Denying Reality

"Men, women, kids and fighters' bodies  are scattered on the ground."
"All security forces and tribal leaders have either retreated or been killed in battle. It is a big loss."
Sheikh Rafe al-Fahdawi, tribal leader, Ramadi

"We will see episodic temporary successes. But again, these typically don't materialize into long-term gains. We've seen similar attacks in Ramadi over the last several months of which the Iraqi security forces has been able to repel."
"And we see this one being similar to those, where the ISF will eventually take back the terrain that's been lost at this point."
Brigadier-General Thomas Weidley, chief of staff, US. coalition in Iraq

"The fall of Ramadi is not just a bleak symbolic defeat for the Iraqi government and its allies."
"What happened in Ramadi over the weekend revealed just how misplaced any optimism about Iraq really is."
Dexter Filkins, The New Yorker

"The Shia militias have an economy of force issue. They don't have enough militias to protect everything, so they're going to have to decide whether they're going to protect Shia areas, Shia shrines against an ISIS attack or whether they want to risk going into Sunni areas, and the further they go into Sunni areas the less effective they get."
"Ramadi is not Tikrit. There is no rallying cry to send Shia militia members to Ramadi."
former US intelligence officer Michael Pregent.

Despite intensified U.S. airstrikes in recent weeks meant to save Ramadi, the city fell to the Islamic State. The U.S. is putting a brave face on the event, but the Iraqi regime knows just how serious a blow this is to their continued existence and the fate of the divided country. This latest ISIS triumph gives it an important arc of control across both Syria and Iraq with the freedom to move supplies and fighters from western Syria up to 70 miles from Baghdad.

The capital is just about the only part of Iraq still under Iraqi Shiite control, and that only through the aid given by the U.S. and Iran.

"The city has fallen" declared Muhannad Haimour, spokesman for the governor of Anbar province. At least five hundred civilians and security personnel, he advised, have been killed in the several days leading to the city's fall. Fighting or executions for which Islamic State has become so horrifically famous. The Anbar Provincial Council had met in Baghdad with a vote to urge Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi to dispatch Shia militias to rescue Anbar, a Sunni province.

In turn, Mr. al-Abadi did issue the call for the Popular Mobilization Forces to prepare to fight in Anbar, along with powerful Shia forces backed by Iran. The United States had opposed the Shia militias' involvement in Anbar, concerned the militias' presence had the potential to further inflame sectarian tensions, creating its own volatility in an atmosphere already tense with suspicion, anger and resentment.

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Stuart Jones, stated that the Anbar delegation could be assured the United States would continue its commitment to the air campaign with the proviso that the Shiite militias remain under the command of the Iraqi government, excluding Iranian advisers. The militias were to be disciplined and organized to avoid the potential of U.S. bombing runs creating unnecessary casualties.

 

When the liberation of Tikrit in Salahuddin province took place in March, the Iran-backed Shiite militias were front and centre on the ground, and American warplanes were recalled. The situation reversed itself once the militias drew back when Mr. al-Abadi ordered their retreat so U.S. airstrikes could be resumed, along with an Iraqi security forces advance leading to the liberation of Tikrit.

In the present situation, instead of advancing or holding their position the Iraqi security forces fled, leaving behind all the latest U.S. arms and vehicles replacing those the Islamic State took possession of in Mosul, when a similar rout by the ISIS terrorists resulted in Iraqi troops fleeing in panic for their lives, leaving their stations and their arms for the jihadis to take possession of.

The Tikrit victory had emboldened Mr. al-Abadi to boast that a campaign in Anbar to be led by the Iraqi security forces, merely supported by U.S. air strikes with Iran and its militias left on the sidelines would represent another victory for the regime. Local Sunni tribesman were to be armed, and dispatched to the fighting, but Shiite political leaders in Baghdad resisted. 

 

The country is determined to mangle and strangle itself out of existence.

The ineffectual action of the Iraqi army which has undergone anew American military advisers training them and depending on them to fend for themselves, bespeaks yet another failed American strategy. If the Islamic State jihadis are to be defeated it will obviously not be at the hands of the Iraqi military. Their 'freedom' and their 'honour' notwithstanding. They talk a good line, but are functionally incapable of producing results.

On Sunday, the Islamic State seized one of the last government redoubts; the local operations command centre when the remaining officers and soldiers had departed in unseemly haste. One soldier recounted that the fleeing forces had left behind an immense cache of heavy weaponry recently forwarded by Baghdad for the defence of the city that included rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns, supplied by the U.S. and Russia.

"Isis is gaining more weapons, and the battle will be harder in the future", said the Iraqi soldier, fearful of releasing his name, for possibility of retribution.