ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The US government announced they have gone ahead with plans to train Iraqi troops, sending special operations into Anbar province in Western Iraq, Pentagon officials told reporters on Sunday. Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby confirmed that approximately 50 special operations forces had been deployed to al-Asad air base in Anbar, the site which hosted thousands of American soldiers from 2003 until the US withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. These forces had been spread throughout the country in 12-man advisory teams before arriving at the base, where they are currently preparing for to train Iraqi Security Forces. Earlier on Sunday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel told reporters at an army training base in Fort Irwin, California that the commander of US Central Command had recommended using the 1,600 American troops currently in Iraq to begin trainings. President Obama announced earlier this month that 1500 additional troops would be sent to Iraq to train nine Iraqi brigades and run two centers to advise senior Iraqi officials. The funding for the project, $5.6 billion dollars, has yet to be approved by Congress. Hagel rejected the notion that US combat troops would be redeployed to Iraq. “This has to be an Iraqi effort,” he told a US soldier. “This is their country. They are a sovereign country.” Hagel will speak with General Martin Dempsey, the top Pentagon General, on Monday to discuss Dempsey’s trip to Iraq, which included a meeting with Kurdish political and military leadership on Saturday.
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