw in briefing with reporters on Friday. 

Representatives of the Ministry of Peshmerga were part of the Iraqi defense delegation that visited Washington for meetings at the Pentagon on Monday and Tuesday, with US Assistant Secretary of Defense Celeste Wallander leading the American side.

“Peshmerga forces are a critical element of the broader Iraqi security forces and recognized of course under the Iraqi constitution. We want to see both increased cooperation between the Peshmerga and the Iraqi security forces, as well as that the Peshmerga are also appropriately resourced and funded to do their job,’’ the Pentagon official said on Friday.

The US and other Western allies are helping to modernize the Peshmerga, a key part of which is unifying the Kurdish forces under the ministry and ending political control of Kurdistan Region’s security forces. This unification has been stalled for several years. American officials have called on Kurdish leaders to speed up the Peshmerga reforms on several occasions and raised the issue again in the Joint Security Cooperation Dialogue, as well as calling for more increased cooperation between the Peshmerga and Iraqi security forces.

The Pentagon official made it clear that the US would like to continue working with and training with the Peshmerga, but “to do that, US commitment to working with nonpartisan unified, unified brigades has been made quite clear to the political leadership.”

In their dialogue this week, the American and Iraqi defense officials also discussed concerns about Iranian-backed armed groups within the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, of Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic).

“Yes, we have concerns about armed groups outside the control of the government of Iraq. We think that any state actors arming, equipping, training or funding groups is inherently destabilizing and undermines the sovereignty of Iraq and the security of Iraqi people. And we've seen cases where non-state groups are not accountable to the Government of Iraq, have caused harm and civilian casualties. So fundamentally, that's destabilizing. Of course, there's concern about the recently passed Iraqi budget and let's be very frank about this,” said the Pentagon official.

The recently passed Iraqi budget law allocates nearly $2.7 billion for the PMF.