Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi said Tuesday more air raids and arms are needed to take on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, a day after the US-led anti-ISIS coalition announced its readiness to send an additional 1,500 military personnel to Iraq.
"Our forces are very much advancing on the ground. But they need more air power and more ... heavy weaponry. We need that," Abadi told US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the start of their talks in the Iraqi capital.
His request highlighted a disagreement over war strategy between Baghdad and Washington, with the Americans favoring a more limited air campaign until Iraqi forces are ready to hold on to territory and organize major offensives.
Abadi told Hagel as their meeting began that ISIS "is on the descent at the moment" and that their capabilities had been weakened.
"We are very thankful for the support that's been given to us," Abadi said.
In recent weeks, the Iraqi army and pro-government fighters have successfully regained territories from ISIS east of the country and halted attacks in ISIS-controlled areas in northwestern Iraq.
Large swathes of land in Iraq have become ISIS strongholds as the extremist group, which declared a "caliphate" in the territory it seized in Iraq and Syria, drove Iraq's army – the recipient of $25 billion in US training and funding since the 2003 invasion – to collapse.
The United States, backed by some Western and Arab allies, launched airstrikes against the group in Iraq in August, expanding operations to targets in Syria a month later.
However, the air campaign, which Washington says aims to degrade ISIS' military capability, remains the subject of debate, with critics pointing to ISIS' advances and battlefield successes despite the raids.
Hagel made an unannounced trip to Baghdad as the United States and its allies announced that they are ready to send roughly 1,500 security personnel to Iraq to help the Baghdad government in its fight against jihadists, the American commander of the war effort said Monday.
The move reflects a widening international campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and follows Washington's decision to double its military footprint to 3,100 troops.
Members of the US-led coalition meeting last week in the region made initial pledges that would bring "close" to 1,500 forces to Iraq to train and assist the country's army, in addition to the Americans already mobilized, Lieutenant General James Terry told reporters in Kuwait City.
During the 2003-2008 US occupation of Iraq, most American troops passed through the outpost in Kuwaiti to get acclimatised to the desert.
The base now serves as the headquarters for US forces in Iraq, officials said.
The US general did not indicate which countries from the coalition would provide the security personnel or how many of them would be in uniform or otherwise.
Terry said he was encouraged by the results of the December 2-3 gathering of coalition representatives, with allies eager to send trainers.
"When you start now to balance the different capabilities out across the coalition, I think we're doing pretty well in terms of boots on the ground," Terry told reporters traveling with Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel.
But the details of the contributions were still being discussed.
"We're still working through it," he said. "I want to give them time to go back to their nations' capitals and work out the specifics of that."
He said "the large percentage" of the personnel to be deployed would be training Iraqi troops.
There are already about 1,500 US troops in Iraq providing security for the American embassy and advising the Baghdad government's army and Kurdish forces.
Last month President Barack Obama approved the deployment of another 1,500 to bolster the training and advising effort across the country.
Terry, who oversees the war against ISIS, said Iraqi security forces were steadily improving but remained months away from staging large-scale offensives that could roll back the militants.
"While they still have a long way to go I think they're becoming more capable every day," he said.
Meanwhile, ISIS faces daily airstrikes from US and coalition aircraft that have limited the fighters' mobility and disrupted sanctuaries in Syria, Terry claimed.
The militants are "on the defense, trying to hold what they had gained but still able to conduct some limited attacks out there."
The result was a stalemate on the battlefield in some areas, including western Anbar province, he said.
"In some places it's stalemated and some places it's to the advantage of the Iraqi security forces," Terry said.
US and allied warplanes kept up a bombing campaign over the weekend, with 15 strikes in Syria and 31 across Iraq since Friday, the American military said in a statement.
After more than 1,200 airstrikes against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria since August 8, ISIS is "starting to feel pressure," Terry claimed.
"The effect it's having right now is ISIL is having a hard time in movement, having a hard time with communications, and they're having a hard time in governing these populations," he added, using another acronym for ISIS.
However, critics of the US-led coalition – including Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – have pointed at the fact that the airstrikes haven’t stopped ISIS advances in certain areas, and that the group has held its ground in some areas that have been under intense fire from coalition airstrikes, like the key Syrian town of Kobane.
Moreover, the influx in terrorist attacks all over the world, particularly in Iraq, raises questions about the effectiveness of the US "war on terror" launched by the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks, which included the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The campaign failed to eliminate or even reduce terrorism, as a recent report revealed a steady increase in the death toll over the last 14 years, from 3,361 in 2000 to 11,133 in 2012 and 17,958 in 2013.
On the contrary, the campaign in general and the US invasion of Iraq in particular have served as a recruitment tool for terrorist groups, such as ISIS, as figures show that terrorism rose precipitously in Iraq since 2003.
