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 U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the deployment of the new
"specialized expeditionary targeting force" was being carried out in
coordination with Iraq's government and would aid Iraqi government
security forces and Kurdish peshmerga forces.
"These special operators will over time be able to conduct raids,
free hostages, gather intelligence and capture ISIL leaders," Carter
told the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee,
using an acronym for Islamic State.
"This force will also be in a position to conduct unilateral
operations into Syria."
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office issued a statement
saying it welcomed foreign assistance but Iraq's government would
need to approve any deployment of special operations forces anywhere
in Iraq - a point Carter also acknowledged.
 Abadi reiterated that foreign ground combat troops were not needed
in Iraq, although it was unclear whether Baghdad viewed these
special operations forces in that role.
Powerful Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim armed groups pledged to fight any such
deployment of U.S. forces to the country.
Jafaar Hussaini, a spokesman for Kata'ib Hezbollah, one of the main
Shi'ite militant groups, said that any such U.S. force would become
a "primary target for our group."
"We fought them before and we are ready to resume fighting," he
said.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the plan to
deploy the special operations forces unit to Iraq was discussed and
agreed with the government of Iraq before Carter's announcement.
"As we further develop plans for these limited forces, we will
continue to work closely with our Iraqi partners on where they will
be deployed, what kind of missions they will undertake, and how they
will support Iraqi efforts," one U.S. official said.
EXPANDING U.S. OPERATIONS
While the force is expected to number only about 200, its creation
marks the latest stepping up of U.S. military pressure on Islamic
State while also exposing American forces to greater risk, something
President Barack Obama has done only sparingly.
The force is separate from a previously announced deployment of up
to 50 U.S. special operations troops in Syria to coordinate on the
ground with U.S.-backed rebels fighting in a civil war raging since
2011.
Obama is under pressure to accelerate a U.S.-led coalition's efforts
to combat Islamic State, in particular after the Nov. 13 Paris
attacks that killed 130 people. He has been reluctant to commit
large numbers of U.S. ground troops, instead deploying limited
numbers of advisors and elite forces.
Fred Hof, formerly a top State Department adviser on Syria, said the
planned deployment of special forces to Iraq to conduct raids and
gather intelligence represented a shift by Obama.
Hof, who is now at the Atlantic Council think-tank, said the U.S.
special forces were filling a gap in capable ground forces to fight
Islamic State, which won control of Iraq's Anbar provincial capital
of Ramadi in May and also controls the northern of Mosul.
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Obama "is edging as closely as he can to try to fill this … gap
without violating in a technical sense his own ‘boots on the ground’
dictum," Hof said, referring to Obama’s frequent pledges not to
return to U.S. troops to a large-scale ground war.
That pledge, he said, does not appear to apply to U.S. special
operations forces. Obama in August 2014 authorized the first U.S.
air strikes in Iraq since the 2011 U.S. troop withdrawal and has
deployed more than 3,000 American military forces to train and
advise Iraqi and Kurdish forces to fight Islamic State.
His critics, including Republicans in Congress, accuse Obama of
moving too slowly against Islamic State, which controls large
swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria and claimed responsibility
for the Paris attacks.
Republican U.S. Senator John McCain said on Tuesday the new force
represented more "incrementalism" in the Obama administration's
approach toward Islamic State.
Carter offered few details on the new group, whose mission promises
a more regular operational role for U.S. special forces than seen
since the return of American troops to Iraq last year.
During the congressional testimony in which he disclosed the
creation of the force, Carter declined to say how many U.S. troops
would be deployed.
One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the
force may number around 200 troops including support personnel, with
only several dozen likely to conduct operations.
The top U.S. military officer, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford,
said the new force would greatly accelerate the collection of
intelligence, which "will make our operations much more effective."
"We're fighting a campaign across Iraq and Syria so we're going to
go where the enemy is, and we're going to conduct operations where
they most effectively degrade the capabilities of the enemy,"
Dunford testified.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Yeganeh Torbati; Additional reporting
by Warren Strobel, Matt Spetalnick, Susan Heavey and Mohammad
Zargham in Washington, and Ahmed Rasheed and Stephen Kalin in
Baghdad; Editing by Will Dunham, Stuart Grudgings and Lisa Shumaker)
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