By Canadian Press

Pentagon’s top watchdog paints gloomy picture of fight against ISIL

Nov 23, 2019 | 10:41 AM

OTTAWA — The Pentagon’s top watchdog is painting a gloomy picture about the five-year-old fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, warning that recent actions in Syria have allowed ISIL extremists to regroup, strengthening their ability to plan attacks against the West.

The report by the U.S. Defense Department’s Office of the Inspector General also warns that Iraqi security forces continue to rely heavily on American and other allies when taking the fight to ISIL, raising questions about the effectiveness of military-training efforts.

Canada is currently leading a NATO training mission in Iraq, which includes 250 Canadian military members, as part of its larger contribution to the U.S.-led war against ISIL, also known as ISIS or Da’esh.

The inspector general’s report was tabled in Congress this week, and comes at a time of extreme upheaval and instability in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, where the Canadian military has been involved in the U.S.-led coalition against ISIL since October 2014.

The most significant events have been U.S. President Donald Trump’s surprise decision to withdraw American troops from northeastern Syria last month and Turkey’s subsequent invasion of the area, where U.S. and Kurdish forces had been working to keep ISIL from regrouping.

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The report also comes as protests have rocked large parts of Iraq, including the capital Baghdad, as Iraqis have demanded the government create more jobs, improve access to essential services such as water and electricity, and crack down on endemic corruption.

The inspector general’s report appears to confirm widespread fears about the impact of the U.S. military’s withdrawal from Syria, saying ISIL was able to “reconstitute capabilities and resources within Syria and strengthen its ability to plan attacks abroad.”

Quoting the U.S. military’s intelligence agency, the report added ISIL “will likely have the ‘time and space’ to target the West and provide support to its 19 global branches and networks.”

The Canadian military was first deployed to Iraq more than five years ago in response to concerns about ISIL attacks on western countries.

While Canada’s contribution to the U.S.-led coalition against ISIL initially consisted of dozens of special-forces soldiers, fighter jets and other aircraft, its focus has since evolved. It is now largely concentrated on training the Iraqi military and police to fight the extremist group themselves.

That includes contributing troops to and leading the NATO training mission over the past two years, even as Canadian special-forces members have continued to “train, advise and assist” specialized Iraqi units in the north of the country.

Yet the inspector general found that “despite ongoing training,” the Iraqi Security Force “has not changed its level of reliance on coalition forces for the last nine months and that Iraqi commanders continue to request coalition assets instead of utilizing their own systems.”

The report did not specifically mention Canada or NATO’s training efforts.

Iraqi security forces were also found to have little reach into less populated parts of the country, “lack key capabilities required to fight” ISIL, and were unable — or unwilling — to access or hold some parts of the country, including areas around Baghdad and the city of Kirkuk.

While the inspector general’s report was critical of the Iraqi military and police, Bessma Momani, a Middle East and security expert at the University of Waterloo, said a better timeline for assessing the Iraqis’ progress would be the last five years — not nine months.

“It was a glorified militia force,” she said. “It was not a federal army that was in any way trained properly. So I think there has been some significant changes.”

Yet she also said one of the main challenges in trying to train security forces in countries like Iraq is ending the sense of dependence that often develops, and which has its own benefits in the form of foreign money, arms and other perks.

“You are creating a dependency system and don’t expect that to change,” she said.

“There is even corruption as people want to get more and more equipment, more opportunities to go to Washington to get trained, you name it. It’s a dependency that’s created and I don’t think you can get rid of it, certainly not in the timeframe that the Americans have been in Iraq.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2019.

— Follow @leeberthiaume on Twitter.

Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press